(L-R) Ty Wood as Trip, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper as Wally, and Jason Schmidt as Buddy in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. Photo by: Eduardo Araquel/Paramount+
We were joined on the Popternative show by Maxwell Whittington-Cooper who can be seen playing Wally in the new Paramount+ musical series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. The series premiered on April 6 and is a prequel to the beloved 1978 movie musical, Grease, set in 1954 where four fed-up outcasts decide to change Rydell High forever.
The series also stars Marisa Davila as Jane, Cheyenne Isabel Wells as Olivia, Ari Notartomaso as Cynthia, Tricia Fukuhara as Nancy, Shanel Bailey as Hazel, Madison Thompson as Susan, Jason Schmidt as Buddy, Johnathan Nieves as Richie, and Jackie Hoffman as Asstistant Principal McGee.
In our interview, Maxwell discusses balancing acting, singing, and dancing in the series, and how he prepared to play Wally:
“I was definitely learning because as you’ve seen throughout the episodes, you really don’t see much of Wally in the first half of the season, so for me I was sort of figuring it out along the way and kind of trying to use the script as breadcrumbs of like ‘okay he’s having this reaction to this, he’s experiencing this, and why?’ and trying to interrogate that and fill it in with that story.”
Watch the full interview with Maxwell below.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is streaming on Paramount+.
Follow Maxwell Whittington-Cooper: Instagram