Sad face guys – this next season of Awkward is going to be the final one. Devo’ed? We are.
In case you haven’t watched the show, it’s the brilliant coming of age MTV comedy about a girl whose high school career heads off down the wrong path when everyone thinks she tried to commit suicide. She didn’t, it was a total accident, but it looked pretty bad.
Anyways, over the last four seasons Jenna, played by the excellent Ashley Rickards, dealing with the aftermath of naked selfies, having sex in inventive places, keeping up her blog, dealing with pregnancy scares, drugs... in short, all the things normal teenagers are up to that TV shows normally shy away from. Basically, it’s ace.
We managed to grab some time with Ashley while she films season 5 and had a chat about boys, food and erm, farts. The important stuff.
You’ve got the fifth (and final!) series of Awkward coming up. Are you sad?
I’m feeling pretty good about it coming out, I think everyone’s gonna really love it, there’s a lot of fun stuff coming up. Definitely would say I’m not thinking about it being the last season because if I was I’d be crying. It’s like family at this point, like going back to school.
Your character Jenna is, for want of a better word, awkward. Are you like her in real life?
I think I have a lot in common with her at this point because the writers know me, my network know me so there’s a lot of inspiration that comes from Ashley. That being said, recently I got really excited getting out of a vehicle and twisted my knee in a very ‘Jenna’ way, so there are definitely similarities.
Ha… I mean sorry...
It’s fine, injuries are the best. You get sympathy and people wanna help you.
What’s the best life lesson you’ve learned from the show?
It’s that ‘Once you put something in the microwave, take it out, stir it, put it back in and eat it… Don’t keep putting it back in, things are only good for so long.’ I use that analogy with love interests, but Jenna always goes back to reheat!!
Do you find doing boy scenes awkward?
Whenever I do a love scene, I have really weird gas issues. It’s not that people are making me nauseous, but sometimes I’ll be a little nauseous. I’ll be like I’m really gassy. That’s something that’ll be interesting to watch. I don’t wanna give a spoiler but I just filmed kind of a sex scene and literally, after every take, I’d be like, ‘I have to fart sooooo bad.’
Haha! Brownie points for admitting it! What are you eating??
This weekend, I ate cheese and crackers. It’s not gonna feel great to go out in a midriff top. Maybe today the best version of myself is sweatpants and a cute sweatshirt.
Damn straight. Every day should be a cheese and crackers day, no need to feel bad.
Unless you eat as much cheese as I do. Which is admittedly too much!
Alright, what do you eat to be healthy then?
After age 17 , my sweet tooth turned off and my thing right now is cutting up raw bell peppers and putting salt on them. It makes you feel full!
I’m gonna try it
Don’t try the green peppers, they’re boring. Try the yellow or the orange.
Noted, cheers Ashley. Who’s your secret celeb object of affection?
Let’s presume my celebrity crush sees this and contacts my manager for a date… James Franco. Duh. He does so much! He acts, he went to college, and he’s just a go-getter. He’s hot.
JAMES FRANCO IF YOU READ THIS GIVE ASHLEY A CALL KTHANXBYE. What takes up more of your time? Twitter or Instagram?
My Twitter is more for when it’s early in the morning or late at night when I’m not camera ready. Instagram is when I’m like, ‘This is the moment!’ Instagram for me is more fun, I follow probably 40% of jewellery people. It’s a catalogue of things I can’t afford.
We hear you on that one. So, you’ve written a book! Tell us about it.
I was approached by a literary agent and I thought I have a lot of cool experiences and I’ve grown a lot, maybe what I do is try to give a bit of that to the fans and young people. I was like, I think I wanna write a self-help advice book! It came from having a lot of life experience and I just wanna help people.
It doesn’t matter if I’m like looking sexy washing a car in a movie, what matters is that I made a difference in someone’s life and that’s what I tried to focus on with that book, and what I try to focus on at work.
What else would you wanna try out in the future, careerwise?
I looove jewellery. I’d love a jewellery line at some point, that’s the real goal. That’d be something I’ve never done before but would love love love to do.
That’s so exciting, you seem very creative...
If I’m designing jewellery, I wanna make women feel as valuable as they are, that’s what it’s about for me. I could be wearing sweats and sneakers but if I have my two key pieces of jewellery on, I feel different and when I walk into places I act different and I get treated different. It fits in really well with what I do, which is empowering girls and young women to feel the best and do the best that they can.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.