The actor and dancer started by saying that she started dancing competitively at age 4 and was scouted for Dance Mothers when she was round 6. “I’ve blocked out a lot of my childhood that I really do not know what my life was like even simply earlier than working,” Maddie mentioned.
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“It is bizarre to search out out issues that I did after I was youthful on TikTok. I am going to see individuals posting issues of me and I am like, ‘I do not even keep in mind doing that,” she continued, noting elsewhere that she’ll watch the dances from the present however not episodes of the present itself. “To see a visible of the way it performed out is so bizarre.”
On the subject of perfectionistic tendencies that she’s needed to “unlearn,” Maddie alluded to her former dance trainer Abby Lee Miller by saying, “My thought course of after I was youthful, by means of my dance trainer, was like, ‘It’s a must to be the most effective. If you happen to do not win, you are not good.'”
She continued, “After I was engaged on the present, I used to be seen because the lead dancer or probably the most well-treated dancer. Wanting again — and lots of people have began to say this — it is like, ‘Effectively, she really had probably the most strain on her,’ as a result of she was like, ‘You are my golden woman, so you need to lead everybody to victory each time,’ which is simply not sustainable.”
Certainly, a part of Maddie’s status allegedly got here from strains she was fed by manufacturing. She defined, “After I was doing the present, within the first season I used to be 7, there have been male producers saying, ‘That is what you need to say.’ My mother wasn’t within the room, so I used to be like, OK, I simply must do no matter I am being advised. They’d say, ‘Say you are the most effective, say you are higher than everybody else, say blah blah blah.’ And so I used to be perceived as just a little brat within the first season.”
Maddie added, “I keep in mind we watched the primary episode at a viewing get together for the launch of the present, and I simply cried as a result of I used to be like, Oh my gosh. Everybody thinks I am this bitch and I am not. I am 7! It was so bizarre. It helped me so much to have the ability to be like, I can say no. I can rise up for myself. However being so younger, you do not notice all these issues.”
Her time on Dance Mothers nonetheless impacts Maddie: “Final 12 months, I used to be having a extremely unhealthy panic assault, and I referred to as my mother, and issues had been developing from the previous, and he or she apologized to me. She was like, ‘I am so sorry I put you thru that.’ It is so unhappy as a result of she would by no means wish to damage us, however none of us knew how loopy it will get.”
Fortunately, Maddie was capable of depart the present after six seasons when she was 11 — with the assistance of one other well-known face: “[My mom] actually did every little thing to attempt to break our contract and pull us out, and ultimately did — with the assistance of Sia. She helped us so much too.”
You possibly can watch the total interview with Maddie here.
