Bailee Madison was on movie sets before she was old enough to attend school.
But she was no extra. At the age of just six, the US child actress had supporting roles in star-studded films like Lonely Hearts and Bridge to Terabithia.
Opportunities continued to come knocking as Madison got older, where she charmed viewers as a 10-year-old with a penchant for theatrics in the 2011 rom-com Just Go With It, opposite Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston.
Now, Madison is 22, and is entering a new chapter, both on-screen and off.
In what marks her 56th acting credit, Madison has landed the central role in the Pretty Little Liars spin-off series, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, a follow-up to the incredibly popular drama which debuted back in 2010.
In the new 10-part teen thriller, which hits streaming on Binge July 29, Madison plays Imogen Adams, a pregnant schoolgirl dealing with severe trauma.
And the mysterious ‘A’ – the masked assailant who terrorised the characters in the original series – returns for the updated chapter to stalk the new cohort of ‘Liars’, which include Chandler Kinney of Disney Channel fame, as well as rising stars Maia Reficco, Malia Pyles and Zaria.
It’s quite the leap from the innocent roles of Madison’s youth, and while she’s thrilled to be entering a more mature phase in her career, she’s also slightly terrified.
“I think for me with this show coming out, it feels deeply personal because I do look at this show as a next chapter, hopefully for my life and as an introduction to myself as a young woman,” she says.
“My character, when we meet her, and as an actor, it was an immediate dive into the world that she was experiencing, which is a whole lot of tragedy. A lot of pain. And so for me, obviously, that was going to be a really big challenge, but I think that’s what excited me so much.
“I was really looking for something that was so opposite and so far away and removed from anything else that I had done, so I’m just really grateful for the support and I hope everyone loves it and that I get to keep doing what I love and I get to keep growing up with you guys.”
While most 22-year-olds are fresh out of university and entering the professional workforce for the first time, Madison has already been hustling for the most part of 16 years.
In fact, her first ever acting job was when she was just two weeks old in a commercial for multi-billion dollar US supermarket chain, Office Depot.
Madison admits she felt an element of fatigue in her early teens after years of auditioning, learning lines and long days on-set, and considered whether acting was her way forward.
“There definitely was a moment I had where I was like, ‘Does this bring me joy? Am I happy?’,” she says.
“Thankfully I have a family, and my mum is so amazing that I knew that in two seconds, if I said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore’, I wouldn’t have to.
“But if I’m being honest and truthful, I love this business. I love being on set. I love being surrounded by a crew that becomes family. That is my safe place. That is my home. So to not have that would be the worst break-up of all time.”
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin was in safe hands from the get-go, co-produced and co-written by Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, alongside his Chilling Adventures With Sabrina co-writer, Lindsay Calhoon Bring.
Aguirre-Sacasa was considered a pioneer in elevating the uber-popular teen drama genre with the 2017 debut of Netflix’s Riverdale; lauded for bringing a moody and sophisticated depth to the high school setting.
He is meticulous, he admits. Every detail you see on-screen is considered, from what fork appears in the shot to the wallpaper pattern looming in the background.
His diligent approach is just one factor he brings to the table to progress a genre which more often than not looked the same in the early 2000s, but he won’t hide away from paying homage to the well-defined tropes that shaped the teen-centred shows he adored.
“There are certain tropes in YA [young adult] dramas, the love triangle for instance, there are certain tropes in horror movies … I happen to love all those things and I think with any show that’s a genre show, you want to honour those tropes and hopefully deconstruct them,” he says.
“Most of the horror movies we loved and grew up with were directed by male directors, and were trafficked in the male gaze … Objectifying women, always shot from the point of view of the killer, often with women in compromising positions.
“And with Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, we knew that because of who our audience was and who the characters were and what this franchise is about – which is empowered young women and friendships – we knew we wanted to take these horror tropes and centre them on the female gaze.
“I think it’s about celebrating tropes because we all love them, they’re familiar and they work, but it’s about finding a unique way to sell it to subvert them or add a new dimension.”
The original Pretty Little Liars made bona fide superstars of its core cast, including Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Troian Bellisario, Sasha Pieterse and Shay Mitchell.
Aguirre-Sacasa and Calhoon Bring say it’s their “wish” for the fresh-faced cast’s lives to explode in the same fashion.
But for the new ‘Liars’, they can’t quite wrap their heads around the idea.
Reficco, 22, who plays the rebellious Noa Oliver, says: “I do not think about it. Our trailer had like 25 million views in two days or something crazy. I choose not to think about it because it scares me. I like to act. All the other stuff is so scary.”
Her co-star, 22-year-old Malia Pyles, who plays Minnie Honrada, echoed the sentiment.
“I’ve had my anonymity my entire life, and to think it might be … Not taken away, but that I do have to be more delicate about my privacy …
“But in saying that, the love we’ve already felt from the fans makes it worth it. It’s just going to be a new adventure.“
Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin streams on Binge from July 29
Originally published as Bailee Madison on being a child actor and starring in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin
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