Debby Ryan gets candid!
Debby Ryan is best known as Jessie on Disney Channel’s top show of 2013 that is titled just that, Jessie, about a small town girl from Texas who moves to the Big Apple, aka New York City, and becomes a nanny to a high-powered couples four adopted children. Before Jessie, Debby Ryan was also on Disney Channel’s Suite Life on Deck, and this summer, you’ll be able to hear her voice as well. We love everything about Debby! Not just her acting ability, but how much she cares for everyone, and we love her voice. Make sure to pick up her debut album, One, which drops on June 24, 2014!
GLITTER: Congrats on Jessie being one of Disney’s top shows of 2013! How does that feel?
DEBBY: Thank you! It feels good. I’ll be honest, when you are on this side of things there are always crazy statistics that come out like, ‘Jessie is the most successful show that Disney has ever done!’ ‘Jessie is the most successful show for children ages 8 to…’ you have to just let it roll off your back. Every show hears something great about their show, but that’s amazing.
For me, I love the fact that people like it. I love when people come up to me on the street and tell me that ‘Jessie made me laugh’ or I’ll do hospital visits and moms will tell me that the only time they’ve smiled with when their watching my show.
To me, that’s what makes it so important and cool. To be able to be a part of something that big, is something you can’t even wrap your mind around.
GLITTER: That’s really cool. You’re also creating an album that is releasing this year. What sound are you doing?
DEBBY: It’s so hard. I’m very weird with genres. It’s almost an indie-pop-rock. I don’t even know how to describe it, but to me, it’s my story. It’s the songs that I’ve been wanting to tell. When I have a phrase that has been running around in my head and I play a chord, or I play a note in my head, and it comes out. That sets the tone for all of it.
GLITTER: So your songs are based on personal experience?
DEBBY: One-hundred percent they are. You can spend a lot of time being an actor, and being in other people’s heads, and telling other people stories. You have a writer, director, a network and all of these people who you’re helping bring their visions to life and you are the crossroads. To me, I’m the voice of that. I am coming up with words and melodies, and telling stories that I want to write about.
I get together with my band, and they are so talented. They are like my brothers. If I’m like ‘I want it to sound like this… [Insert noise here]’ they know what I’m talking about. It’s really cool because the better you get to know them, the better the music sounds. We started writing together a year ago, and we really know each other and are in each other’s heads. We really are brothers… well, brothers and me.
Most of them have sisters, and I have my brother. I think that it’s like that dynamic of messing with each other. They just know me so well. If I come to them, and I’ve had a really hard day, they automatically switch into protective brother mode.
GLITTER: You’ve done TV and movies for a really long time, and they’ve included you in the music such as Radio Rebel. But are you still nervous to see the reaction from acting to singing?
DEBBY: That goes down to how personal it is. With Radio Rebel, I was very involved. But also, it was not a song I had written. It was in the movie, so it’s not my writing or words. I covered a song, kind of as my character. It was more acting. It’s similar how to people tell me that my voice is different than Jessie, just the way I talk. For me, as an actor, voice is something that just changes with every character. So when I’m singing for TV, all of those songs are very much me being the commercialized neon Disney version of these characters.
I didn’t feel it necessary to go around and tell people, ‘Hey guys, what you are listening to is not me and not my music!’ because at the end of the day it’s my voice on it, but it’s not Debby.
So for me, the reason that I’m more vulnerable and terrified is because it’s me. If you hate it, I can’t chalk that up to a character or a screen writer, this is me. I’m personally not your style. Some people are going to hate it, some people are going to love it. For me, the only reason I hope people listen to it is because it’s my songs and my story.
GLITTER: Earlier this year, you took part in the “Love Is Louder” inner beauty challenge with Benefit Cosmetics to help spread the word about embracing your inner beauty. How important is that to you?
DEBBY: Really important. I’ve been following “Love is Louder” for a bit and I remember when they first launched it and being like ‘this is brilliant’. It’s a very important thing that you need to have in your head. You hear voices, you hear things of hate, but the only thing louder than that is love.
Whether it’s self-love, or the people around that love you. Most of the time when I walk around, I walk around without makeup. So, people will see me in the grocery store and be like ‘Can I take a picture with you?’ with no makeup on! People put it on the internet and are like, ‘Oh, is she on drugs?’ and I’m like ‘No!’
At the end of the day, I think it’s important to walk around and get used to it. For my boyfriend, I was like ‘I’m very tired. I don’t need to be dating and falling in love’. For me, I was like ‘Ok, if this kid wants to like me, and get to know me and fall in love with me or whatever, he’s gonna have to do that with who I really am.’
The first few months that we were getting to know each other, he would take me on dates and I wouldn’t wear makeup. I wouldn’t wear heels. The first time he saw me as actually ‘Debby Ryan’ he was like, ‘Whoa.’
And that was very powerful. Maybe the reason that people think that people won’t love you with no makeup on is because you haven’t given them the chance to see you and love you with no makeup on. Maybe that’s what it takes. Maybe you just put yourself out there. Guys automatically say that they don’t like it when girls where a ton of makeup. It’s crazy! It’s so true.
GLITTER: It’s like a mask almost.
DEBBY: Totally! A little bit of concealer here, and a little mascara here, and filling in your eyebrows… that’s what it is to me. It’s the sort of little thing that makes you feel a little more polished, more put together. That’s the point of it. If you like to do makeup and love playing around with it, put it on. But I don’t think that anyone should think they can only be beautiful if you have tons of makeup.
GLITTER: What advice do you have to girls who don’t feel comfortable with themselves?
DEBBY: To know that at every point in their lives… think of the person that you look up to the most, whether it’s Lauren Conrad or someone you think is just beautiful… and realize that at one point, they felt the same way, not pretty, not put together, they felt alone. There is a point in every person’s life where they feel all of the things that you think they don’t.
I was talking with one of the kids on my show about the awkward faze, and I was like ‘I think my awkward faze extended from the late 90s to like tomorrow.’ You always feel that way. I remember two years ago hanging out with these girls, and they would just sweep their hair up into a ponytail and casually throw on a baggy shirt and look so nice and put together. I never understood how they just effortless did that. Honestly, the only different between your messy ponytail and their messy ponytail is that they act like they are walking the red carpet.
GLITTER: What is one of your fashion must haves?
DEBBY: Black skinny jeans. I’ve worn them on a lot of red carpets. I love black skinny jeans. Anything that looks a little not denim. There are times where it’s like, ‘Ok, you are going straight to the red carpet after all these meetings.’ So you have to make your outfits convertible.
People have this vision in their minds of a girl in a glamour hotel room, there’s lights all around, and for me and I’m the back of the car zipping up my whatever while I’m doing my mascara. There are more times that it’s more glamourize than others, but at the end of the day you are expected to have the same result.
GLITTER: Do you ever look back on the red carpet and wish you did something different?
DEBBY: Yeah! I work with an amazing stylist who is also one of my best friends, and by the way… it happens that way. When you are traveling with someone, and tired, they get to know you really well. I trust him so much. I think at that point, you really have to trust them, and how they are gonna make you look. Sometimes in a fitting you feel so comfortable in a dress, but then you get on the carpet and don’t even know who you are anymore. Very recently I wore a hot pink dress, and people loved it… but for me, I don’t like pink. I don’t own pink. Dresses are not my favorite thing. I was wearing a sleeveless pink dress, and when I got on the carpet I was so aware of what I was wearing, and everyone on the internet decides that in the angle of one photo that I look like I gained weight. So everyone is telling me how much I gained weight in this dress, and I’m watching people all around the world comment on how I look, and that was a low moment in which Chris and I were like ‘Ok, we are doing black skinny jeans.’
It’s about trusting your first instinct and people like him that are always standing at the ready. I think that’s an important thing.
GLITTER: You’re so beautiful. You’re on the Disney channel with a lot of young girls who look up to you, but you seem to handle that very well. You aren’t doing anything extreme to your body.
DEBBY: Thank you. I genuinely think that it’s crazy that people think I hear stuff like that all the time, so for me to hear that it makes me feel better about it. My brother and I have very similar attributes and qualities. It’s your genealogy. There is something different always at play, and you can’t hold yourself to the standards of like, ‘Oh, I don’t look like this other person.’ That doesn’t make them the standard of beauty. For me, it took a long time to make peace with that. For me, it makes me feel good to know that I’m doing what I can to have my best body. Not eating tons of things out of cans and wrappers, and know that you are taking care of yourself with real things.
Photo credit: Logan Cole
