- 1 minute ago
Miley Cyrus sits down to guess lyrics from Hannah Montana songs, as well as a few of her own. She dishes on the upcoming 20th Anniversary, tells the story of how she was originally cast for the show, and whether she is Team Jessie or Team Jake. She also reveals why 'Bangerz' is a special record to her.
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00:00This is a trick question. I have no idea at all what this is. Dude, you said these were easy.
00:07What the hell, bro? I was spending the weed era. What is, what is this?
00:17First lyric. This is the life. Hold on tight. And this is the dream. It's all I need. This
00:23is the life. Hannah Montana. This is the life. Light work. We're just warming up.
00:30Hold on tight. This is the life is my favorite Hannah Montana song. So it resurfacing makes me very
00:39happy because it was the first song I ever cut as Hannah Montana. So now 20 years later that it's
00:45still living its best life, that makes me happy. Bye. Thank you. Hold on. Wait, hold on. Oh yeah.
00:56When you're famous, it can be kind of fun. Best of both worlds by Hannah Montana.
01:05There's parts of being famous that to me, I kind of love it. Being famous for me is very fun
01:13because it
01:13comes with things that I love, like getting to experiment with my looks and my sounds and music
01:19and getting to creatively express for a living, which I love, but also it's not without its
01:25challenges that you do give up a certain sense of your own privacy. And so it's something that
01:29I've really reclaimed over the, you know, kind of adulthood phase that I'm in of kind of closing
01:35the doors to my personal life and protecting my kind of sacred personal time early on the songs
01:44are being curated a lot by Disney, but I, as I am now would never do anything that didn't feel
01:50authentic or honest and honorable. And because it wasn't me, it was the character I always had to
01:55check in. Maybe it doesn't fit for Miley, but does it work for Hannah? And so best of both worlds,
02:00obviously being thematically perfect for the show is what makes the song so great. Thank you.
02:08Dude, you said these were easy. The stars are aligned when I'm with him and I'm so into him.
02:16What the hell? Okay, let me think of the Hannah. Is it, um, if we were a movie?
02:24I'm making a decision between Jesse and Jake. I don't remember the song. Stars are aligned when
02:30I'm with him and I'm so into him. I have no idea. He could be the one. Guys, the stars
02:38are aligned when
02:38I'm with him and I'm so into him. Poetry at its finest. He could be the one.
02:47Team Jesse is probably more my real choice. I would kind of go for that more bad boy. Rockstar energy.
02:53But I think because Jake just made sense for Hannah. So I think I was more team Jake at that
03:00time.
03:01Hannah is more Jake. Miley's more Jesse. I like the kind of poly life that we're putting together
03:06for Miley and Hannah. That's nice. Very, very modern. I love it. Okay, you're getting like deep cut.
03:12We need to go back to the singles. Hannah means everything to me. Is this just me?
03:17Hannah means everything to me. So it can't be a song. It's a line. Oh, is this, is this the
03:24last
03:24episode? I could imagine Miley Stewart being like, Hannah means everything to me. But I don't know a
03:30line. Who would have said this? Hannah means everything to me. Not something I said. In real life? Is this
03:36a Miley Stewart thing? So this is an episode. Is it the movie? Okay, so is this before the climb
03:43or after the
03:43climb where I'm about to tell the town my secret and all of us have decided that we believe that
03:49an
03:49entire town is going to keep the secret? Is it after before I always find your way back home?
03:56What the hell, bro? I was spending the weed era. What is, what is this? I feel like Hannah means
04:03everything to me is like something that was said a lot of times. This is a little, it was before
04:09I
04:09wanted to go to New York, but I had to go to Nashville because dad, Robbie Ray had to teach
04:13me a lesson. Hannah means everything to me. This was something I really wanted to do. It was actually
04:19originally kind of an idea my mom threw out there. She's always the kind of man behind the curtain.
04:24We were saying, what's the next step? Not just for Miley, but how does the show evolve? Because the show
04:29naturally did become something bigger than just a kid's TV show. It became something that culturally,
04:35like all ages, all around the world, but it felt like it had reached its ceiling of what we could
04:41actually do on a sitcom because a sitcom, you only have, you know, 20 something minutes to kind of
04:45tell that story. And also you want most of the beats to be funny and physical comedy and loud. And
04:51you, you don't have a lot of time to have still stories like deep moments with my dad or with
04:57the
04:57best friend and for things that go quiet. So I think for us, it was important that the show would
05:02evolve to the film. So we could actually have some of these more grounded moments that you just don't
05:06get to do in a sitcom. Thank you. Oh, Tai Chi practicing snowboard champion. I could fix the
05:13flat on your car. Rockstar. I know this because this is Alex Cooper who hosted the Hannah 20th
05:19special. This is her favorite Hannah Montana song. And I asked her, does she actually know the lyrics
05:23to it? And she never knew that it says Tai Chi practicing snowboard champion. It's like,
05:28but that's the chorus. She's like, I never even really thought about it saying that.
05:31She does have it tattooed on her arms. I don't know if she forgot, but
05:39Originally, I was not cast for Hannah Montana. They actually filmed the pilot without me with other
05:44characters and other casts because they were waiting kind of for me to grow up. And when I started
05:48auditioning, I was 11 years old. And by the time I actually was on set filming the first season,
05:54I was 13. So it was about a two year process. I remember at first in the audition, I was
05:58being put on
05:59tape. So I was interacting with like my aunt or my sister, whoever was willing to read the other
06:05part with me. I was just in our kitchen in Nashville. You know, I never expected to actually
06:10get into the room with the Disney executives that will end up making that final decision.
06:14And then as the auditioning process continued, eventually I ended up flying out to LA and being
06:19in one of the most terrifying rooms you could be in. But it wasn't scary to me because I was
06:24so young
06:24that I couldn't even really comprehend fully what I was doing. I didn't know what an executive
06:29even meant. I just kind of thought, well, they're going to end up deciding if I get this or not,
06:33which I would have been happy with either outcome because I was a little bit stressed out about,
06:37you know, leaving home, leaving my friends, my family, my school, my cheer team. It was a scary
06:42process to know that I was giving so much up, you know, big risk, hoping it would be a big
06:47reward.
06:48But I was going to be okay, whether I got the role or not, because I was like, well,
06:52I just go back and be with my friends and be a cheerleader. And that would be cool too.
06:57Oh, felt like I couldn't breathe. This is actually perfect. You asked what's wrong with me.
07:01My best friend Leslie said, oh, she's just being Miley, which my best friend Leslie is.
07:05This is, um, duh. See you again.
07:11My best friend Leslie was my, is my real best friend in Nashville and she was on my cheer team.
07:21And so one of the main reasons I didn't want to get cast as Hannah Montana was because I didn't
07:25want to leave my best friend. I feel like she definitely uses this. Like if they're like,
07:29okay, sorry, ma'am, all reservations are taken. We have no more spots at this restaurant. She might
07:33be like, but I am the best friend Leslie. She probably uses it to her advantage more than she admits.
07:38She deserves it though, because I'm not an easy best friend to have, especially when I was younger,
07:43because I was wild and being my friend was 24 seven on. I was exactly the way that I am
07:49now.
07:50I wanted kind of boredom was the enemy. It was like, how do we just stay doing no matter what
07:57that was? I'm still like that. I was always like that. I don't love being bored and I'm not bored
08:01very often because I keep myself busy, but that means my best friend has to keep up.
08:07Ooh, wait. Strike a pose for the front cover of a magazine. Everywhere I arrive, I get high fives.
08:14I have no idea at all what this is. It's a Hannah song. I had a feeling.
08:30Strike a pose for the front cover of a magazine. Everywhere I arrive, I get high fives.
08:36I literally know. Okay, you have to give me like another hint. Is it season four? It's got to be
08:41season four because I was so tuned out. Does Hannah have short hair? Because that's my least favorite
08:45error and I blocked it out. Okay, can you tell me? It's ordinary girl. I never was going to get
08:51that.
08:51Strike a pose for the front cover of a magazine. Everywhere I arrive, I get high fives.
08:57But Dochi just posted ordinary girl on her Instagram, which I was very excited about.
09:01But I would have not gotten this.
09:05Is this a transition? Like an interstitial?
09:08Ooh, yeah, yeah. Is that like what that is?
09:12This has to be. How did I know this but not he could be the one?
09:16Oh yeah, this is definitely. Is it just?
09:19All of them are the same.
09:21Ooh, yeah, yeah.
09:23This is like, yes. Okay, this is a transition. Those are wacky, those ones.
09:33I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream in my cardigan. This one I like.
09:38Party in the USA, Miley Cyrus song.
09:40I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream in my cardigan.
09:45It was always pretty organic for me to decipher what a Hannah song is and what a Miley song is.
09:51And still my ear is like very attuned to what would be organic for Hannah.
09:56Because even though Hannah is a fantasy, she still has her own sound, I think her own thoughts.
10:03Because again, it's Miley Stewart. And what I love about the Hannah music is a lot of the time
10:08the songs are inspired by something that Miley Stewart, the character, actually went through.
10:13So they really are real stories.
10:14So even though the idea of Hannah is that it's a facade, it's this, you know, kind of double life.
10:19She's usually singing songs that aren't very far away, you know, a Miley song.
10:25I think the real difference between the Miley music and the Hannah music is
10:28she's kind of less organic and kind of more of a manufactured sound,
10:33which I think is really fun to get to play with both because I love hyper pop.
10:37And I love when things feel produced and glossy and shiny and big and mainstream.
10:42And then for me, sometimes as an artist, I get torn just between the kind of storytelling
10:47and I want the story to come first. And so sometimes the production can kind of eclipse
10:52what you're trying to say if it gets too over the top. But with Hannah, that doesn't matter.
10:57More is better, more glitter, more dancers, more confetti, the whole thing, the whole pop works.
11:04Pardon the USA is another credit to my mom who she found that song. And I actually threw a fit
11:11about covering it. I thought of it more of the cover as recording it because I didn't write it.
11:16And I was so writing my own music and like creating what I thought was my own sound.
11:21But she definitely could hear the potential of that song before even I could.
11:26A gift is being able to interpret someone else's words or ideas and actually make them your own.
11:34Okay, if you're five or 82, this is something you can do. Hoedown Throwdown. That's easy.
11:38If you're five or 82, this is something you can do.
11:43I do remember the Hoedown Throwdown because right now doing the Hannah 20th anniversary special,
11:48Jamal Sims is the choreographer who originally choreographed the Hoedown Throwdown. And so we
11:53randomly improvised the other day and did it for the first time in however many years. And we didn't
11:58really miss a beat. I think we have right now maybe six to eight wigs. And I, of course,
12:04some of my favorites. I like when they're longer, blonder. I don't love at the end of the show,
12:10Hannah's wig just kept going shorter and shorter. I think we were trying to kind of,
12:14you know, all great artists, they kind of have a metamorphosis or they evolve in some way. But
12:18I felt like Hannah wasn't broken. It didn't need to be fixed. I liked season one and two.
12:26Right? You can change your hair. You can change your clothes. You can change your mind. That's just
12:30the way it goes. You'll always find your way back home. We were just talking about changing the hair.
12:34I love to change hair, change clothes, change my mind. I love to experiment. So those lyrics,
12:40even though they're Hannah lyrics, they actually really kind of relate to me and my thought too.
12:48You can change your mind. That's just the way it goes.
12:52Taylor had pitched that song along with a lot of other writers and songs. And we were just kind
12:56of curating the thing that would most kind of bring the story of the film to life. And so we
13:02wanted a really big song for the finale of that. It needed to feel celebratory because, you know,
13:07obviously Miley had just told the biggest secret. And so we needed something that felt like
13:11the kind of balloon like drops all the way down. You get grounded, you get still,
13:15but it needs to go all the way back up. And so I love that song. Thank you.
13:21Oh, so la-da-dee-da-dee. We like to party dancing with Molly slash Miley. Depends how you read
13:30that.
13:31We can't stop.
13:32La-da-dee-da-dee. We like to party dancing with Molly.
13:37For me, it had never been something that was created in a boardroom or all of us had a kind
13:41of a
13:41master plan. Actually, I think what I love about Bangers is that it was such a risk and it did
13:47have its reward, but it was something that I was just doing organically. It was really finding
13:52myself truly because I had been in a character for such a kind of long time. That character becomes
13:58you. You know, I almost didn't have a full divide from Miley Cyrus, Miley Stewart, and Hannah. So
14:03I took a year between wrapping the last season and making Bangers to actually just go on a discovery
14:10journey and live and listen to music and find who I was. And so that was completely off map. We
14:19were
14:19off-roading at that point. We were just doing, I was doing whatever felt authentic to me behind
14:25closed doors in public, which is a brave thing to do after my whole life had kind of been scripted.
14:30It was, you know, not without its bumps and it was turbulent at times just because change is
14:35never easy to kind of make these big brave new choices. But I always think the bigger the risk,
14:40the bigger the reward. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has those days. That's one of my favorite
14:45Hannah songs, Nobody's Perfect. That was also one of the first songs I ever cut is Hannah and I love
14:50that one.
14:56Oh, there's a voice inside my head saying you'll never reach it. The climb. The song in the Hannah
15:01movie that changes everything. There's a voice inside my head saying you'll never reach it.
15:09I couldn't imagine there being any other destiny for me. It felt like a perfect fit of fate. Exactly
15:15what I was made to do and built for the character. And I, I couldn't imagine anyone else ever being
15:22Hannah. I would feel very territorial over that. That's, that's me. That's an extension of myself.
15:27And like anybody else that has a fantasy, we all have our own Hannah. Hannah is what you brave and
15:33what
15:33you do in a way that sometimes I always say, she's like, she's the youngest drag queen. She's like,
15:38what do I want to do? But I need this other character to almost be armor, but I want the
15:42armor to be beautiful. And what is that? And so that beauty could be whatever you want it to be.
15:47That could be what you do with your hair, your makeup, your wardrobe, but it can be deeper than
15:50that. It can be something that you kind of subconsciously switch that makes you feel like
15:54you're your ultimate self, but you don't leave your kind of everyday person behind.
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