Dove Cameron is opening up about her past work and how many fans still see her as a Disney teen despite being 30 now.
She’s promoting her new series 56 Days, an erotic thriller on Amazon Prime Video, and spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how she’s been perceived throughout her career.
Dove says there will always be those who hear her name and automatically connect it with who she was at 19, “platinum blonde and smiling at the camera.”
Keep reading to find out more…
She started on her hit Disney Channel series Liv and Maddie in 2013 when she was 17. By the time the series wrapped in 2017, Dove was 21. She also did the first three Descendants films around the same time, from 2015 to 2019, returning in 2021 for an animated special.
“‘She’s changed so much.’ I think it would be so bizarre if I was still behaving like an 18, 19-year-old as a 30-year-old woman,” she reflects. “Sometimes I see these TikToks of like, ‘Dove Cameron when she was on Disney, she had this spark.’ It’s like, guys, please, literally the difference is some hair dye, and now I’m 30. That’s it. I’m exactly the same person.”
The Descendants alum is well aware there are some people who will always see her as a child star, but adds that there was never a specific “big moment” where she felt the need to “show people” she’s an adult.
“I never did that. I just didn’t have that instinct and that energy,” Dove said. “I just didn’t really care. I knew people saw me as that because, logically, if that’s the only thing I’ve done. But I just figured if I continue to work in some capacity, and follow my instincts for what I want to do now naturally as I get older, my work’s going to get older.”
She acknowledges that her music likely played “a big part in that” because some “view that as a huge page turn.”
Dove clarifies her own feelings on that, revealing that it was more like she was no longer attached to Disney, so she could simply write “the music that I wanted to write.”
“All of the music that I released with Disney, I didn’t write it. I was just singing for them,” she shares. “I was in the studio for them. Once my contract was up with Disney, I started wondering what I wanted to do.”
“You just wake up one day and the world has shifted with you in this line of work,” she added.
As for how she handles people thinking of her as forever 18, she says it’s not something she thinks of as “unfortunate.”
“It’s just their reality. I don’t really need anyone to get on the same page as me, to have me feel good. I understood that people’s perception of me had nothing to do with the person that I am a really long time ago,” Dove revealed.
“Whatever I’m doing now, I don’t have to do that thing forever to make them happy. But we can both appreciate it,” she said. “I loved that time, they loved that time. I love what I’m doing now. Other people will hopefully love what I’m doing now, but it doesn’t have to be a fight.”
She concludes, “Your comfort shows and movies are personal to you, so I think it’s beautiful.”
The actress recently shared how she met her fiancé Damiano David, revealing their romantic meeting “sounds like fan fiction.”
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