Lily Brooks is taking on the titular role of Ella in Apple TV+’s new family series, Life By Ella. I had the chance to sit down and talk with her about preparing for this challenging role and life on set.
KY: Congratulations on Life By Ella!
LILY BROOKS: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I’m so excited for people to see it.
KY: Can you tell us a little bit about the show?
LB: Yeah, of course. So Life By Ella is about a girl named Ella who I play. She’s going into remission for cancer, but also, she’s dealing with going back to “normal” after being in treatment for cancer: going back to school, kind of going back to things with her friends and her family and just going back to life after cancer. And it’s a big transition for her, but she’s also kind of taken on this new outlook on life. Because of going through cancer, she realized that you can’t be afraid of anything. She’s taken on this brand new perspective on life. She has this major ‘seize the day’ mentality because she’s realized that you only have one chance to live her life and she’s not going to let anything scare her or stop her from living the life that she knows she’s meant to live.
KY: Yeah, for sure. I’m so excited to watch it. I can’t wait for it to be released. What are you most excited for as far as for the audience to see and experience in the show?
LB: I’m just excited for the audience to go on this journey with Ella and with her friends. Because throughout the entire show, we’re kind of watching Ella go on this journey of discovering life with this new perspective that she has, and also taking her friends and her family along with her and teaching her friends and family about this new perspective that she has on life. Honestly, Ella has taught me so much about myself as a person and also about life. And I’m really incredibly grateful for that. And I hope that the viewers can learn something from Ella’s perspective on life as well.
KY: Yeah, for sure. My next question was actually what did you like the most about playing Ella?
LB: I like that she’s not afraid to be herself. Like that’s one of my favorite things about playing Ella is that she’s adventurous. She puts herself out there, she’s not scared of just being who she is, like, truthfully, no fear. But before cancer, she wasn’t like that. Going through treatment and being in the hospital for a year taught her how to be this person and how to not be afraid of being herself. And I’d say like before cancer, she was definitely more of a follower than she was a leader. And going through cancer, she realized that you can’t take anything for granted. And you have to enjoy every moment of life being your true self. And that has definitely taught me a lot about myself. And another thing I love about Ella is that she’s really spontaneous, like she will do anything, especially if it’s adventurous. And I’m definitely the same way. Ella and I are similar in the way that we like doing really adventurous and crazy things. One of my biggest hobbies is I do trapeze on Santa Monica Pier, which sounds crazy, but it’s so much fun. I feel like Ella would definitely do something like that. Yeah, I’d say that’s a similarity between me and Ella.
KY: That’s really cool that people, especially kids and teenagers, will be able to watch this show that deals with very hard topics. What do you hope that young people take away from that?
LB: I hope that they see that there are ups and downs in life. But no matter what, you always have people around you that love you and support you and they’re there for you. And no matter what is going on in your life, you always have those people to turn to in the good moments and in the bad. I think that the show does a really great job of showing that. Even in these hard moments in life, we have those moments with our friends and our family of laughter. And I love that about this show because even though it’s tackling a pretty dark and deep subject, we still have these moments of laughter and joking around with each other. A lot of the time, cancer has this kind of dark cloud looming over it. And whenever you hear the word cancer, you just automatically think bad. But Ella has taken this bad thing that has happened to her and really turned it into something good. And I hope that teens take that away and know that even if you’re going through something bad in your life, you know, you can always turn it into something good.
KY: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of the family aspect of the show, what was your experience filming the show and behind the scenes?
LB: Oh, my gosh, it was so fun. We have the best cast ever, especially filming the family scenes, which are some of my favorites. Me, the boy who plays my brother, Aidan, who I swear is literally like my little brother, have a great dynamic. It’s so funny. And then Kevin who plays my dad and Mary who plays my mom, we had the most fun ever filming scenes together. In between takes we would make Tik Toks, especially me and Aidan, and we would just play around and play games. And we had a few scenes like where we were in the car for a while. And we would just play games. And it was so fun, especially with the boy who plays my best friend on the show: Artyon who plays Kai and then my other best friend on the show, Hannah, who’s played by Vanessa. We would do school together a lot of the time because we’re on set. And one of my favorite things is that sometimes when we were really tired, our teacher would let us play board games or card games instead of doing school. And we played UNO all the time, I swear I’m like the reigning champion, I won every single time.
KY: Amazing. That sounds so fun!
LB: And I have learned so much from working with Kevin [Rahm]. He’s an amazing actor. And just the advice that he’s given me has really stuck with me for sure as an actress. We were doing this one scene that was more of an emotional thing. I was kind of having a hard time really getting myself to that place emotionally. And I think I was worried too much about how it looks on camera instead of really being in the moment. And Kevin pulled me aside and he was like, “You’re thinking too much about it.” And he told me to just be in the moment and to not think about what it looks like or think about making myself cry, but to just feel it. And that advice has really stuck with me as an actress ever since I heard it, and I love working with him. He’s the best.
KY: That’s amazing. I love that. So tell me about booking the role. How did you find out, and what was the audition process like?
LB: Oh, it was a crazy audition process. But I will say the moment that I got that script and saw the character and the story, I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of this project. I’m a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital youth ambassador. And ever since I was little I’ve helped raise money and raise awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. And I also had a few friends that were treated at St. Jude for childhood cancer. And I just know what these kids go through is definitely a story that needs to be told and a story that needs to be told accurately; so I immediately fell in love with this character. I did a bunch of callbacks and auditions, and it was a long process for sure. But the moment I found out, I was on a zoom call with my agent, my manager, my agent’s assistant, and my mom. And my mom was not sly about it. Because I knew I was going to find out that day, she was like, “Hey, Lily, can you hop on this zoom call?” I was like, “Okay,” I know what’s coming now. And I set up my phone and recorded because I kind of had a feeling and I was over the moon excited to be able to tell the story and accurately represent what a lot of these kids go through on a day to day experience. I think it’s a story that should be told and should be told correctly.
KY: Yeah, absolutely. What was different about this experience from other acting jobs you’ve had in the past?
LB: It was definitely one of the more emotional and deep roles that I’ve done. I had some experience, I mean, I played Marina in an amazing short film called ‘Marina’ about a girl with spinal muscular atrophy. And that story was a really tough one to tell. I was only ten or eleven when I did it. But that definitely helped me prepare for this role as well. I think the biggest difference in playing this role was the amount of preparation that went into becoming Ella. I really had the honor of talking to a few St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital patients and hearing about their experiences and learning from what they’ve been through. I loved being able to take their experiences and what they told me about their experiences and put them into my character. I was able to talk to one of our writers, Hernan, who wrote an incredible episode of the show, and he’s a childhood cancer survivor. I was able to talk to him about his experience, and he has also made a documentary that he sent me and was able to watch that is about teen cancer. And that was incredibly helpful. Another big thing that I did to prepare was I cut off all my hair, which was scary, but worth it. It just really helped me connect with Ella. And I’m so grateful that I did it.
KY: What do you hope to take away from this experience when it comes to your future acting jobs?
LB: Definitely that you have to live in the moment, I feel like a lot of the time, I’m always thinking about maybe what happened on set yesterday, or what those scenes were like, or, you know, what scenes we have to film tomorrow. But Ella has really taught me to live in the moment. And the show has taught me so much about myself as an actor, as well as a person. I hope to take all of those experiences with me just to make me a better person and a better actor. Because acting is just, you know, portraying human emotions. And every experience that I have every day of my life is making me a better actor. And I will say that this experience of being on this show and learning from my character is one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.
KY: That’s amazing. Who are some of your acting inspirations?
LB: Oh, there are so many. Okay, so my biggest right now are Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Graham. I want to be a producer one day, I want to have a production company. I also want to be a director one day, and Reese Witherspoon… What she’s done with her production company Hello Sunshine is such an inspiration to me. And I really look up to her. And she’s also such an incredible actress. I mean, watching her work. It’s just so amazing. And with Lauren Graham, I think my favorite TV show of all time is Gilmore Girls. Her comedic timing in that show, Oh my gosh, it’s so good. Yeah, she’s really wonderful. Like even her breath, she uses her breath. And how fast she says things. It’s just like, I look up to her and her comedic timing so much.
KY: Yeah. Great choices. They’re both so amazing. Well, that’s all the questions I have! Thank you so much for doing this. I’m so excited to see the show on September 2nd!
Stream Life By Ella on Apple TV+ on September 2nd.
