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Throughout television history, there have been a lot of teen shows that enjoyed years of success. In many cases, those shows had such a huge impact on viewers that they continued to look back on them years after they went off the air.
Since The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s finale first aired in 2013, the show’s fans have grown up a lot. Similarly, many of The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s stars have also gone through a lot of changes including India Eisley.
Given how much The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s stars have grown, it is fascinating to look at what they think of the teen show.
Ken Baumann Seemed Very Happy With The Secret Life Of The American Teenager
From 2008 until 2013, Ken Baumann brought Ben Boykewich to life in 121 episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. During that time, many of the hit show’s fans grew to really like Baumann and his best-known character.
Just before The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s finale episode aired, Baumann was interviewed by Caryn Robbins from broadwayworld.com. During the resulting conversation, Baumann took the opportunity to express how much he adored the people who made The Secret Life of the American Teenager with him.
“I thought that I would be able to hold my composure together on the last day, the last day of filming, but I didn’t, which was fine because everybody was sort of a wreck.”
“It was just hard to know that you’re not going to see your family for the next few years, just because you get to know the people so well, the cast and crew.”
“Our show, I think, was a rarity in a few ways. Everybody got along, and I mean everybody, which was almost like surreal, like the Twilight Zone, and the hours were great. So people were happy to go to work. They didn’t dread the 14 or 15-hour days.”
Of course, it was wonderful to know that The Secret Life of the American Teenager stars didn’t hate each other the way some co-stars do. On top of that, Baumann went on to express how happy he was with Ben’s character arc.
“I think that the tone Ben ends on is very, very, very different from the tone he began in the pilot. I think the character arc was pretty huge.”
“I think that more importantly where Ben ends up in the final episode it serves the sort of emotional arch of that final episode, which I think ultimately the finale episode’s got to function as an episode on its own. I think that it really does. I think it’s one of the best in the series.”
Bristol Palin’s The Secret Life Of The American Teenager Role Made Her Realize She Isn’t An Actor
Since Bristol Palin only appeared in one episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, it may seem strange to include her here. However, considering that Palin’s guest role was one of the things about the show people talked about the most, it makes sense to look at what she said about the show.
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The daughter of Sarah Palin, Bristol garnered a lot of attention due to her mom’s tenure as a past Vice Presidential candidate and governor of Alaska. Due to her mom’s political career, there were a lot of headlines when Bristol got pregnant when she was 17 years old.
Given her real-life experience, it made sense that Bristol was cast in The Secret Life of the American Teenager as a teen mom. Despite being able to relate to her character’s situation, Bristol’s acting in The Secret Life of the American Teenager was panned by a lot of viewers.
Based on what Bristol told UsMagazine.com, Palin knew she wasn’t destined to be an actor after she worked on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
“I’m not an actress. I’ll leave that up to the experts, but I had a great time here. I don’t think I’ll be doing any more acting in the future.” Bristol also went on to talk about what she hoped viewers would get out of her The Secret Life of the American Teenager cameo.
“I just hope that this show opens up a dialogue between parents and teens — and teens amongst themselves — about the consequences of teen pregnancy, sex in general and relationships.”
Shailene Woodley Doesn’t Agree With The Secret Life of the American Teenager’s Message
In Hollywood, there are a lot of people who are so afraid of upsetting the powers that be that they avoid saying anything even remotely controversial. On the other hand, Shailene Woodley is willing to stand for her beliefs including the time she got in trouble for protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Given that Woodley has risked getting in legal trouble in the past, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she has been outspoken about The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In 2020, Woodley spoke to Bustle and expressed why she was happy to star in The Secret Life of the American Teenager at first.
“When I signed onto Secret Life, I read [three] episodes and I signed a contract for six years. [Those episodes] all hit home. I had friends in high school who were pregnant. It felt like everything that I wanted to be sending into the world.”
However, as The Secret Life of the American Teenager reached the later seasons, Woodley began to have problems with how the show pushed abstinence. Woodley also claimed some of her co-stars felt the same way.
“There were a lot of things that were written into the scripts that not just me, but a lot of the cast, disagreed with.”
“There were belief systems that were pushed that were different than my own. Yet legally I was stuck there. To this day it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. So being on Secret Life propelled me to be more vocal about my own belief systems.”
