Brenda Song in 'The Suite Life on Deck.' Dean Hendler/Disney Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection Brenda Song is reflecting on her time as a child actor, admitting that she felt “underpaid and overworked” while working on Disney‘s The Suite Life shows.
The Running Point star appeared on her former co-star Dylan Sprouse‘s Wildmen podcast, where they recalled working on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody franchise for Disney, and its subsequent spinoff The Suite Life on Deck.
“I’ve been curious to ask you about this,” Song said to Sprouse. “I feel like there are parts of the Suite Life that are, like, black holes for me. Like, I don’t remember years of my life.”
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Wildmen co-host Brendan Columbus recounted a recent episode of the podcast they did with Phill Lewis, noting, “Phill said he forgot directing episodes. It was like, he’s like, ‘They’re just gone.’ He’ll watch them again. Just have no recollection.”
Song said looking back on her time on the Disney Channel series, it felt like “we paid them.” She added, “I always say this about my time at Disney, I know everybody has their own journey… I always say, like, I have a boring tale. I didn’t have this crazy, like, ‘Oh my God, this was so — I had a lovely time.”
The actress admitted that “the only thing that was hard about that time was I feel like we were underpaid and overworked.” Song added, “But Disney did give us a platform to be sitting here right now, so it’s very hard to complain about certain things.”
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Disney for comment, but did not hear back.
The Sprouse twins starred in Disney’s Suite Life shows as onscreen twins Cody and Zack Martin who lived in the Tipton Hotel. Song starred as London Tipton, daughter of hotel owner Wilfred Tipton; Lewis portrayed Marion Moseby, the manager of the hotel. Ashley Tisdale also starred in the show as Maddie Fitzpatrick, London’s friend and a Tipton Hotel employee.
Sprouse recently revealed on his podcast that he’s received only one residual check for five cents from his time working on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
“The only residual check I’ve ever received for The Suite Life at all was a crossover episode with Hannah Montana for five cents. I’m not joking,” he said. “Imagine that. In a time where residuals would have been great, not a single paycheck for being arguably one of the most popular shows.”
During that same episode of Sprouse’s podcast, he and Phill Lewis recalled shooting “wraparound episodes,” in which they’d film an additional scene from a future episode each week.
“A wraparound episode was we’d shoot our episode for the week and then they would say, ‘OK, we’re going to shoot this scene from an episode that you’re going to shoot in two weeks,’ and we’re like, ‘OK.’ So we shoot that scene. Then the next week they go, ‘You’re gonna shoot this scene from the same ep.’ And what they were doing was they were compiling an episode by shooting a scene a week, and then putting it together.”
When asked if it “counted” as a new episode, Sprouse said, “Not for us!” Lewis alleged, “We didn’t get paid for it. We weren’t paid for that episode.”
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