Ashley Benson: Learning New Things

You were a singer and dancer as a child. Were you also a cheerleader?

No, I wasn't. I was so busy with acting that I couldn't do it. But I wanted to be one.

What do you think it is about you that makes you such a believable cheerleader?

I commit to the part. Obviously, if you can't cheer, they're not going to believe that you're a cheerleader. And I can dance, so that helps me get into character. I also play the cheerleader attitude well. In "Fab Five," the cheerleaders are usually mean and stuck-up. And it wasn't hard to pull that off in this movie.

If you weren't a cheerleader in high school, what kind of a kid were you?

I didn't go to high school, but when I did go to school, I was actually in the group made up of cheerleaders; I just wasn't one of them. But I hung out with a bunch of different kids.

How do you think that girls like the ones in the movie are allowed to get so out of control?

They got so self-involved because there were no rules for them to follow and got away with everything they did. Their home lives have a lot to do with it, too. They were allowed to do whatever they want and they were spoiled. They didn't have much love coming to them from home, so I think they took it out on the students at the school and the teachers. I think it made them feel good about themselves to put others down. It made them feel like they had power.

Did you meet any of the girls involved with the real-life scandal?

No, I didn't. I met the coach (Michaela Ward), and she told us a little about the girls. It was interesting. She said that they weren't as mean as everyone made them out to be. They may have been rude at some points, but the media blew them out of proportion. They did most of the things that we did in the movie — drink, get people fired for no reason, made people's lives miserable at the school, but they really weren't that horrible.

What was it like working with Tatum O'Neal?

I loved it. She's a lot of fun. She became like a mom to me during filming. She has a daughter my age. We really wanted to make it believable that we were mother and daughter, so we were together a lot. And to work with her was so amazing, because she's done all these movies and she's been working for so long. It was really cool to learn from her.

Do you have a favorite cheerleading dance step?

I don't. I just like to learn new things. I don't even know what the cheerleading moves are called. In both of the routines in the movie, we did some hip-hop cheers, which were fun. But the routines were hard. I'm a dancer and I'm used to everything being very flowy. For this you have to be really stiff and hit every move. But it's fun to learn new things.