Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars, Christmas Cupid) can be depended upon to talk about her hit series, her new movie, and fashion – but don’t ask her for Pretty Little Liars spoilers!

pretty little liars

Today I talked with Ashley Benson, known to most of you as Hanna Marin on Pretty Little Liars. She’s also going to be in the ABC Family movie Christmas Cupid with Christiana Milian and Chad Michael Murray. Although she was tired (it was early, I believe 9 am for her!) and she’s incredibly busy these days, she took time to talk about the upcoming second half of Pretty Little Liars season 1, as well as her Christmas movie.

In Pretty Little Liars (PLL), Benson is haunted (usually via flashbacks) by her friend Allie. In Christmas Cupid, Benson does the haunting herself. And while Benson has bonded with the cast and crew of PLL a lot (the way you always hope the cast of your favorite show is*), she said that she was surprisingly able to bond with the group working on Christmas Cupid as well – especially Christina Milian.

I’ll have the full transcript of the interview for you guys later, but something that might surprise you is that Benson would like to move onto movies, and that her dream role would be Lucille Ball. She said her parents loved that show, and so does she. Acting in a comedy is new to her (Christmas Cupid lets her do some) but she seems to have a natural gravitation for things that are silly and fun – not just dramatic and SERIOUS.

Many of you know that I also write for She’s Smart, and do posts on dressing like TV characters, including how to dress like Pretty Little Liars characters ( Pretty Little Liars Fashion Guide ). Well, Ashley Benson really does love fashion and shopping – and she sounded energized as she began to buzz about how much she loved the fashion on Pretty Little Liars, and how it would be different for the second half of season one. (Hanna will be in more black!)

“She’s actually gotten a little bit more like me, we’ve put a lot more black into it and I love wearing black, so she’s a little bit more edgy at times, but she definitely takes her style, she does most business and then she does most funky and edgy and more classic, she just tries out everything and it’s such a blast that it seems every day through hair and make-up and then going to my room and seeing what outfits I’m wearing in the scene, because it’s just so much fun.” – Ashley Benson

When discussing the fat suit she finally got (a day that made her so happy that she danced around like a “nerd”) to play Hefty Hanna in flashbacks, she talked about how she and the other girls on PLL are absolutely not as thin as they appear on magazines. I love when actresses bring this up, because they want you to have realistic body images, and know when to spot manipulated images!

Another question I asked her was about musicals. It seems every show now does a musical (ahem Grey’s Anatomy), so I wanted to know what song she would pick for her, Troian Bellisaro, Shay Mitchell, and Lucy Hale to sing together. Though she noted that they all do sing, the question was a lot think about.

“Oh my gosh, honestly I wouldn’t know. We always just sing really horribly on set all the time to rap songs just because we have an all guy crew and we just like to make them laugh. But, it’s funny because we all do sing, so we always joke about doing a musical, but I don’t think it would happen and I don’t know what song we’d sing. It would be cool, though.” – Ashley Benson

Note:  Here is the Full Interview Transcript

*I remember being flabbergasted as a teen when Neve Campbell told a magazine that the cast of Party of Five didn’t actually hang out together much, since being around each other ended up feeling like work (or being on work mode) after so many years.

Pretty Little Liars airs on ABC Family on Monday’s at 8/7 c. Visit the Official Pretty Little Liars Website, and make sure to stay connected with our constant Pretty Little Liars news and coverage.

Tagged: , , , , ,