Disney star Debby Ryan talks to First News about her new TV series, Jessie, and why she knows so much about jelly beans!

How does it feel to have your very own show?

Good, it feels good. It’s been obviously several years of work on the Suite Life and tonnes of fun, and before that, years of auditioning. So it’s something that you work for, to be able to have your own vehicle and your own voice. It’s been a lot of work and 12, 13, 14-hour days. I have a lot of fun and it’s been a lot of hard work and a long journey, but I feel like this is just beginning.

What is the show about?

Jessie is about a girl who moves to New York City from Texas. She ends up becoming a nanny for this high-profile couple. The dad’s a movie director and mom’s a supermodel business mogul-type woman. Three of their kids are adopted, so they have different backgrounds and different cultures. Some of them have been with the family since they were babies and some of them are very, very new to the family. There’s also a 2m pet lizard and a butler that’s pretty lazy and doesn’t really like kids. We have a little bit of everything.

What do you think of the 2m lizard?

I’m down with this, I’m down with the reptiles. I wanted a pet python since seventh grade but my mom is not into the reptile thing. When I was younger, before I moved to Germany, we went to a carnival or something and ended up with a photo in a newspaper of my mom holding a boa constrictor around her neck. She’s fearless like I am, she just doesn’t want one as a pet. So I get to work with basically an alligator with lips. It’s pretty giant.

You’ve been described as Disney’s next big star. How does it feel to hear that?

It’s funny. I don’t think that people can predict it. The fact that people can look at me and think that I have that is very cool and humbling. I didn’t wake up one day and say I want to be famous, and I feel like a lot of people did. For me I was like: “Oh, I’d love to act.” I was in public school you know, I never sacrificed my normal life, I was like a nerd. I stayed and graded papers after school, I was my school mascot and I was in chess club and then I would go to my auditions and I would do my homework in the car on the way back. My parents have always been big on saying you’re a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister and a best friend first. Acting comes secondary to that. I think that’s what kept me so neutral all these years and made me want to work for it.

Do you have any talents we don’t know about?

Oh, yes! I can throw jelly beans up in the air and catch them in my mouth. In seventh grade I was in a play and one of the main props was this giant jar of jelly beans. After we did the play for the last time we cracked open the jelly beans and someone threw one to me and I caught it in my mouth and then they threw it from further across the room and then I caught it and then I did two at a time. I can spin it in the air and catch it like 15 different times! I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I’m quite a jelly bean expert!

First News' Ben with Debby Ryan

The new series Jessie premieres on the Disney Channel at 5:35pm on Friday 17 February.