In the pantheon of female-fronted rock groups, there are bands both real (Blondie, Jefferson Airplane, No Doubt) and not so real (Josie and the Pussycats, Jem and the Holograms). Julie and the Phantoms would fall into the latter category; after all, according to the premise of the Netflix original series, three of the group’s four members are showing up for gigs from the afterlife. But one thing that’s very real about this band is the talent of the young musicians who are part of it, including Allentown’s own Madison Reyes, who plays the titular role.
Stepping into Julie’s stage-ready kicks wasn’t too much of a stretch for Reyes, who is 16 years old. “I am Julie,” she says. “A Latin American girl with a passion for music. She was so me.” The show is based on the Brazilian television series Julie e os Fantasmas. Reyes was cast as Julie Molina, a high schooler with a gift for music who has lost her passion for singing following the death of her mother. That changes after she summons the ghosts of three fellow teen musicians who died in 1995, right before their band was about to make it big. The four decide to form a band of their own. The series is a mix of comedy and drama, plus a blend of musical numbers that range from tender and moving ballads to get-up-out-of-your-seat-and-stomp-your-feet anthems. One of Julie’s biggest bold-faced names behind the scenes is prolific filmmaker and choreographer Kenny Ortega, who served as executive producer and director.
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But long before she was giving her considerable vocal chops a workout on Julie originals like “Wake Up” and “Bright,” Reyes was just a little girl in Brooklyn, jamming along with an earlier staple of the Ortega canon, High School Musical. Reyes says she was hooked on the performing arts from a young age, taking part in talent shows, step clubs and dance clubs. But it wasn’t until she moved to the Lehigh Valley that she began to seriously consider making a career out of it. Reyes says her parents first pitched the idea of making the move out of the city to her and her younger sister, Megan. “They sat us down and said, ‘This could be really good for us.’” But ultimately, Reyes says, the
decision would be up to the sisters. As Reyes recalls it, she was all about making the move. Her grandparents already lived in the area, and she always looked forward to visiting them beyond the noise of the city. “I always loved waking up in the morning, smelling the fresh-cut grass,” she says. “It was quiet.” Megan Reyes, however, needed a little more convincing, but big sis did a little arm-twisting, and six years ago, the Reyes family began a new chapter in Allentown.
The then 10-year-old Madison Reyes enrolled at Ramos Elementary School and then went on to Trexler Middle School. In seventh grade, she landed the lead role of Princess Jasmine in the school’s adaptation of Aladdin. It was then, she recalls, that something clicked. “I realized this is something I want to do,” she says. “I realized I wanted to commit to this.” Reyes then tried out for and was accepted into Allentown’s Arts Academy Charter Middle School, and later, the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem.
But, while she was learning the ins and outs of the craft of acting and performing her freshman year, doubt began to creep in. Reyes, who is Puerto Rican, says she was bothered by the lack of diversity she saw on the stage and screen; she began to wonder if a career in acting was truly for her. Where did she fit into the mix as a Latin girl? But then she heard about a casting call for Julie and the Phantoms.
At the end of her freshman year, Reyes and her father flew to Los Angeles for what she describes as a grueling three-day audition process, in which she had to perform on her own and alongside other potential bandmates for the show. Reyes says she didn’t hold anything back.
“I knew I gave what I had to give.” Executive producer Kenny Ortega told Entertainment Weekly he had a good idea of what he was looking for in his Julie. “I didn’t want a glossy, over-experienced actress,” Ortega told the magazine. “I wanted someone who was authentic and relatable, but then also had an instinct, and that was smart, and then a voice, of course.” Reyes didn’t even have to wait until she was back home in Allentown to find out she landed the role. “Everything happened very fast,” she says. “My manager was like, ‘This has never happened before.’” They later shared the good news with friends and family via a video message from Ortega played at her quinceañera celebration. Reyes says she held off on immediately letting everyone know that she’d snagged the part so she could spend time with her friends and hold on to normalcy for a little while longer. “I got to enjoy that teenage life before things got crazy,” she says.
And get crazy, it did. Just days after her birthday, Reyes was back in Los Angeles for Julie boot camp: a month-long marathon of table reads, rehearsals, blocking, vocal work, dance prep and team-building with her new band. “It was a lot of us getting to know each other and having fun,” Reyes says. “We all really like each other, so that’s good.” That was followed by three-plus months of filming in Vancouver that wrapped up in December of 2019. While Reyes clearly had a ball (“This was a dream I had since watching High School Musical,” she says), she admits she did get homesick for her old life in the Lehigh Valley—especially for her mother.
Julie and the Phantoms debuted on Netflix in September of last year. It’s unclear yet whether the nine-episode first season will get a sequel, but Reyes is hopeful. In the meantime, she’s focusing on her school work—she’s trying to get ahead so she can graduate from high school early—and her music. She released a cover of the 1995 Selena hit “Dreaming of You,” and is considering releasing an EP for her seventeenth birthday in June. She’s going on auditions, too, and is excited to be one of the young, fresh faces bringing more diversity to the screen. She points to multihyphenate artists like Ariana Grande and Zendaya as two of her inspirations, and then, of course, there’s Julie herself. “Julie has helped me with a lot of things,” Reyes says. “Nothing is impossible as long as you believe.”
