ABC Family’s The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice Conference Call With Francia Raisa and Brendan Fehr Part 1

March 11, 2010 | by Disney Dreaming

We were recently lucky enough to be part of a conference call with ABC Family’s “The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice” stars Francia Raisa and Brendan Fehr. You can read part 1 of the interview below and learn more about the upcoming television movie here.

The Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice airs on ABC Family on March 16th.

Q: Francia, I wanted to know now that Alex and James are partners, what happened to Zach from Chasing the Dream?

Francia: Zach had an accident after the movie, and he was tired of figure skating so he was ready to retire. Alex wasn’t. She had just started skating. She had won the gold and still had that drive in her to continue figure skating. That got in the way of their relationship, so they just decided to part ways and he went on to live his life and she went on to try and figure skate. But it didn’t really work out because she didn’t have a partner, so she just started teaching, and then that’s when James comes in.

Q: Brendan, since Francia has already done one of these movies before, what was it like for you to be strapping on the skates?

Brendan: Part of it just came naturally. I played hockey my whole life, so obviously the ice skating, just the regular skating backward and side-to-side is pretty much the same. I was comfortable on skates, but then there’s a difference between skating and figure skating. When you’re asked to exhibit a little bit of grace out there, then that’s when all hell broke loose.

Q: Francia, how were you chosen for the Cutting Edge III?

Francia: I auditioned for the role shortly after I came back from a movie I did in Spain. When I went in, they had asked me if I figure skate. I said, “Coincidentally I do,” so I think that played a big part in getting the role, but I also had a long audition process that lasted a couple weeks.

Q: What was the inspiration to go ahead and make a sequel to it?

Francia: I really enjoyed doing the third film. I wanted to go back to Montreal and shoot again. I wanted to figure skate again. I was really intrigued by skating the first time I did it for the movie. Then, they told me a possible storyline, but I didn’t get a script, but I was really inspired by the third one and I said, why not. The third one was such a hit, let’s just do it again.

Q: The readers wanted to know what your other passions are besides acting and skating.

Brendan: I guess number one right now would be golfing. That would be my number one hobby. I try to do that as much as possible. That would be about it. The days are filled up, I guess, taking care of my daughter and just doing the regular stuff that everyone else does. When I’m not working, it would be golf for sure.

Francia: Mine is dancing. I’ve been a dancer for about 17 years and on my off time, that’s pretty much all I do is take classes and dance.

Q: What did you two like most about working with each other?

Brendan: You just want to copy my answer! I enjoy working with new people. I always enjoy finding out how new people work and what they do. We both have personalities where we said what we wanted to say. You talk about the scene and you say, “I’m trying to do this.” It was easy to communicate with her. You had to learn, obviously she’s more of a dancer than I did, so you get tips from her in terms of when we’re skating and all the choreography. It was a good relationship. She had already done the third film, so she knew her character and I was coming in new. And if we had differences, then obviously we worked those out with the director in terms of figuring out if I do this, and then you can do this, but that doesn’t work for me. It was an easy process that way, I think. She was relatively easy and enjoyable to work with, so that’s always what it comes down to: having fun and making sure you get the work done, but having fun while you’re doing it.

Francia: For me, I enjoyed that he was a hard worker. He was really into just making a good movie and working hard at making it as good as possible, I guess you can say. He worked really hard at the figure skating, even though he wasn’t, like he said, wasn’t a dancer, he was a hockey player and let me critique him a bit and just let me teach him how to be graceful. But, mostly I enjoyed watching him do ballet. That was the highlight of my experience with him, ballet lessons. And, like I said, other than that, he was just a hard worker and it’s important for me to find that in a costar.

Source: ABC Family