You might have seen Morgan Dudley in the Disney Channel movie “Descendants: The Rise of Red.” If you’ve ever been lucky enough to make it up to New York City, you might have caught her in the Broadway production of “Jagged Little Pill.”
Or, if you’ve lived in the Hiram area for a while, you might have seen her on stage in musicals at Paulding County or Hiram High Schools just a few short years ago. If so, consider yourself lucky.
Dudley grew up in Hiram and was interested in music and acting from a young age. The 23 year old has been focusing on acting in the early part of her career, but is taking the leap into music. Lately, Dudley has been working on an album with the help of a producer who has worked for the likes of Beyoncé.
Rough Draft Atlanta spoke with Dudley about her film career and her foray into music. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you first start getting into acting and music and entertainment? Was it when you were really young, or did it come a little later?
Morgan Dudley: I was really, really young, whenever I was interested in singing, acting. I was also, when I was a kid, interested in drawing. So I just always labeled myself as a creative person. And as I got older and was in school and stuff like that, obviously you want to join programs that cultivate those things. I was always involved in chorus and band. I did all the state things and the community things, just to get in those places. I feel like my love for acting didn’t come until later. When I was in high school, I wanted to be in musicals, because I heard that that’s how you could sing on stage more, and I was like – yes [laughs].
But when I started to do it, I was like wait, I really like this storytelling aspect of it. More than just singing, I love performing and I love telling stories. That’s kind of where I started to cultivate my love for acting.
What high school did you go to? Do you remember some of the musicals that sparked your interest?
Dudley: I went to two high schools. So I went to Paulding County High School, and that’s when I first started doing musicals. I did “Beauty and the Beast,” I did ensemble. Then I actually got the lead in my sophomore year, “The Addams Family” musical – I was Wednesday.
When I went to my other high school, Hiram High School, that environment – it was so weird, because it wasn’t a performing arts school, but we just happened to have, like, 20 kids who were really talented and really competitive. So I feel like my skills just skyrocketed up, just being around so many amazing talents. We did “The Lion King,” I started doing community theater around that time. Yeah, I could tell you all the shows I did, but [laughs] it’s a lot!
I can imagine. It sometimes is nice to have other competitive people around you – you know, keeps you a little honest.
Dudley: Yeah, it definitely did. It made me so much better,
When you started acting in movies – I believe the first movie you were in was “The Prom,” but you had also done some television before that – what was making that transition like for you?
Dudley: It was interesting, because I remember whenever I did “The Prom,” I was still so young. I was straight out of high school. I’d never been near a set or knew how they worked. I think for me, the professionalism of it all was a transition, because I was still in my theater kid mindset of – oh my gosh, I get to be in a musical! That’s so cool! And there were a lot of people who were like, oh yeah, it’s a job and I’ve done this for however long. So kind of knowing my place and figuring out my groundings was the thing for me that was a big transition.
But when I started “A Tourist’s Guide to Love,” that was the first movie where I had a role – like an actual speaking role. That kind of transition was just being more vulnerable and being more intimate on screen, and not being so [performative], and that was really new for me too.
Do you mean in terms of the difference between theater acting and film acting, or something else?
Dudley: Definitely. Yeah, the difference between theater and film acting.
I can imagine it’s way different having a camera right up in your face.
Dudley: Yeah, and it was so uncomfortable. I could fee where I was kind of doing the wrong thing at first. I was working with my co-star, Andrew Barth Feldman, and he was really, really good at doing both things. I knew him from theater and also in this film, and so I just looked up to him a lot during that time too.
You are in “Descendants: The Rise of Red,” which just came out. What kind of roles are you looking forward to exploring moving forward?
Dudley: Oh my gosh, I love talking about this because I’m such a sci-fi and horror/thriller genre person. I love characters having to figure out a really tough situation. So anything that puts me in a zombie apocalypse, or [laughs] I don’t know – I love apocalypses! I think that’s my favorite thing. I don’t know if that’s coming back anytime soon. When I was a kid, “The Walking Dead” was huge. Who knows? There might be a resurgence, or aliens or something.
Well, we’ve got “The Last of Us” and stuff like that, right?
Dudley: Exactly. That is my stuff. I love it.
That’s kind of a switch from musicals. That’s interesting.
Dudley: It is! It is very different for musicals. And I would love to get to continue doing musicals, but I think it’s just something that my heart aches to explore.
Obviously, you’ve been building an acting career, but I know you’re about to release some original music, and I’d love to hear a bit more about that from you. I listened to one of your TikToks – I think the song was called “Better Left Unsent” – and I would love it if you could talk about what type of music you’re looking to make and how you want to expand into that space.
Dudley: Music was my first love. As I told you, it’s how I got into acting and performing. It was a really vulnerable time last November. I got to sit down with a producer and practice my writing, and just really write about what I was feeling at the time. I’m really excited, because “Better Left Unsaid” is actually going to be my first single that I release. Writing it was a really tough process. I remember we were in the middle of a rut. Literally. We had a completely different concept before that song was written, and we were on it for an hour, and we’re arguing about what to write – this concept isn’t strong enough, it’s not hitting the page. I remember I finally just deleted the whole note, and we just looked at each other in silence like – we’re gonna restart.
“Better Left Unsent” is just about somebody finally moving on from a situation that they probably knew they should be for a long time. The words were just coming to me on the page, because at the time, I was in a situation that I needed to leave. It was really healing for me, and songwriting has always been very healing for me. It began from my journaling about it, and turning it into songs – that made me believe that I could even do this in the first place. I’m just really, really excited to share that song and the rest of my songs with the world.
When did you first start writing songs?
Dudley: I only started in high school. Like, around my junior and senior year of high school is when I really started writing. I remember, like, one song I wrote in the fifth grade, but then I just kind of put it down [laughs] because it was not good.
I just had a lot of feelings in school, and I was like, you know what? If Taylor Swift can do it, I can too. I had a spam Instagram account where I would post all of my songs for my friends to see. I would tell them, if you guys have any suggestions for me for these lyrics, let me know! And they would – they’d be like, yeah this doesn’t make sense. I was like, okay thanks. And then I never posted again.
A little Instagram editing circle.
Dudley: Literally. I was like, we have a writer’s room on my spam account! I did continue though. I did continue writing from high school up until I met my producer. He just really helped my writing style and helped me write things that to me make sense, and for other people too.
Who’s the producer?
Dudley: His name’s Nick Green. He helped produce “Plastic Off the Sofa,” by Beyoncé. That’s one of his notable ones.
That’s awesome. What a great person to be working with.
Dudley: I know! I was so excited.
You’ve got this album coming out and you’re starting to release new music, and then your film career as well. I was wondering, are you interested in prioritizing one over the other, more interested in just seeing where it goes, or focusing on them both equally?
Dudley: Right now, I’m in such a transitional period that I want to see where it goes. I think that my priority for this next month is going to be my music, because music is such an interesting field to try and break into. You just never know what’s going to catch on. So a lot of effort does need to be put into that, and I’m really excited to dedicate my time to it. But then also, in the meantime, I am auditioning for roles, and if something comes up in the midst of that, that’s going to be really exciting too, for that part of my career. But if there is a straighter answer, it would be, I am focusing on my music right now.