Olivia Holt Chats Music, Season Two Hopes For Cruel Summer, & More In New Interview

Olivia Holt sat down with ELLE ahead of her recent performance on Bachelor In Paradise. The young actress/singer took the stage during the reality show to perform her new single, “Next”. Highlights from her interview are below.

On always wanting to be a singer: “Music was my first love. My dad was a musician, my sister was a musical theater nerd, and my brother listened to all sorts of music. So I think it was always in my bones. Then I fell in love with acting, and I focused on that for a bit, and it gave me the chance to live life a little bit. Because the music industry is such a specific lane, you have to understand your voice. You have to know what direction you want to go sonically and lyrically, and I had to learn so many things about myself in order to do that.”

On what roles helper her step outside the Disney Channel box: “I think it would be a tie between the last two roles that I’ve done on Freeform, one on Cloak & Dagger, and then the other on Cruel Summer. I say that it’s a tie because, in both, I really evolved as a human. In Cloak & Dagger, it brought me to a space where I could learn about the way that society minimizes females, or the way that it dehumanizes Black culture. And then on Cruel Summer, I got to learn more about manipulation and gaslighting. It really helped me understand the world we’re living in.”

On her hopes for Kate in season 2 of Cruel Summer: “Oh, God. Okay. I don’t know. I don’t know because I don’t write. I think I want to see [Kate] on a journey with Mallory and, eventually, along the way, find out the truth about Jeanette. I do think it will be really interesting to see where Kate and Mallory take their relationship.”

You can check out more from her interview here. “Next” is available for download now!