Lizzie McGuire's Clayton Snyder on playing Ethan Craft
Lizzie McGuire star Clayton Snyder chatted with Yahoo Australia all about his time on the show, playing the iconic role of Ethan Craft and what he's doing now.
Video transcript
CLAYTON SNYDER: I'm on dad duty right now. So I got the 10-week old here with me. He's had a little bit of a fuss so we went on a stroll.
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Auditioning for things like "Even Seasons" and all that stuff. And this role for a show called "What's Lizzie Thinking?" came about and got sent asides. It was kind of a different character from what people know Ethan as because he started off as kind of an idiot boy. And then he turned to, like, an idiot hunk later on during the show.
But I still think that one of the main reasons I booked it was just because I didn't know how to pronounce the word "Gordon," and I said it Gordon. And they thought that was a funny choice. But I didn't know-- I didn't realize it was a choice at the time.
I don't know if I was, like, awestruck, or I just wasn't really paying attention. It was probably the second. I think I was just happy to just be there and play, you know. Because I was 13 at the time, right? So I'm probably, like, just before I was a little too aware of everything going on.
At the very start, it's such a blur, honestly. I remember fragments of being in, like, a tutoring room. Because being a minor under 18, you had to get a certain hours of-- a certain number of hours of schoolwork in a day or at least a week that you could then, like, bank earlier in the week.
And that's where the majority of the socializing between the cast took place, you know. There is a level of fun on set still. But you try to keep a level of professionalism when you're doing that. You're like, there's still work to be done. And so it was kind of a little bit more goofing off as you would at school in the tutoring room.
You know, everyone was just really cool and welcoming. I didn't-- there was no sense of us and them whatsoever. There was a sense of like, oh, cool like, Hilary Duff because she had done, like, the "Casper" movie. She was-- she was kind of a name at that point and would become an even bigger one, right?
But everyone was just really cool. We're all around the same age. We like-- mainly, like plenty of our own age, 13-year-olds playing 13-year-olds. The only person that was outside of that group was Adam Lambert who played Gordo because he was actually, like, 17, 18, at the time. I remember we were in, like, the tutoring room. And he would just, kind of, be there not because he was a minor but because he was doing the schoolwork for Cal Berkeley.
I think we're all cool now and amicable. If I saw any of them, I'd like-- we'd have a great catchup conversation. But you know, your life takes a lot of different paths afterwards I wanted to go back to school and playing a lot of water polo afterwards.
And so we all, kind of, went our own directions after that. I've seen people here and there. But we also live in different areas. On good terms and friends with everybody. But we don't really see each other too often.
I think that it was, for the most part, just so fun. And it was just a really positive experience, and how it was such a family between all the cast and all the crew and all the parents of the kids. And it was just-- it was just a really lovely time.
It's actually pretty seamless. The adjustment was being back in quote unquote, "real life" in public school scenario and trying to relate to kids there who, all of a sudden, saw you as other and would treat you differently in different ways.
I mean, yes. Yeah, you could say that. People would-- I stood out because, oh, there he goes, the guy that's on the thing. I remember the weekend after the show premiered, going to school that Monday was a very different sensation because, again, it was our own audience that we were playing for, right?
So not everyone watched it. But if they didn't watch it, they had friends that did. And word got around that, like, that kid goes to our school. It's this guy. It was funny being, like, every time I'd go to a new school, it's like middle school is, like, sixth through eighth grade, so three years, and then we have high school from ninth grade to 12th grade, and then college for four years.
So every time I would move up the next tier in the education system, there was a new onboarding period, if you will, of people getting used to me being there. They're like, oh, that's the guy, that's the Ethan Craft guy, and just observe me, I guess, or, like, see what I'm like or, like, try to be friends with you or whatever. And then-- then they realize that I'm not that special.
That was incredible. A different experience, for sure. When you're on a series for TV, you're filming Monday through Friday. Every week is a new episode. It's very structured. There's a pacing to it. There's a format. The sets are built in. They're there, and you're using the same spots every time. So there's kind of a rhythm and a flow to everything.
When you're filming, you're doing everything brand new for the first time and the only time. So the pacing, the structure, is a lot different. But I enjoyed it all the same. It was an amazing adventure. And one of the perks for me was that I wasn't in very much of the movie, frankly. But I was there for just as long as everybody else. So my mom and I got to this-- like, go around to different places.
You know what? I would certainly be open to it. I think it's such a fun project. And I would mostly be just curious what the heck Ethan is up to these days because he could have gone in any direction.
Like, let's say if he was in the car sales route, like, he wouldn't ever even talk about the car. He would just get, like, so friendly with the person he was talking to. And they would just like him so much and be like, yeah, sure, we'll take it. You know, like, something like that. It was like, cool, right on, man.
Right now my life-- is I'm working with a residential real estate sales company in Los Angeles. So I'm helping people buy and sell homes, which is really cool to do, frankly. And I'm also co-founder and managing a men's water polo club team for the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
And I'm married to a lovely woman named Allegra. And I'm actually in Vancouver because she is an amazing actress. And she's in a Amazon Prime show called "Upload" that's filming it's third season up here. And we have a 10-week old son that I'm currently walking around.
So it's a big, busy, and wonderful life, I'd say. I've done some acting here and there since then, some online stuff, some short films, some things on Netflix, other things that you can find on iTunes. And I've done some improv and some musicals.
And it's all fun and good. And I don't think-- I don't think you've seen the last of me doing anything acting-wise. But I think it's-- I find peace right now, stepping away from that to make space for other things, currently. I'll say that.