– On the comparisons with ‘Glee,’ Murphy said “I’d never have the temerity to compete with ‘Glee’ in terms of razzle-dazzle. While the dancing is a huge component of the show, it exists with one foot in the world of the characters — no-one will tune in for the awesome three minutes of dancing we’ll provide without that.”

– Producer Welling said that he is able to pull double-duty on ‘Hellcats’ and ‘Smallville’ since both shows shoot in Vancouver, only about 10 minutes from each other. “Everyone understands what’s going on, it’s just about facilitating what each show needs from me,” he explained.

– The choice to make Michalka’s Marti a pre-law student will be utilized throughout the series. “It’ll be interesting, watching her trying to balance cheerleading, which is so frivolous, with something as dignified as a law degree,” Murphy reflected. “Having the law element allows us to have a bit of a franchise — we’ll see Marti involved with a legal case to do with the Three Strikes Laws in Memphis.”

– ‘Queer as Folk’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ alum Gale Harold will guest star as one of Marti’s professors.

– On why he cast Tisdale and Michalka, Murphy said, “With Ashley, I laughed my ass off and wanted to get up and hug her at the same time; she can hold multiple colors in the same palatte.” Casting Marti was “a long and arduous process” but Murphy said that after they saw Michalka, there was no-one else. “She had determination and grit and assertiveness and vulnerability.”

– Though both Tisdale and Michalka have a musical background, Michalka said “it was a cool coincidence, but it was mostly something where we happened to be right for these roles and happened to fight for them really hard.” She cited the need to dispel any preconceived notions that people had about cheerleaders, insisting “cheerleaders are badass, they’re athletes.”

– Tisdale said her character was wholly different from her infamous ‘High School Musical’ character, Sharpay. “Savannah is a lot less selfish than Sharpay,” she said. “She’s the team captain, she’s a team player. She’s been in her own little bubble that Marti pulls her out of; she’s naive, she’s Christian, the pair of them grow together.”

– Michalka agreed: “There’s this connection that the two characters have — what pulls them together is their passion for what they love; in Marti’s case it’s law, in Savannah’s it’s the nationals and her team.”

– Michalka admitted that she had no formal cheerleading experience. Her mother was a cheerleader, but Michalka was trained in hip-hop and was part of dance companies as a teen.

– Since Tisdale and Michalka have musical backgrounds, they were both open to the idea of singing on the show, but said that they planned to keep their music careers separate. Michalka will sing in a “relaxed setting” coming up in a future episode.

– Murphy said that they won’t be married to always chasing a national title in terms of storylines; they want to do part of the season at cheer camp and see what happens to cheerleaders in their downtime between competitive seasons.

– Tisdale and Michalka are apparently obsessive about doing their own stunts, like flying and helicopters. They will have “eclectic dance numbers” populated by all-star cheerleaders, tumblers and street dancers.

– Welling said he was attracted to the project because of the “heart” of the script. It was based on a book called ‘Cheer’ and they felt it was a world that hadn’t yet been tapped into on TV.

“I’ve actually just sold my first movie to ABC Family, which I’m not in, and it’s really exciting, because it’s hard. When I do production meetings, they always ask if I’m going to be in it. For this one, I told them ‘no, I don’t want to be in it I just want to produce something’ and they told me, ‘Oh, ok cause that’s really hard to sell.’”

Ashley continued, “Everybody who wants to buy something from my brand usually wants me in it and I really want to establish my production company being separate. I just want to do something, have ideas and come up with you know reality shows and this movie that we’ve just sold to ABC Family I’m really excited about.”

*She’s a triple threat: Actress, singer and dancer.

*She started acting at the age of 3.

*Her sister’s an actress, too.

The last rehearsal before we hit set tomorrow happened this morning and it was great. We got in early to clean up a few trouble spots and teach our newcomer Shane the choreography. Once Aly and Ashley arrived we put it all together and ran it through a few times. Our director, producers and other crew came in and we started a rough camera block to prepare for shots we’d be working on for the week with the tumbling doubles and fitting Aly, Ashley, Robbie and Elena into the routine. We perfected our “secret stunt” and cleaned all the little details.