Amber Stevens: More Than Just a ‘Greek’ BFF

§ Ashleigh and Zeta Beta Zeta

Ashleigh’s had a lot of wackier antics on Greek over the past couple of years, including the flip-flop incident. Do you have a favorite Ashleigh plotline that’s been the most fun for you to play?

AMBER: Oh, that’s a good question. I really, really liked [the September 23 episode "Pledge Allegiance"] when Ashleigh becomes the tour guide. Gil Younger directed the episode. [He] directed our pilot and our first two episodes of the show ever, and I just had a lot of fun working with him.

He came up with the whole thing where I’m giving the tour, and we’re walking, and we’re walking, and I had to take the whole group through and then introduced my friends. I just thought that was hilarious. She gets to be the leader for once and kind of tell people what’s cool around campus, and she just has fun with that. So, I like that new job that Ashleigh has.

Where do you want Ashleigh to be by the end of this season?

AMBER: Actually, where it actually ends up at the end of the season is exactly the opposite of what I would have ever expected for her. I think it’s really exciting what’s going to happen. It’s a whole new chapter for her, something that’s going to really challenge her. But for now she’s having a lot of fun with her new job. She’s giving campus tours and just trying to make her money back [from] when she went crazy with her credit card.

It was kind of fun when Casey (Spencer Grammer) was trying to figure out her career path and everyone realized that they have no idea what they want to do. So, I’m curious. For Ashleigh, there’ll be more with her job now as a tour guide. Will that be a possible opening, or is it just a fun job?

AMBER: I think it’s just a fun job. I don’t know if that would be her career choice for the rest of her life. I’ve assumed that she is some sort of a design major, so I think that she’ll try to pursue a more lucrative career. But things can always change. You never know.

Do you think Ashleigh might get that love interest we’ve all been hoping for?

AMBER: I would really hope that Ashleigh gets a love interest. She deserves a nice little boy toy, right?

Definitely. Does Ashleigh ever have any resentment of Casey being the Queen Bee, or is she just a really supportive BFF?

AMBER: I really don’t think so. I think Ashleigh is just a huge supporter of her best friend. She has no interest in the things that Casey does for herself. She likes that someone else does those things, and Ashleigh can stick to her own thing. She is a leader of herself a little bit, like with her fashion forwardness.

She’s not listening to anyone about that. She wears whatever funny, crazy things that she wants to, but when it comes to her social life and stuff, she’s not necessarily the leader. She just likes to make sure that other people around her are happy and make other people feel comfortable. I don’t think there’s any resentment there, but she definitely needs to become a leader one day in her life.

Do you think for the Casey and Frannie (Tiffany Dupont) rivalry that there will be more personal involvement for Ashleigh, or do you think she’ll kind of remain as backup for Casey when she needs it?

AMBER: I think she will always back up Casey. I think Ashleigh and Casey are best friends, no matter what. Ashleigh is there to kind of be the level-headed one. Casey can make rash decisions, and Ashleigh is there to help guide her and give her both sides of it. But, no matter what, she will always see Casey’s side as being right and help her succeed.

What about Casey’s new boyfriend, Max (Michael Rady)? There seemed to be something really mysterious about him.

AMBER: He’s in quite a few episodes. He’s in the rest of the season. He’s this new guy that comes out of nowhere who’s really not a person that she would normally date. He’s kind of geeky; he’s not very social, but she discovers something that she really loves about him and brings him out of his shell.

We just learned that he was so closed off because he had a girlfriend that just died, and he was mourning her for so long that he was never leaving his room, and Casey was the first person to bring him out. So, I guess it’s just more of how they deal with each other and how they bring out the best in each other for the rest of the season. We’ll see what happens.

§ Aging Out of Greek

We’re not really sure what the grades are of some of the girls, but we know that Frannie is obviously older than you guys because she was Casey’s big sis. Now she seems to be lobbying for a leadership role in ZBZ again, but will she be leaving at the end? Is she going to become an alumna?

AMBER: Frannie is considered a 5th-year, but she will be sticking around for a while. She didn’t finish all the courses she was supposed to, so she’s going to have to stay a student. So, you’ll see some more of Frannie.

She can still stay at ZBZ now that she’s been brought back to the sorority, but we’re just going to have to see what happens about keeping a leadership role in the house because, right now, she can’t run for president again. She can’t run for office because she was officially removed from it.

Has it come up at all what will happen once you guys are seniors? How long can you stretch out senior year?

AMBER: Oh, my gosh, we are so concerned about that because they made our first— This is our third season to viewers, but it’s really the second. But they’ve made that just one year because at the end of this season it’s Hell Week, which is the end of the year.

So, hopefully, they’re going to slow time down and make each season a semester or something because you will run out of time eventually. I don’t think that the show would make sense if we graduated because the show is called Greek. So, I think that they’ll probably just slow down time and make things … elongate the chapters of the life.

If you could get four years out of your senior year, I’d be good with that.

AMBER: Yes, me too! I’m good with that. Another four years of a job would be great.

§ Real Life on TV

I saw on your website that you were the student body president at Beverly Hills High. I’m wondering if you had any experiences either there or elsewhere in your life that remind you at all of ZBZ.

AMBER: Oh, a whole bunch! I was obsessed with Student Council in high school. I randomly got into it because my freshman English teacher was the leader for Student Council. She was like, “You should do this. It’s fun. We go on trips.” I’m like, “Okay.”

Then, it just turned into this love of my school and the student body and wanting to make sure that everyone’s experience in high school was memorable and fun and they had cool parties that they could remember for the rest of their lives and stuff like that. Ashleigh is the social chair of ZBZ. So, she’s doing the same thing I was doing in high school: planning parties for everyone, making memorable moments, and just bonding with everyone.

The people that I had in Student Council are still family to me; we can talk to each other on Facebook. It’s like we’re always going to be family together. Even kids that are still at my high school now, new students that are on Student Council, will contact me, like “I’m in Student Council now with Miss Newman and we know that you were there.” We’re still like a family together, which is just like what happens in a sorority too. It’s fun. That was my closest experience I guess to sorority life.

§ Beyond Greek

What has been the biggest surprise to you about being a regular on Greek? And can fans look forward to any surprises in the future regarding your character Ashleigh?

AMBER: Well, my life has completely changed. I went from being an out-of-work actress/part-time student at a community college to having a full-time job where I’m working 15-hour days and not having as much of a social life, but being recognized on the street by high schoolers and college students. So, it’s a complete 180, my life, but in the best way possible.

It’s so much fun to be on this college-based television show. It’s my age group. My peers are just graduating college now or are in college still, and I get to do it on television. It’s so much fun. I thank God every day that I have a job, and I hope it doesn’t go away soon.

For Ashleigh, there are definitely some huge surprises. [The September 30th episode "See You Next Time, Sisters"] is just a really fun episode. The girls go on a— I guess it would be a retreat to Florida, where they meet with all the ZBZ chapters across the nation. They meet with alumni and such, and Ashleigh just becomes obsessed with it and loves it, and loves old ladies, and just really embraces her ZBZ-ness.

In the following episodes there’s a huge surprise that happens with Ashleigh’s character which comes out of left field. It’s really exciting. I can’t go into too much detail about it or you’ll kill me because you won’t want to know this until it happens. But keep watching.

With Greek being kind of an example, especially with ABC Family viewers who are younger, of college life and Greek life, what do you think is most important for the younger viewers to take away from the show?

AMBER: Just that there is something really wonderful to look forward to in college: the bonding of being in the fraternity or sorority and the new family that you can make. People are worried sometimes that we portray something that’s inappropriate, but I think that our show has a responsibility to make sure that with every bad decision there is a consequence for it.

So, we do show the crazy partying that people do, and they get drunk and sleep with someone that they shouldn’t have or something like that. But then there’s always a consequence for it, which is what real life has. You can’t just go around making bad decisions without anything bad happening in the end. So, I think that we do a good job of making sure that we do that every week.

I would just like to sneak this in because I’m a huge fan of your father (professional announcer Shadoe Stevens) from way back. How is he these days?

AMBER: Oh, he’s wonderful. That’s so nice of you to ask. He’s really great. We were just talking this morning. He works on The Craig Ferguson Show. He comes home every day with a new funny story about what happened at work with him. He was just telling me about a band that was playing on the show last night, and he’s still excited about music and working hard. He’s just doing wonderful. Thank you for asking. That’s really nice.

§ Down the Road This Season

What surprises can we expect during initiation and Hell Week coming up this season?

AMBER: Ooh. Well, we do have a special surprise. Well, I guess it’s not a surprise anymore that LC [Lauren Conrad of The Hills] will be on the show in that episode. That’s something to look forward to. It’s kind of a really exciting episode because it’s what you’ve been waiting for the whole time.

You really want to see how Rusty (Jacob Zachar) handles it. There’s a huge surprise with the ZBZ initiations. I can’t go into detail, but it’s really exciting, and it shocked all the actors on the show. We got the scripts and we were calling each other, freaking out, going, “Oh, my God! What is this?”

When does that air?

AMBER: That airs October 28th.