With a smile stolen from Cameron Diaz and enough moxie to rival Jennifer Lawrence, Wilmington actress Maddie Hasson is ready for life in Los Angeles.
After a breakout role as Willa Monday on Fox drama “The Finder,” Hasson landed the role of Jo on “Twisted,” an ABC Family series that debuts this summer.
At 18, she has already walked the red carpet and been interviewed at press events. She’s mature, independent and driven.
When she was a 16-year-old actress on “The Finder,” costar Geoff Stults called her “the most mature actor on our set.”
She relished the mentoring she received from Stults, the late Michael Clarke Duncan and Mercedes Masöhn, who called Hasson “a spitfire.”
“Twisted,” which is set at a high school and stars Denise Richards, has a cast with more actors in Hasson’s age range.
In the show, a teen with a troubled past, Danny (Avan Jogia), returns to his hometown. He reconnects with his friends, but when a student is found dead, Danny is the prime suspect.
Hasson plays Jo, one of Danny’s best friends. The other is Lacey, played by Kylie Bunbury.
The chemistry of lifelong friends isn’t easy for strangers to replicate on the screen. So the stars spent a week in New York with director Jon Amiel creating a fictional backstory and some genuine bonds.
“We spent an entire week in the city with the director just improv-ing and getting the backstory down and rehearsing so it’d be like we’ve been together for years and years and years,” Hasson said during an interview at a local Port City Java. “It worked because I feel like I’ve known them my entire life.”