Millennials and Gen Zers raised on Disney Channel’s golden age would remember former child actress Christy Carlson Romano of Even Stevens, Kim Possible, and Cadet Kelly fame. Now a married mom of two, Carlson Romano is trying her hand at something totally different: Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, which puts a group of celebrities through rigorous training exercises that reflect the high-stakes Special Forces selection process.
Carlson Romano — who was a teenager when she got her start on Disney Channel — told DECIDER she “thrived” in the structured environment of Special Forces Season 3. As someone who is married to a Marine veteran, she said there’s a “strange kinship between high-performing youth and military,” which is why she wasn’t surprised when JoJo Siwa did so well on the show’s second season.
“I think there’s something very militaristic about having to hit your marks before you even know how to ride a bike,” she said. “There’s something to that that I think feels very familiar to people who were growing up in the business.”
Carlson Romano wasn’t the only Disney alum to take on the challenge. Kyla Pratt, who famously voiced Penny Proud in the animated series The Proud Family, was there for Carlson Romano to lean on. While they hadn’t seen each other in person since filming Disney’s iconic Circle of Life video in 2003, Carlson Romano explained that “that kind of connection doesn’t go away.”
“For me to be able to see [Kyla and] lock eyes with her when we were on the boat, when we first kind of all came together, I immediately was like, ‘I got somebody here,’” she said.
Carlson Romano remained rather tight-lipped on any Season 3 spoilers, though she did admit she suffered from “some nightmares” when she returned home to her family in Austin, TX.
“Production was really great about checking in with us and they were like, ‘Hey, are you doing OK?’ They had therapists call us every couple months and everybody was connecting as well,” she said. “There was a community of support which, when you think about people who are actually serving, they don’t necessarily get that kind of support.”
DECIDER caught up with the actress over Zoom, where she also opened up about her pre-Special Forces training routine and teased how her fear of “small spaces” was used against her. Check out the full interview below.
DECIDER: I am so excited about everything you’re doing. Special Forces is no easy task!
CHRISTY CARLSON ROMANO: That’s actually like the number one thing of it is that it’s not an easy task [laughs].
Literally! Well, what made you decide to do it?
I am so happy that I’ve got the opportunity to go on Special Forces. It was obviously very life-changing because I live with a Marine veteran, my husband, who I’ve been with for 14 years, has always carried around this experience with him. And of course, this is nothing like actual military service, but it really kind of helped me get more insight into what he’s experienced. And I am so grateful to the DS because as tough as they are, I kind of feel like they mentored us through this. And when it was your time to go, if you went, not giving any spoilers for anybody, it was just a really graceful way to to go through this whole process. I really liked the DS a lot.
Yeah, well, they all have those moments where they’re really tough and scary, but then you see the humanity come through, like, they’ll laugh at something or encourage you.
Selection is about grit and mental resilience as much as it’s about having strength and agility and athleticism. So it was a really interesting mix of people that we had. We had reality stars, we had Olympians, we had NFL players, and we had Kyla Pratt and myself, who are these millennial, like, Disney kids?.
That’s amazing. Did your husband help you prep at all? What did that look like?
I had three and a half weeks after we signed the contract basically to get going and I would not stop working out and eating right and just committing to this journey and this process. Production gives you essentially a training guide that you can use. And I religiously went after it with my husband. A lot of times my husband was like, “I’m going to bed and if you want to keep training, then you do it.” Because he wanted me to do it for myself and show him that I was mentally resilient. I would not stop because I didn’t want to quit ever, at any point in this entire experience.
I give you and anyone who does this so many props. I have no idea how you guys do some of this stuff.
Well, these clips that people are getting to see are like gradually going to be more and more insane. I was a fan of the show and I was blown away at the level at which Season 3 has come through. It is crazier, more extreme. And I think it’s because it’s Season 3 that it’s like, you know, they’re kind of topping each other every season. It’s a very competitive group of people. And this season is wild.
I can’t wait. I saw the first hour and it definitely hits the ground running.
You got to see the first hour? I didn’t get to see the first hour! I haven’t seen anything. Nothing, I’ve seen nothing.
Oh, it’s so good.
I have a feeling that I’m not in a lot of the first bits of it and that’s totally fine. You’ll see why. But, yeah, there’s so many contestants, so many recruits, if you will, that it’s kind of like everybody really deserves a time to be asked the questions as to like, “Hey, why are you here?” And like. “What is your journey?” And so I think that’s what’s so great about the show. It’s not competitive. You’re in competition with yourself.
In the teaser, you talk about how your life as a child actor was very structured. Would you say that helped you amid the Special Forces selection process?
For sure. I think that, you know, I do really well with structure. I think what happens with being a young performer when you don’t have the structure is when you kind of freak out, right? And so when it came to this, I thrived. They kind of asked me, they were like, “How are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m doing amazing!” I think they’re like, “Geez!” But it’s funny because I’m married to a Marine veteran and I think there’s a kind of a strange kinship there between high performing youth and military. I think there’s something very militaristic about having to hit your marks before you even know how to ride a bike. So, I thrived in the environment. I watched previous seasons with Jojo Siwa, and it didn’t surprise me that Jojo did a really great job because there’s something to that that I think feels very familiar to people who were growing up in the business.
This isn’t the first time you’ve encountered some stern commanding officers. In fact, you played one in the iconic movie Cadet Kelly. Was this sort of a full-circle moment for you in some ways?
I literally was so proud of Fox for doing the mental load of putting me in the show. Because I can’t be the one that’s like, “Hey, let’s reboot this. Let’s do that.” Like, I’m done. OK? But when it came to Fox being like, “Wait a minute, she’s Cadet Kelly. She’s Kim Possible.” They didn’t even actually know that my husband was a Marine veteran. When we did the interview, they were like, “Wow.” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m glad you didn’t know. Now I get to train.” So, there was so much synergy happening that I was really excited to be a recruit.
You mentioned her before but you’re not the only Disney Channel star on this season. Kyla Pratt, who voiced Penny Proud, is also starring alongside you and I know there was a Kim Possible/Proud Family crossover almost 20 years ago. Did you guys stay in touch all these years? Or was it like a little reunion when you both showed up for training?
Kyla and I had done a YouTube interview on my channel years ago while it was COVID, so we didn’t see each other in person. And so this was like the first time that we saw each other since probably the Circle of Life video, honestly. And the Circle of Life video was a video Disney Channel did that’s kind of iconic for the channel. And all the actors came in at one time and she was a little kid.I was a teenager. But it’s just wild how that kind of connection doesn’t go away. Kyla has always presented herself as authentically as she really, truly is. And so for me to be able to see her [and] lock eyes with her when we were on the boat, when we first kind of all came together, I immediately was like, “I got somebody here.”
Season 3 does not waste any time training exercises, all starting with that crazy helicopter jump.
Was I the first one that you saw?
No, we saw you slip, which I thought maybe it had been slippery from everyone else going before you?
Nope! I was the first person to do the first task. Actually, they cut that out of sequence then because I was the first person to do it. And I think they were like, “She’s the weakest. Let’s let her go.” And I was like, “Nope, not scared of anything.” So, I wasn’t scared. They basically called my number first and I was like, “Let’s go. Let’s do this.”
Oh wow. Yeah, they had Denise Richards go first in the episode.
Ooh, see this is the thing about reality shows is I’m not familiar with the editing process. So, I think it’s going to be really fascinating as an actor being put into their first reality show, especially not being sort of like a Housewives or something. This is much more about like, what’s your journey? So it’s a very vulnerable journey that everyone kind of has during this process. I remember Nick Viall saying, “This is kind of a slept-on reality show.” He says this multiple times and it’s true. I think this season, like I said, is bigger, badder, bolder, and the stakes seem a lot higher.
Totally! This season really does have an awesome cast. Was there anyone you were excited to work with? And who did you end up being closest with?
Kyla Pratt and I are definitely, I think, the closest, just based on the fact that we knew each other before in a way that was very familiar. Like, we’re family. But Cam Newton was my guy. Like, he ends up being my guy a lot. And, you know, he was extremely respectful of me. And he became a leader in a lot of different episodes that you’ll see that Cam really brought it when it came to, I think like, his career in the NFL and how he had to be a team leader. And Carey Hart is also a team leader as well. Carey, we called him Captain Carey a lot, because he just becomes this north star for a lot of us. And I really respected Denise Richards. I did not know much about her other than memes and I watched her movies growing up. But then when I met her in person, she’s beautiful. She has no makeup on. She’s got a great attitude. She’s not a diva at all. She asked questions. She was curious. So she wasn’t just doing this for a check or bragging rights. She was legitimately trying to do this, and I was really proud of her. You know, she’s over 50 years old and just looked great and had a great attitude.
Like you said, it really is such an interesting group of people. You have Cam Newton with Disney stars and Olympians and Denise Richards.
It’s wild. It’s like when you go to brunch and they have shrimp cocktail next to waffles.
One of my favorite things about this show is that we get to see everyone in a totally different light, especially during those interrogation room scenes, which are oftentimes pretty emotional as we see with Denise in this first episode. What do you remember from your 1:1 with the directing staff? What can you say about that?
What can I say about my one on one interrogation with directing staff? I was very much leaning on the staff because they feel very familiar to me and my husband. My husband is a Marine veteran and so when we were training for three and a half weeks, he would put me through my paces. When it came to training, he would yell and he would try me mentally. But when it came to the interrogation, they strip away every kind of toughness so that they just see you. And I think I was told by somebody that I kind of freaked out the staff because I didn’t have these beautiful lashes on. I just had, like, bald eyes. So my eyes are really big. And I think I freaked out the staff because apparently after my interview they were like, “Geez, her eyes are crazy!” So, I’m glad I freaked out the staff. Thank you very much. But my interview, basically, they were like, “Are you doing OK?” And the truth is I was thriving. I was thriving in this crazy environment. The chaos just felt kind of awesome to me. I don’t know. I’m crazy, though.
Did you have a favorite instructor? If so, who was it and why?
That’s tough. Oh, no! That’s so tough. I love them all equally. I mean, look, DS Rudy is a Marine and veteran, so to me, clearly I’m biased because of my husband. But DS Q, he’s got so much charisma that when he’s torturing you, you actually think it’s fun. Billy is like dad, he’s kind of got that paternal figure thing to him where you just want to please him. And so when you disappoint DS Billy, it really gets you sad. And then, you know, Foxy is Foxy. He’s kind of the strong, silent, stoic type that kind of is just looking, he’s watching. And he gave me a compliment at one point. But it didn’t sound like a compliment, but it made my day.
You wrote in an Instagram post that this experience changed you. How so?
We filmed this months and months and months ago. I missed Mother’s Day and I came back on Memorial Day. So it was one of those things where it felt like a year went by between a couple of weeks. And by the time I came home, my kids were like, “Mom, you were gone so long.” But it wasn’t really that long. And so it goes to show you that when you’re experiencing high stress levels, just how much that can affect when you come back home. So when I came home, I had some nightmares, but the production was really great about checking in with us and they were like, “Hey, are you doing OK?” They had therapists call us every couple months and everybody was connecting as well. All the recruits, we had a text chain going and checking in and saying, “Hey, are you OK?” So there was a community of support which when you think about people who are actually serving, they don’t necessarily get that kind of support and they feel really alone. So I was very grateful to also be home with somebody who knew what I went through because my husband had similar training. And so he was like, “Hey, you good?” And I knew that we connected in a very different way when I came home.
That’s so nice that they checked on you and didn’t just throw you back into the world afterward.
The thing is I’ve never done reality. So the fact that this was my first experience might have in some ways spoiled me because production really did care about our well-being.
If you could nominate any of your former Disney co-stars or anyone else from your Disney Channel class to do a potential Season 4 of Special Forces, who would you pick and why?
Wow. Gosh, that’s really tough. OK, hold on, this is tough. I should have thought about this beforehand. I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t think a lot of them would be able to do it. I think especially the ones that have been working in Hollywood a lot. I think that when you’re working all the time, you kind of don’t get perspective of like,”OK, there’s life outside of TV and film.” Kyla is a mom. She does a million things. She’s got such authenticity to her that, like, she also was a fan of the show. So when she did this, it made sense. And mentally she was with it. I’ve been sort of in and out doing my own content creation. And so I have perspective. So this needs to be somebody who has perspective. I really love Khleo Thomas. Do you know Khleo? He was in Holes back in the day.
Yes!
I think Khleo Thomas would do great. I love Khleo. Khleo, you should do Season 4!
What else can you tease about the rest of Season 3?
I think [I’m] excited about what people are going to see. I can’t really control what people are going to see at this point, unfortunately. And I am not looking cute, OK? I want to just warn everybody that this is not happening. I catfished everybody, that’s the truth! The truth is there is a moment there where I am kind of being thrown into my greatest fear, let’s put it that way. My greatest fear is small spaces. And so that’s what I probably can tell you. I can’t tell you exactly. They asked me, too, they’re like, “What is your greatest fear?” My husband’s like, “Why did you tell them? You should have said fairytales and rainbows.” But no, I said small spaces. And they made sure that I was put in a very small space. So I’m really proud of coming through that. And I think y’all are going to like the season.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test premieres Wednesday, Jan. 8 at 8/7c on Fox.
