What do Stranger Things and Hannah Montana have in common? No, it's not that we have been equally obsessed with both in the past, it's actually that actor Natalia Dyer has been in both. Yep, you heard us right, the actual Nancy Wheeler in our long-time favourite supernatural thriller began her career with a small role in Hannah Montana: The Movie, alongside Miley Cyrus, now that's what we call an impressive acting range.
Now, just to recap here so that we are all on the same page at how mega this is, Hannah Montana was one of the most-watched shows ever on the Disney Channel, and it followed the life of Miley Stewart (played by Cyrus) who was seemingly your average high school teenager, aside from the fact that she had a secret life as world-famous pop star Hannah Montana. Pretty believable stuff right?
The series were so popular that in 2009, Disney released Hannah Montana: The Movie, where Miley is forced to reconnect with her hometown after her father, Robby (played by her actual dad, Billy Ray Cyrus) believes her life as a pop star is overtaking her normal life. And the movie was a pretty big deal, grossing $155 million at the box office (so basically two tanks of petrol in today's money).
And in the middle of all this glamour and success, a 13-year-old Natalia Dyer managed to bag herself a role as a British fan of the pop singer. Eugh, finally an acting role that we feel we could actually play.
This all came to light in an interview with Cosmopolitan, where Dyer looked at highlights from the various projects of her career. When a clip of the Hannah Montana movie came up, the star said: "I was living in Nashville at the time and there wasn’t a lot of big film going on there so when this came through it was like the talk of the town. It was a big deal.
“And then there was this role for these two British girls and I think they just decided they were like ‘Hey, let’s just cast them from Nashville.’ My accent’s not great. I know that. You know, it was a couple days of just that, just screaming ‘Hannah Montana'.”
Obviously, because we are mere slaves to the internet, we went straight onto Twitter to see what other people were saying about the surprise discovery and it turns out they were as surprised as we were.
“NATALIE DYER IS IJ THE HANNAH MONTANA MOVIE??? WHY DOES NOVODY TALK ABT THIS,” wrote one shouty fan, while a second wrote: “WAIT WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THE SISTER ON THE RIGHT IN HANNAH MONTANA THE MOVIE IS NATALIE DYER.”
We'll forgive them for getting her name wrong, it's pretty hard to remember how to spell when you're this freaked out.
Another added: “Hannah Montana: The Movie is a fucking fever dream. Tyra Banks, Vanessa Williams, Natalie Dyer, and Taylor swift???????????? Did I miss anyone??? Was Obama there????”
Sharing more screen grabs of the star, a fourth Tweeted: “I was today years old when I realized Natalia Dyer was in The Hannah Montana movie.”
Basically, you get the gist, the internet was shooketh. Now, where's our VCR player, we've got some serious rewatching to do.
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