‘Off Campus’ star Ella Bright talks about playing Hannah Wells

Ever since it was announced that a TV adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s novel Off Campus would be made in 2024, fans of the hit novel series have been wondering who would play Hannah Wells.

The answer is 19-year-old British actress Ella Bright. She is set to appear on screen when all eight episodes of Off Campus air on Prime Video on May 13th, complete with a convincing American accent. Bright was in the middle of studying for her A-levels when she got a Zoom call that would change her life forever. The project she’s been working on has landed her the starring role in one of the most anticipated streaming releases in years.

In Season 1 of “Off Campus,” Bright plays a shy, assertive singer-songwriter who agrees to a fake relationship with All-Star hockey captain Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) in order to make his crush jealous. Based on Kennedy’s favorite book, which has sold more than 6 million copies, the drama depicts the lives of the elite men’s hockey team and the women at the fictional Brier College in Massachusetts, with a different love story unfolding each season.

Born in New York City and raised in London, Bright has been performing since the age of eight, more as a pragmatic solution to family problems than as a calculated career. “I was a very loud kid,” she told Variety over Zoom. “Her parents said, ‘Let her act somewhere so she can scream.'” She then spent most of her teenage years in the British children’s series Malory Towers, about an all-girls boarding school set in post-World War II England, joining the cast at age 12 and finishing at 18. By the time the show ended, the girls she grew up with on screen had become her best friends in real life. “They live in my house almost every day,” she says. No matter how you look at it, it was a great way to grow up, she says.

At 19, Bright is not far from the age of her character, but the subject matter is a long way from the children’s world of “Malory Towers.”

“I always told my mom this joke,” she says. “‘Malory Towers’ was a school-based program, so now it was like, she’s graduating and going to college.” But instead of going to college, Bright’s “college” coming-of-age ceremony took place on a Vancouver set, surrounded by her “Off Campus” castmates.

For the casting process, Bright submitted a self-tape and completed two Zoom calls before jetting off to Los Angeles for a marathon day of chemistry reading. There were more callbacks for weeks, then came the final Zoom that she billed as a meeting about the show’s music. That’s when she logged in, having a silent panic about her voice and feeling anxious for the rest of her life. However, the producers were kind enough to stop her before she could spiral. They didn’t come to talk about music, they told her, “Bright got the part.” “I just burst into tears,” she says.

In fact, the show’s music turned out to be one of the most transformative parts of the experience. Bright worked with a vocal coach throughout the production, going straight to the studio on holidays. She and co-star Josh Houston, who plays musician Justin Cole, both learned piano and guitar from scratch, and it was important to them not to use substitutes. “I’m so happy to be able to say it was all me,” Bright said, reiterating that what started out as her biggest fear ended up being her favorite part of making the show.

The season will feature seven songs in total, four of which are originals developed by the show’s music team with songwriter Amy Allen, who has penned hits for Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles and more.

To get inside Hannah’s head, Bright created a playlist immediately after getting the role. Olivia Rodrigo’s “Scared of My Guitar” was an early inspiration, and Ethel Caine’s “Sun Bleached Flies” was found deep in filming, when the story moved into more emotional territory. “I really think there’s a quiet strength to that song by Hannah,” she says. “I felt really connected.” Later, she started using Pinterest boards and delving into books. She read “The Deal” in one day after winning the role, having only skimmed it during the audition process. Since then, she’s read “The Score” and “The Mistake,” but by her own admission, she’s superstitious about reading ahead. She says she plans to read the next book if she gets the green light for the next season. Season 2 has already been decided, and that’s what causes the “mistake.” We’re assuming, of course, that the show follows the order of the books, but we’re told she also reads “The Score.” It’s possible that season 3 is already in production.

Meanwhile, Bright clearly spoke about her favorite couple in the series. She exclaims that Dean and Allie are “so cool and exciting” and can’t wait to see their story unfold on screen. “Their relationship is unparalleled,” she added. “I’m so excited, but Hannah and Garrett hold a special place in my heart.”

The cast around her is, from all evidence, really close. She and Mika Abdallah, who plays Hannah’s best friend Allie Haze, lived in the same apartment complex during filming and were rarely apart. “She’s like a big sister to me,” Bright says. Huston was someone she recognized from his work on the Australian series Heartbreak High before they met, and their first meeting outside the hotel lobby was somewhat tense.

To build intimacy across the “off-campus” ensemble, the principal cast drove to Whistler for a long weekend early in production. We didn’t set any itineraries or plans, we just rented a big house and played an impromptu game of hide and seek. “We all come from really different worlds, and we all have really cool, great stories,” Bright says. The cast then spent nearly every weekend together during filming, and she believes that ease was reflected on screen. “We really liked spending time with each other,” she says. “And it happened to be filmed. It’s really amazing.”

The show taps into a market that has seen an unexpected rise in hockey romance over the past year. “Heat Rivalry,” the Crave adaptation that became a cultural phenomenon on HBO Max, brought a ton of new viewers to the genre and turned its protagonist into a celebrity almost overnight. Bright binge-watched it and was hooked like everyone else. Some members of the “Off Campus” cast were together in Los Angeles at the height of the craze in January, and some of them were energized by watching what was happening in real time and some were a little dazed. They pass “Rivals” star Connor Story at a party, briefly compare notes, and get the feeling they’re standing on some kind of precipice. “I think the world is ready for a lot of ice hockey right now,” Bright says. “It’s really cool.”

Even though the show hasn’t been released yet, Bright is already starting to understand what that kind of attention feels like up close. Within hours of the casting announcement, a stranger noticed her on the London Underground. She remembers the encounter as very enjoyable. He gave me a high five, said, “Good luck, you’re going to be great,” and left. She remembers standing there, a little speechless, while her friends, who were watching the encounter unfold, simultaneously came to the same thought. “What did you just sign, little girl?” their expressions said.

This is a question that Bright, to some extent, remains unanswered. Her plan is to stay mostly offline, rely on her cast mates, and resist the temptation of any post-premiere discourse. “This is kind of a new experience for all of us,” she says. “It’s been really crazy to be on the trajectory of that conversation. It’s been such a strange experience, but it’s been a really great support group.” Production on season two is scheduled to begin immediately after the press tour concludes, leaving Bright with little time to work on his next installment and having to go back and produce more. Overall, she seems to fully agree with that.

“I never imagined I would get a role like this,” Bright says. “It was like a dream. And I just couldn’t believe it happened to me.”