Former Disney starlet Bella Thorne is playing a heroin addicted suburbanite in an upcoming Lifetime movie, “Perfect High.”
The actress plays Amanda, a high school dancer who starts using prescription painkillers after being sidelined by a knee injury and eventually falls in with the wrong crowd, which includes Israel Broussard (“The Bling Ring”), Daniela Bobadilla (“Anger Management”) and Ross Butler (“Teen Beach Movie”). Thorne’s character is eventually tricked into doing heroin disguised as cheap pain killers and addiction ensues.
Tina Pehme and Kim C. Roberts of Vancouver-based Sepia Films and Sheri Singe of LA-based Just Singer Entertainment are executive producing the film, which went into production on Feb. 1 . Vanessa Parise (“Jack and Jill vs. the World,” “Kiss the Bride”) is directing the film, which Anne-Marie Hess has written.
As TheWrap exclusively reported, Thorne plays Mae Whitman’s antagonist in CBS Films’ upcoming teen comedy “The Duff.” Thorne is also currently in production on the upcoming MTV pilot “Scream” — where’s she will play Drew Barrymore‘s character from the film — and has finished shooting a horror flick, “Amityville: The Awakening.”
Despite her recent push for darker and more mature roles, of which “Perfect High” will certainly be one, Thorne remains best known for her work with Disney, including starring as CeCe Jones on 75 episodes of “Shake It Up!,” which wrapped in 2013. She also worked with Disney Studios on the adaptation of the popular children’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”
WME, LBI Entertainment and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof and Fishman represent Thorne.
Here is one of the first images from the production:
