JoJo Siwa and Nickelodeon are re-teaming for their most ambitious collaboration yet: a musical movie about the 17-year-old singer’s life.
“So I, right now, am in Vancouver, Canada. And I’m so excited, me and my friends at Nickelodeon, we are making a musical and I am so pumped up about it,” Siwa told Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.” “This musical is centered around my life, and also centered around being yourself and centered around staying true to who you are. And even when the world is telling you, ‘It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen,’ you are believing, because you’re you. And that’s what this movie is all about.”
According to Nickelodeon and studio Awesomeness, “The 90-minute feature-length film follows a young girl who is kicked out of her dance troupe and forced to rediscover what dance and friendship mean to her while finding her true ‘sparkle’ in the process.”
Siwa told Fallon that she’s particularly happy about the music for the movie, which is titled “The J-Team.”
“I have worked so hard on this soundtrack,” the “Boomerang” singer said. “There’s six original songs on the soundtrack, and then two of my old songs. But one of them is like a full remix and it’s so much fun. But from the six original songs, I created 27 to narrow it down to six. So it’s been a process, but it’s been so much fun. Now that we’re actually here, it’s happening. We’ve been in quarantine, in rehearsals. We have an incredible director, we have an incredible writer, obviously, my friends at Nickelodeon, it’s– ah, I’m so excited!”
Along with Siwa, “The J Team” stars Tisha Campbell-Martin, Laura Soltis, Julia Marley, Kerrynton Jones and Kiara T. Romero.
“The J Team” follows a young girl named JoJo (Siwa) whose life is turned upside down when her beloved dance coach Val (Soltis) decides to retire and is replaced by a sparkle-hating instructor named Poppy (Campbell-Martin). Wanting to stay in the running for an upcoming dance competition, JoJo and her best friends, The Rubies (Jones, Romero), must try their hardest to abide by Poppy’s new, harsh rules. Realizing she cannot hide her sparkle or bow anymore, JoJo is kicked out of her dance troupe and must rediscover what dancing means to her.
The movie is directed by Michael Lembeck, written by Eydie Faye and produced by Ron French. Don Dunn is an executive producer.
Siwa also spoke with Fallon about her recent decision to come out as part of the LGBTQ community to her millions of followers via social media, which she said was a move encouraged by her girlfriend.
“My thing with ‘coming out’ is it can be a very scary thing,” Siwa said. “Of course not everybody in the world is going to accept it right now, but there are so many people who are going to accept it right now. And I say, even if there’s a million people, say there’s a million people, that’s a lot of people, that don’t accept it, there’s 100 million that do. And I think that’s something really important, 100 million is a lot of people. So I always keep that in mind.”
Watch Siwa’s interview with Fallon via the video above.