Best known for her roles as Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical film series, Ashley Tisdale is an accomplished actress, singer and producer. At the film's press day, the 24-year-old talked about how she just wants to keep creating projects, in all areas of her career.

Q: This is a very different kind of movie for you. What was the attraction of it?

Ashley: Yeah, I read the script and I thought that, obviously, it was in the same audience as the other movies that I come from. It's a family movie and I thought it was really great for my audience. I was hesitant about doing it, at first. They asked me to do the movie and I was just like, "I don't know." I really wanted to know what the aliens were going to look like and I wanted to know who was starring in the movie. If the character of my younger brother was younger than he is now, it would have been a really young movie.

And, when they told me Carter Jenkins signed on, I loved him in a show called Surface on NBC, and I was super excited. I think he's a great actor, so I signed onto it and it was an honor. Barry Josephson has produced Enchanted and Men in Black, so I knew the CGI would be a piece of cake with him because he's really good at that. But, it's different from the musical movies. It's an action comedy, and it had a great cast, with Doris Roberts, Kevin Nealon and Andy Richter. I've learned so much from them. So, it was all of that together that made me want to do it.

Q: How was it to react to all the special effects? Was that intimidating or challenging?

Ashley: I'm never intimidated by that stuff. Stuff that I'm attracted to is always challenging, just because I like to challenge myself and see what I've accomplished. But, the CGI I was just going to be like, "How is this going to work? Are we doing green screen?," and we didn't really do green screen. Usually, where we were filming, we had a green screen, but we also had a beanbag doll that was the alien, that just moved around and you react off of it.

There were some times where I was nervous, just because I was only there for five weeks. I had to come back to the States for High School Musical 3, while they were there for six months. And, because they're all younger, at a certain time, they were not allowed to work, while I would be there, at 2 o'clock in the morning, reacting off of the Doris Roberts and Robert Hoffman fight. So, that made me nervous, but I saw the movie and I think it came together really well.

Q: Were you jealous the boys got to do more with the aliens than you did?

Ashley: No, because I had to deal with Robert, the entire time. They were jealous. I had a lot of fun. I knew, going into this project, what my character was. She's the older sister. Actually, it was a much smaller part until I signed onto it. They actually made it a lot bigger. I went in and I did it, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I had a great time with the cast, and my action scene, at the very end, was very tasteful.

Q: Your character actually tells off her boyfriend because he bad-mouths her family. How important is it to you that your family likes someone that you date?

Ashley: I can't date anybody, unless I bring them home to meet my dad first. They're very over-protective parents. I do like that part in the movie, where Bethany sees his true colors and sticks up for her family, and I think that I'm someone who always wants my parents to be really proud of me. I tend to want them to approve of people that I'm with.

Q: Since you were there for such a short time, did you get to see any of Auckland, New Zealand?

Ashley: Yeah, every weekend we were going to a different island and a different beach. The whole cast would hang out, all the time, so it was definitely a lot of fun, even though, in those five weeks, I worked every single day. I was just like, "Whoa, I thought I was just co-starring in this movie." But, how it looks is cool because it looks like I'm there the entire time and I really wasn't, which is awesome.

Q: What was the most fun thing that you did down there?

Ashley: Actually, there's a band called Goodnight Nurse out there, that I fell in love with. They are with my record label, Warner Bros., so it was just really lucky that they were performing the weekend before I was leaving. The whole cast all went down there and we got to see them perform and meet them. It was an outside concert, so it was really cool.

Q: How are you able to balance your music with your acting?

Ashley: Balancing it is not a challenge. The challenge is people taking me seriously for my music. Obviously, they're two separate things to me. I grew up on Broadway and did musical theatre, my whole life. Music has always been something that's been a part of my life. I'm very creative and co-write my music. My second album, Guilty Pleasure, which came out on July 28th, is who I am.

Q: How so?

Ashley: There are a lot of break-up songs. With the first album, I was just getting to know what I was like, as an artist. With the second one, Warner Bros. Records let me be very creative, so I got to take control over it and it's very personal to me. I was not trying to make it personal, but it turned out to be personal, and everything behind the album is all my idea. That makes you a little bit vulnerable, obviously.

Q: You wrote most of the songs on this album?

Ashley: I co-wrote four of the songs on the album.

Q: Why did you decide to call it Guilty Pleasure?

Ashley: Because I'm hoping to be your guilty pleasure.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure?

Ashley: My guilty pleasure would probably be coffee and designer handbags. That's a guilty pleasure of mine.

Q: Did you have any fears about what was up in the attic, when you were a kid?

Ashley: I didn't have an attic. I had a basement because I grew up in New Jersey, when I was younger. I thought Chucky was down there because my friend, at 7 or 8 years old, told me, "Let's watch Child's Play," and I thought it was like a doll movie. After watching that, I was so scared, so I wouldn't go down in the basement because I thought maybe he was roaming around down there. And, for a girl who had many dolls, it really freaked me out.

Q: Do you think you've seen the last of the High School Musical franchise?

Ashley: There will be a High School Musical 4. They're continuing the franchise, but we're just not a part of it. They're doing it with a whole new cast. The movies bring a lot of positive excitement to kids, and I think that it's really great to keep going with it, for sure. Obviously, we had a great time doing it.

Q: It seems the actors from High School Musical haven't had any problem doing different things. Were you ever worried about that?

Ashley: I think that, when we were doing the concert for High School Musical, we thought maybe we could get stuck as those characters, just because we were doing three movies and then the concert tours, but we didn't. It's pretty cool. It's fun that we get to do other things, and we're very supportive of each other. We're all moving on from the project. It was a lot of fun, though. That cast is like my family, so it was sad to say goodbye to it, but we were graduated high school.

Q: Are you going to do more family movies, or do you want to break out and do something a bit more adult now?

Ashley: I'm not trying to run away from my audience, but I'm getting older. I'm 24, but I will play young in movies, for a long time.

Q: Are you going to do Teen Witch? Will that be your next film?

Ashley: No it's not. They still have to write it. It's in the writing process.

Q: So, what's next for you then?

Ashley: I'm looking at other projects, right now. I haven't made my decision yet, but a lot of the scripts are teen-audience movies, compared to just family movies. I definitely want to grow with my career, but I'm not going to run away and do something completely different and scare my audience.

Q: If you had to choose which area you would like to pursue in your career, what would you do?

Ashley: I'm a very creative person and I'm a workaholic, so I like to do a lot of things and I like to keep busy. I want to have a really long career. I love acting. That's one of my passions, and so is music. Producing is different for me, but I do come up with ideas that I'd like to either watch or do as movies, and not just even stuff that I would be in. I come up with these ideas and I get together with my producing partner and we get to create it. It's a different experience for me than I've ever had before, but it's a lot of fun. I hope to be producing TV shows and movies, one day. Right now, I have a reality show that E! is looking at. I can't really talk about it yet because it's not picked up, but it's definitely something that's fun. It's not a reality show with me in it, though. It's a dating show.

Q: Your song "Switch" appears on the soundtrack for this film. Is that something you wrote specifically for this film, or did they just ask you to contribute a song?

Ashley: I didn't write "Switch." When I was recording my album, even though I didn't write a song, it didn't mean that I didn't talk to the producers about what I wanted, or picked out the song because there's a reason behind it. So, "Switch" just felt perfect for the movie. It's exactly what I pictured for the movie, and they really wanted me to do a song for it. It was perfect.

Q: What are some of your favorite alien movies?

Ashley: I love Close Encounters and E.T. Signs is a scary one. That freaked me out. I'm a big fan of alien movies.

Q: Do you get easily scared at scary movies?

Ashley: I do. I can't go watch scary movies because, living on your own, it kind of freaks you out. So, I tend to just watch comedies. As an actress, you think I would understand, but I have a big imagination.

Q: Do you think we underestimate kids?

Ashley: I've always been very driven, at a young age. My mom taught me that. I've never really had a role model that was a celebrity. I always looked up to my mom, just because she's a very confident person. She always taught me to believe and not to quit and to keep going for my dreams. At a young age, I did not know I'd be where I am today. I was doing commercials and modeling, but I always dreamt of doing movies and TV shows. I think that, with hard work and drive, you'll definitely get there. Even though I've been in the business for so long and I've had a lot of success with the High School Musical movies, I still feel that my career has just begun. For me, there's a lot more that I want to. I want to keep learning about my craft and keep going.

Q: At some point, there's a time where it goes from just being fun to being a profession. What was that time for you?

Ashley: Probably when somebody decided to give me a production company. Then, I knew that they took me really seriously. Disney actually came to me to produce a TV show for them. I go with my instincts on stuff. Nobody knows what movies are going to work and be successful. Nobody even thought that High School Musical was going to be as huge as it was. But, you can definitely feel it. In the first High School Musical, when we were doing "We're All in This Together," there was something in the air that you just felt. And, it was the same with the second and third one. So, I've always followed my heart and instincts, and I just go with that.

Q: Is it important to not take yourself so seriously, given the business that you're in?

Ashley: Yeah, but there are a lot of actors that do take themselves seriously. I'm just someone who I would hope is very grounded. My parents have kept me grounded, and I've had a very normal life, even though I have been in the business since I was 3. I went to regular high school, my whole life, and I worked in clothing stores growing up, besides being in this business, so I just think, "Don't sweat the small stuff." I'm someone who just likes to laugh at things. If I look weird in an interview, I just laugh at myself, instead of thinking, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe this." It's like, "Whatever!" It's just funny to me.

Q: You're a role model for a lot of girls. What message do you have for teenagers?

Ashley: For all the kids out there, especially all the girls, don't ever limit yourself. If you want to be an actress, or anything that you want to do, with hard work, you'll definitely get there, but you have to know that it's not going to come easy. For some people, it does come easy, but those people take it for granted, in the long run. Even though I'm really blessed in where I am today, it's definitely been hard work. I really had to prove myself to people. You have to keep going, no matter what, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

Q: Will you be touring with your album?

Ashley: Yeah, I hope to. It just depends on scheduling, with other movies and stuff. I'll probably go to Europe first because the album was released there first, and then probably do some shows around the U.S.

Q: Did you decide to go darker with your hair for a role, or did you just want a change?

Ashley: Bethany was actually a weird, different color. I went right back to platinum blond, after this movie, for Sharpay. For every character, I visualize them a different way, but this is my original hair color. Now that I'm not at Disney anymore, I just wanted to go back to the dark hair for a while.

Q: What bonds your family, in real life?

Ashley: We like to laugh a lot, in my family, and we joke around and stuff. Me and my dad are a lot alike. I'm very outdoors. I like to be at the beach and in tropical areas. I like to fish, and my dad likes to fish. I have an older sister and, usually, my sister and my mom will go shopping while we go fishing. You'd think that I would go shopping with them, but fishing is relaxing for me. My family is really close, so anything that we do, we're always having a fun time.

Q: You did a guest spot on Suite Life on Deck. Any plans to reprise that role?

Ashley: No. That was fun, to go back for an episode as Maddie, but I've been really crazy busy since then, so I really haven't had time. I'm still crazy busy. I see the cast, all the time. Brenda Song comes over, and we go out to dinner with the boys a lot, so it's really cool

Q: Would you like to do more stage musicals, in the future?

Ashley: I did plays, growing up. I did Les Miserables on the national tour, when I was 8. Maybe one day, I'll go back to it, but I want to do more movies just because I haven't really grasped its.

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC opens in theaters July 31st.

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