Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Hannah Montana: Cast Photo

Hannah Montana aired from March 2006-? on The Disney Channel

Country star Billy Ray Cyrus, best known for his monster 1992 hit "Achy Breaky Heart," played a sitcom dad to his own daughter Miley in this sunny Disney tween comedy. Miley Stewart ( Miley Cyrus) was an energetic eighth grader at Seaview Middle School in Malibu, California, who led a secret life as pop sensation Hannah Montana.When classes were over she donned a blond wig and was swept into a world of limos, celebrities and huge concerts ( talk about a teen fantasy!). Incredibly nobody knew her secret except for widower dad Robbie ( Billy Ray Cyrus), who was her manager and songwriter ( his disguise on the road was a simple mustache), big brother Jackson ( Jason Earles), who was more interested in scams and girls, and her two best friends , hyperactive Lilly ( Emily Osment) and dorky Oliver ( Mitchel Musso). Stories were filled with school rivalries and crushes, interspersed with concert footage of Hannah. Dad, it was revealed , had once been a popular singer too( wink wink).

Disney used the popular series to launch a real music career for young Miley. Her first album, a soundtrack of songs from the series ( on the Disney label, natch)went to number one on the billboard charts in the fall of 2006.

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

TV Review
Hannah Montana

C+ By Gillian Flynn

Turns out Saved by the Bell was subtle! Father-daughter team Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus star as a dad and daughter, but stop those achy-breaky hearts midflutter — Hannah Montana is Miley's show. She plays a normal California tween whose alter ego is famous pop star Hannah Montana (a distant relation, one assumes, to Amelia Bedelia). Cyrus the Elder has an easy touch amid all the screeching, squealing, and lessons quickly learned. Each of the kids is fine, especially Emily Osment (Haley Joel's sister) as Miley's wacky best friend, Lilly — a sort of Kimmy Gibbler redux.

An Article from The New York Times

Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: A Tale of Two Tweens

By JACQUES STEINBERG
Published: April 20, 2006

The moment that 13-year-old Miley Cyrus knew for sure that her life had taken a surreal turn happened just a few weeks ago, when her 6-year-old sister, Noah, sheepishly told her that she had entered a contest on the Disney Channel Web site to win backstage passes to a concert featuring the network's newest star. It was Miley.

"You live with me!" Miley said she told her sister, before issuing a warning: don't even think about swiping anything from my bedroom to sell on eBay.

It sounded like something that might happen to Hannah Montana, the character Miley plays on the new hit Disney series of the same name. The half-hour sitcom is about a 14-year-old girl (named Miley Stewart), regarded by many of her middle-school peers as an outcast geek, who has a secret identity by night as the pop sensation Hannah Montana. (Imagine Britney Spears, only more chaste.)

The series' premiere episode received an enormous boost on its opening night, March 24, by being packaged as the lead-in to an encore showing of the movie "High School Musical," the most-watched film in the 23-year history of Disney Channel. That night, with Corbin Bleu (Chad) of "High School Musical" as a guest star, "Hannah" attracted 5.4 million viewers. Since then, in its regular time slot (Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern time), the show has drawn an average of more than 3.5 million viewers, most of them 6 to 14, making it the most popular show among so-called tweens on basic cable television nearly every week it has run.

Little wonder that Disney has already asked the producers of "Hannah," who include two veterans of the sitcom "Murphy Brown," to add 6 episodes to the 20 that were already scheduled for the first season. Believing that "Hannah" could also serve as a marketing platform akin to "Lizzie McGuire," the Disney Channel series that catapulted Hilary Duff to stardom and that spawned a cottage industry, Disney is also planning a "Hannah" soundtrack album, to be released in the fall, a Miley Cyrus album for early next year and, in all likelihood, a line of accessories that would probably include "Hannah" clothing.

Miley — who was born Destiny Hope Cyrus, but who has long preferred her nickname (Smiley Miley) — beat out more than 1,000 aspirants for the coveted role of Hannah, though she had little dramatic experience beyond some acting lessons and scattered roles in school plays in her native Nashville.

What ultimately won her the job, the producers and network executives say, was her cool confidence (a quality that stopped well short of cockiness), her intuitive comic timing (which seemed, at least to the older adults, evocative of what a teenage Lucille Ball might have been like) and a husky singing voice not unlike Mary Chapin Carpenter's. In the bargain, Miley, who sings the show's theme song, was able to infuse Hannah with a real-life sense of the joys and perils of superstardom.

Miley is one of five children of Billy Ray Cyrus, who became known in the early 1990's for the foot-stomping anthem "Achy Breaky Heart" and who, until recently, could be seen in the United States and more than 40 other countries in original episodes of a drama called "Doc," a show about a country physician who relocates to New York City. That series, on PAX, enabled Mr. Cyrus to parlay his "Achy Breaky" exposure into an improbable career as an international TV star, in much the way David Hasselhoff used his fame as an American TV star to become a pop singer abroad. (Attentive viewers of the 2001 David Lynch film "Mulholland Drive" may have also noticed Mr. Cyrus in the bit part of Gene, the pool man.)

Mr. Cyrus, 44, has a role on "Hannah," too. He plays Miley's father, Robbie, but he was asked to audition only after his daughter landed her part. And when he was offered the role, he says, he wasn't sure whether he should take it.

"I didn't know if I was right for her dad," he said, seriously, as he strummed an acoustic guitar in a cavernous dressing room on the show's Hollywood soundstage, where he and Miley occupy adjoining alcoves, separated by a frilly curtain (hers). "The last thing I would want to do is screw up Miley's show."

Mindful that Miley is working alongside her father at an age when she might be craving a little less togetherness, Mr. Cyrus said he had been careful to give his daughter lots of space. He has, he said, made a point of biting his tongue hard to avoid giving her any unsolicited acting advice.

"I never say, 'I'd do it like that,' " he said, before adding that Miley was far more likely to tell him, "It might be funny if you do it that way."

Of working so closely with her famous father, Miley said: "At the beginning it was a little bit weird. We'd get into little arguments."

"Now," she added, "it's really good."

To devote themselves full-time to the production of "Hannah," on which Miley, a seventh grader, is tutored on the set, Mr. Cyrus and his wife, Tish, moved her and her four siblings to Los Angeles from Nashville. She reluctantly left behind her family's seven horses, as well as a number of good friends.

Young viewers will be pleased to know that she has helped fill that void by befriending two co-stars — Emily Osment and Mitchel Musso, both 14 — who also play her best friends, Lilly and Oliver, on the show. At least early in the series, Lilly and Oliver are the only schoolmates whom the fictional Miley trusts with the secret that she is really Hannah.

In real life, Emily, Mitchel and Miley say they are constantly sending each other text messages offstage and gathering, at least electronically, in the evening for three-way conference calls in which they talk like the teenagers they are.

The message underlying "Hannah" — one meant to strike a chord with parents, as well as with their children — is that celebrity is not to be confused with real life, and that happiness comes when one stays true to oneself. Thus, the on-screen Miley is constantly faced with the temptation to reveal her alternate, bewigged identity to her schoolmates, who pay her little mind but have Hannah pictures plastered inside their lockers.

The real-life Miley still has to make her bed and clean up her room at home. In her father, Miley says, she has a role model as grounded as a daughter (and teenage star) could have. A thoughtful man who is readily self-deprecating, Mr. Cyrus has, for example, written a tongue-in-cheek song for a forthcoming album that tries to turn jokes about his 1990's hairstyle back on his critics. Its title: "I Want My Mullet Back."

On more occasions than she could possibly count, Miley says, she has also watched her father get button-holed for autographs during meals out, and, however much he might have been inconvenienced, watched him sign his name with a smile.

"He'll say: 'These are people supporting you. Be good to them,' " Miley said.

Which is not to say that the real-life Miley has grown comfortable with the notion of being recognized in malls, among many other places.

"I have always been known as Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter," she said. "Now they say my name. I freak out!'

An Article from The New York Times

Arts, Briefly
‘Hannah’ CD Beats Kelly
By BEN SISARIO
Published: July 5, 2007

The newest “Hannah Montana” soundtrack beat Kelly Clarkson for the top spot on the Billboard chart this week. “Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus” (Disney) sold 326,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This two-disc set is split between music from the popular television show and what is presented as the debut solo album by its 14-year-old star, Miley Cyrus, above, who on the show plays a girl with a secret alter ego as a pop singer. Ms. Clarkson’s “My December,” the subject of wide interest in the news media because of reports of a conflict between the singer and her record label, RCA, sold 291,000. Bon Jovi’s “Lost Highway” (Island Mercury Nashville), last week’s No. 1, fell two spots with 125,000 sales, and “Easy Tiger” (Lost Highway), the critically acclaimed new album by the alt-country singer Ryan Adams, opened at No. 7 with 61,000.

An Article from The New York Times

December 31, 2007
Music Review | 'Best of Both Worlds'
3 Girls for the Price of One (if You Could Get a Ticket)
By KELEFA SANNEH

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — The preteen concert of the year had arrived on Long Island. T-shirts were selling like crazy at $30. Thousands of lucky girls (along with a handful of boys, some of whom had probably sworn their sisters to secrecy) were ready to scream at the top of their lungs. And at least one young fan had some questions about what she was seeing.

For starters: What if it splashes? And how do you flush?

You never forget your first concert, or your first urinal. And here at the Nassau Coliseum on Friday night, where some men’s rooms had been turned into emergency women’s rooms, at least a few girls saw both.

This was the second Long Island date of the Best of Both Worlds Tour starring Miley Cyrus, who plays both Miley Stewart and her rock-star alter ego Hannah Montana on Disney’s “Hannah Montana.” (The sitcom is, in part, an examination of the pleasures and pitfalls of multiple identity; in an era of proliferating screen names and virtual cliques, that seems like a timely subject.)

The concert had been preceded by a thunderous buildup. Tickets disappeared immediately, outraging fan-club members and turning eager parents into desperate ones. And in a brilliant and shameless response to all the excitement, the Nassau Coliseum was opened on Boxing Day, one day before the first concert, for the sole purpose of selling Miley Cyrus merchandise to ticketless fans.

After that much commotion, Friday’s concert was almost guaranteed to feel like a letdown. Yet somehow it didn’t. The show was terrific: a two-hour sugar rush and one long challenge to fans, who had to keep up with Ms. Cyrus’s hectic pace. Some of the youngest ones weren’t quite up to the task. By 9 p.m., as the night was winding down, small bodies were being plucked from their valuable seats and carried, unresponsive, up the stairs and out into the parking lot.

Onstage as on television Ms. Cyrus, who turned 15 last month, comes across as a hard-working, sweet-natured troublemaker. There’s something slightly disruptive about her bright smile, accented by round cheeks that gleam like an extra pair of eyes. And she brings a welcome hint of chaos to everything she does. (Viewers looking for more insight might want to sample “Billy Ray Cyrus: Home at Last,” an uncomfortable reality series on CMT starring her father, the country singer and “Hannah Montana” co-star. Mr. Cyrus seems eager to remind viewers about his famous daughter, though she’s mainly off camera; after a while it starts to seem as if he’s name-dropping.)

She started the show as Hannah Montana, resplendent in a blond wig and outfits that changed every few songs. “Old Blue Jeans” has banal lyrics about being a “real,” regular girl (a reaction, perhaps, to the triple burden of being Miley-Miley-Hannah), but when she sang, “I’m gonna put on my old blue jeans/Gonna walk out of here into the street,” she sounded as if she were looking for a fight. And a song from the 2006 “Hannah Montana” soundtrack reduces her appeal to a pithy three-word slogan: “I Got Nerve.”

In June she released “Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus” (Walt Disney/Hollywood), a double album designed to show off her split personality. The Miley songs have a bit more bite, and she emerged as Miley for the second half of her show, with a black-leather biker vest on her back and chains around her waist. During “Start All Over” she kicked over the mic stand and banged her head; it worked because she seemed more giddy than angry.

Ms. Cyrus is a likable singer, happy to yell some words for emphasis and willing to rely on her backups when she’s out of breath. And the best Miley Cyrus songs give her nervy music to match her persona. She shone during “See You Again,” a zippy new-wave crush song written with and produced by Antonina Armato and Tim James, the deft duo that has helped define the sound of Disney pop. (You can also hear their work on “High School Musical 2,” and on the fizzy recent CD from Aly & AJ.)

Skeptics can find all that’s lovable about Ms. Cyrus in “East Northumberland High,” which might be her best song so far. It’s a pop-punk kiss-off, building to a pitch-perfect expression of teenage disdain: “You’re my type of guy, I guess —/if I were stuck at East Northumberland High for the rest/of my life. But people change, thank God I did.” The song also hints at the terrifying inconstancy of high school relationships. “Just because I liked you back then/Doesn’t mean I like you now,” she sings, which seems fair enough — unless, of course, you happen to be the “you.”

Those lyrics echo the TV show, which has documented the strained friendship between Miley Stewart and her kinda-sorta-ex, Jake Ryan. And some fans were probably also wondering whether the lyrics echoed Ms. Cyrus’s real life. Online, fans are trying to figure out whether she has broken up with Nick Jonas, whom she may or may not have been dating.

As it happens, Mr. Jonas is a member of the Jonas Brothers, the pop-punk trio that serves as Ms. Cyrus’s opening act. (Wait. Is Nick the one she pretended to slap after an onstage collision during “We Got the Party,” which she sang with them?) On Friday night the brothers earned plenty of screams and — maybe more important — sold plenty of merchandise, all the while looking slightly bewildered. They are three young men, ages 15 to 20, and that alone might have made them unique in this arena on this night.

Suffice it to say that Ms. Cyrus didn’t mention the raging Jonas controversy during her performance, which was mainly conceived as a G.N.O. — that’s Miley-speak for girls’ night out. Even with that leather vest Ms. Cyrus is a clean-cut figure, evoking nothing more sordid than playful mischief.

Which is exactly the point. To millions of parents unnerved by the spectacle of the Spears family, and to millions of girls still figuring out how they feel about boys, Ms. Cyrus’s defiant spirit is the key to her success. Running around the stage, flashing that mischievous smile, shaking her hair, she often seems to be delivering the same mildly rebellious but ultimately reassuring message: “No way!”

Imagine how interesting things might get when she starts saying yes.

An Article from The New York Times

Revealing Photo Threatens a Major Disney Franchise

By BROOKS BARNES
Published: April 28, 2008
Correction Appended

LOS ANGELES — Fifteen years old and suggestively wrapped in what appears to be a satin bedsheet in the June issue of Vanity Fair. Did Miley Cyrus, with the help of a controversy-courting magazine, just deliver a blow to the Walt Disney Company’s billion-dollar “Hannah Montana” franchise?

Some parents reacted with outrage over the weekend when the television program “Entertainment Tonight” began showing commercials promoting a scoop: Ms. Cyrus, the star of the wholesome Disney Channel blockbuster “Hannah Montana,” had posed topless, albeit with her chest covered, for the Vanity Fair photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

Screen grabs of the photo quickly popped up online, sparking a blogosphere debate. “Bonfire anyone?” wrote Lin Burress on her marriage and parenting blog, Telling It Like It Is, referring to the mountain of Hannah Montana retail items — makeup, shoes, clothes — in the marketplace. “Parents should be extremely concerned,” Ms. Burress said in an interview. “Very young girls look up to Miley Cyrus as a role model.”

It is doubtful that one photograph — especially one that is tame in the context of an Internet awash in nude photographs of other starlets — could dent the Hannah Montana machine, said several Wall Street analysts. Retail sales for the franchise are expected to total about $1 billion in 2008. A motion picture is in the works for 2009 and Ms. Cyrus signed a seven-figure book deal with the Disney Book Group last week.

But keeping a teenage entertainment franchise on track in an age when stars are monitored around the clock by bloggers and paparazzi is extremely difficult, even for a company with the experience of Disney. Executives are constantly battling to keep minor slipups from growing into full-blown controversies.

Last week, the public relations problem du jour was a green bra; photos online showing Ms. Cyrus pulling away her tank top to flash her underwear.

Ms. Cyrus and the “Hannah Montana” series have been championed as one of the few entertainment sanctuaries for children, complicating matters. Last month, Ms. Cyrus was chosen favorite television actress at Nickelodeon’s “Kids’ Choice Awards.”

More than 3 million viewers regularly watch “Hannah Montana,” most of them age 6 to 14.

Media outlets, in particular the rabid celebrity-focused tabloids, have been pushing to capture new angles of the ubiquitous Ms. Cyrus. After popping up everywhere from the Academy Awards to “American Idol” in recent months, the only photos of her that are assured of selling are controversial ones.

A Disney spokeswoman, Patti McTeague, faulted Vanity Fair for the photo. “Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines,” she said.

The article, written by Bruce Handy, seems to support that claim, quoting Ms. Cyrus as saying, “Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought it was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie.” She also said of the photo, “I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way.”

Ms. Cyrus had a different view in a prepared statement released on Sunday:

“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”

Beth Kseniak, a spokeswoman for both Vanity Fair magazine and Ms. Leibovitz said, “Miley’s parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley.”

At the very least, Ms. Cyrus and her advisers do not seem to be on the same page as Disney. The company learned of the photo only when “Entertainment Tonight” started showing its promos.

Last week, Gary Marsh, the president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, was quoted in Portfolio magazine saying, “For Miley Cyrus to be a ‘good girl’ is now a business decision for her. Parents have invested in her a godliness. If she violates that trust, she won’t get it back.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 29, 2008
A headline and an article on Monday about a Vanity Fair photograph showing the actress Miley Cyrus in a suggestive pose left the incorrect impression that she was bare-breasted. While the pose was indeed revealing, she was wrapped in what appeared to be a bedsheet; she was not topless.

For Myley Cyrus's Official Site go to http://www.mileycyrus.com/

For the Official Site of Billy Ray Cyrus go to http://www.billyraycyrus.com/

For a Website dedicated to Jason Earles go to http://jason-earles.info/

For a Website dedicated to Emily Osment go to http://www.emilyosment.us/

For another Emily Osment Website go to http://www.emilyosment.org/

For another Emily Osment Website go to http://www.forever-emily.com/

For a Website dedicated to Mitchel Musso go to http://mitchel-musso.org/