Former Disney star Amy Bruckner has been to the future. That's a fact. But even she probably couldn't have predicted the path she'd take after her sitcom days.
Bruckner, who starred as Pim Diffy in "Phil of the Future," recently told The Huffington Post that after her Disney days and some movie roles, she actually left acting for around six years, studied human rights and feminist theory at NYU and eventually went backpacking through Europe. There, she wound up at a bar in Germany called "The Sharon Stonewall" and had an epiphany while watching behind-the-scenes footage of a Pink concert -- acting was what she wanted to do. (Aka, your typical child actor story.) Now she's back, but don't be surprised if you don't recognize her.
Here's Bruckner as she appeared on Disney:
And here she is now:
The actress told HuffPost even people she knows can't really place her face nowadays. And she means for real, not like those times when you pretend you don't know someone from high school so you don't have to talk to them. (Walmart shoppers know what I'm talking about.)
"I do look a lot different than I did as a 13-year-old. I'm no longer perfectly spherical like I was on the show," the actress said. "I think that throws people off, but I mean people who knew me when I was a kid [in Los Angeles] don’t recognize me when I see them."
Despite that, Bruckner said she does still get some fans who make the connection from "weird things," like recognizing a "substantial" birthmark on her arm or hearing the sound of her voice, which Disney fans might be able to pick up on when she says stuff like this:
Ah, Pim. You'll never change.
Bruckner's Disney character wasn't a typical junior high kid. For one, she was known for her evil plots (which, yeah, sounds like a normal teenage girl, but stay with us). She also had an atypical upbringing full of futuristic gadgets and gizmos. Weirdly enough, however, the actress' real life may have been even stranger.
She called her high school experience in Georgia "surreal" and a bit of a "culture shock." Bruckner said, "I had come from LA, where all my friends were acting, a lot of my friends were much bigger stars than I was, and I had never thought of myself as being famous, which is a weird word to say. It was very strange."
Despite that, she said she did go on to make good friends and get a great education, adding, "But, yeah, it was pretty weird."
Perhaps the biggest bummer from her time in school (for us anyway) was that she never became principal for the day, like she did in "Phil of the Future," which just seems like a missed opportunity. What the heck, Georgia?
"They never made me principal for the day," said Bruckner. "But I do have some things from that episode ... I have a gigantic portrait that got painted of me. And, obviously, I was trying to get my high school to hang up that portrait because I'm super important," laughed Bruckner. "That’s all sarcastic," she added.
So what does the future actually hold for the actress? Bruckner said she has been back in the entertainment world for around a year and a half, has already appeared in the Lifetime movie "The Assault," and has other roles on her radar. Though acting is her main focus, she added that she has some other priorities, as well, listing them as, "Eating, sleeping and women's rights." (So pretty much your typical trifecta.)
Also, since her Disney character was from the 2100s, Bruckner shared a bit about what we can expect from the future, too. The actress said, "I think there's a lot of spray food, so it's easy to eat whatever you want. World hunger has ended. And there's no such thing as war anymore, and we live in this wonderland of equality."
Hey, sounds good to us ... unless this is just another of Pim's evil plots, which, to be honest, is probably the case ...
Image: Tumblr
Image: Tumblr
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