The year is 2007, Hannah Montana is airing its second season, and Madison Pettis is living out every eight-year-old’s dream as she guest stars on an episode of the hit Disney Channel series.
Pettis, now 27, found fame as a child actor who starred in the That’s So Raven spinoff Cory in the House as the President of the United States’ daughter, Sophie Martinez. In an era during which Disney Channel crossover episodes were well-regarded events, Pettis was given the opportunity to star in one of her own when she appeared as Sophie on a Season 2 episode of Hannah Montana, which followed Miley Cyrus‘ character as she lived a double life as a famous pop star.
“I was so excited,” Pettis told Decider while promoting her new Netflix film The Wrong Paris. “I mean, that was kind of my entire Disney Channel experience. I think I was one of the only people on the channel that was going home and watching it after working on it all day. Everyone else was a teenager and might have been watching older, cooler teenage programming. But I was living the dream.”
While the actress might have been a child at the time, she said Cyrus never made her feel excluded from the older kids while they were on set.
“She let me have lunch in her dressing room every day with her and Emily [Osment] and I got to play with her dog,” Pettis recalled. “I literally brought DVDs and CDs, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna need you to sign this one, this one.’ She was so sweet and did all of that.”
“She treated me like I was a cool eight-year-old,” she continued. “It was very big sisterly. She let me hang out and was always really nice to me. She was not like, ‘Oh, little girl.’ She treated me like I was one of her friends. And I always think back on that.”
With Cyrus recently teasing her plans to create “something really, really special” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hannah Montana next year, Pettis said she was all for it.
“Please! If she goes on tour or does even one show, I’m there,” she said. “I would love to hear her do those songs in her tone now. That would be literally my dream. I will be there.”
In the meantime, you can watch Pettis in The Wrong Paris, which is now streaming on Netflix.