Welcome to Teenlionaire @teenlionaire and we really appreciate you joining us today, the beautiful 15-year-old Lilia Buckingham @lilia who is already making Los Angeles proud with her roles in several popular TV series, such as Chicken Girls and Total Eclipse… She has produced her own project titled “Cidiots,” which features her as an actress and will be out very soon… She created a charity at just 14—wow!—and has almost 1million followers on Instagram… Lilia, give us a gist of how you turned your acting hobby into a career.
Well I’ve loved acting since I was a little girl, and I always knew I wanted to be in the industry when I was older, whether it was acting, directing, writing, or producing. My mom, who is my biggest supporter, helped me get an agent and from there I booked Total Eclipse! I get to go on all these incredible auditions and I feel so lucky to even have these opportunities.
Hmm… Cidiots, city idiots, huh?… What is the project all about? What should we be expecting? I, for one, like to see you as the bad guy—or bad girl—this time.
Cidiots is basically a story about a girl who has lived in NYC her whole life, and used to travel out to the Hamptons every summer. Kids who have grown up in the Hamptons used to call city kids cidiots, so when she is forced to move out to the Hamptons, you see how the Hamptons kids react. It’s your “new girl” story with a twist. Sadly the baddest I’ll get is my character on Chicken Girls and Total Eclipse, but I would love to do a role where I was totally crazy.
Interesting… In addition to acting, what else can you do all day long without getting bored? Of course, we don’t expect you to act for 24 hours…or, can you?
I love reading, it’s one of my favorite things. I will read for hours and hours, and when I get bored with reading, I write! I love creating my own little universes, and reading and writing are good escapes from the outside world.
Wow… You are affiliated with the MNR Dance Factory… You have had cameos on popular TV series Modern Family and Good Morning America… You are on Dirt, Total Eclipse and Chicken Girls… Should we be expecting you on another Modern Family episode anytime soon?
Who knows, maybe I’ll get an audition and my acting career will come full circle! The cast was so sweet, and the craft services was great!
Hmm… I heard you also go to school. Don’t you think that’s just too much for you to handle at once? Acting, writing, dancing, going to school, and still being beautiful and awesome…
It is quite a lot. Sometimes I get really stressed out, because I feel like I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do. But I have such amazing friends at school who keep me humble, and my school truly has incredible academics. School is so important, and without it I wouldn’t be able to act or write the way I do!!
So, you co-founded a charity with a number of celebrity friends… That’s quite impressive for a girl your age… Tell me how you guys created the charity—and how would you say the progress has been so far?
My best friend Maddie @maddieziegler and I were talking about how often we and our other friends with big followings get bullied on social media. And because we have platforms, we wanted to utilize them in the best way possible. We’ve created a curriculum on how to use social media responsibly and we are always trying to lift up others! Its hard to get all of the cofounders together in one place because of our incredibly busy schedules, but we are working on a new project for positively social now!
Before you go, would you like giving us a taste of your upcoming book?
Its about a conspiracy surrounding an abandoned military base in the Hamptons called Camp Hero. It’s told from two perspectives, a girl who goes to the Hamptons every summer and her brother has recently gone missing, and a boy who has been obsessed with the conspiracy ever since his mom left! And of course, their stories intertwine…
Last, a beauty tip from Lilia Buckingham?
Simple is always enough. I usually just wear a bit of eyebrow gel and mascara!
