Mika Abdalla is set to take the leading lady title in Off Campus season two, and she’s more than ready.
The 26-year-old actress has been in the industry for nearly 20 years — no, that’s not a typo. She’s spent nearly all her life in front of the camera in someway. At the age of six, she booked her first editorial gig for the cover of a local parents magazine after a casting call at her Dallas, Texas ,dentist’s office. “I’m an only child. My mom was essentially a stay-at-home mom, so I was super codependent,” Abdalla tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom.
It’s days before the actress’ 26th birthday, which happened to fall on the release date of Off Campus, and she’s curled up in her New York City hotel room. She and the rest of the cast jetted off to Brazil for a premiere screening there before heading to the Big Apple for a slew of release-week press. She pauses before we start to grab some snacks — she’s had no time to exist as a human with everything going on, she admits.
Abdalla always felt like she was more of an adult from childhood than others her age. Still, the actress admits her mother was “pulling her hair out” because Abdalla couldn’t come out of her shell. But that magazine cover changed everything for her and the path she was headed down.
“I got the job, somehow, and went to set. They put me in a pretty purple polka dot dress, put a little blush on me and curled my hair,” she says. “I was the center of attention for three hours, and thought, ‘This is awesome. Can I do this or the rest of my life?’”
Abdalla is preparing to film season two of Off Campus in Vancouver.
Photograhy by Max Montgomery; Makeup by Mai Quynh; Hair by Fitch Lunar; Styled by Kate Li
In Abdalla’s eyes, things just kept progressing — she got an agent, a manager and eventually moved to L.A. “My relationship with the job has changed so many times. There were a lot of times that I questioned if I didn’t start when I was 6 years old, is this something that I would want for myself?” she says.
The actress spent three years on a children’s television show. When that wrapped up at the age of 17, she headed to college at UCLA. “I took that as my opportunity to be a kid, just do school and be a girl in college and have fun. That lasted about six months, and I was like, OK, never mind. I can’t,” says Abdalla.
“It was actually really helpful to have that little break. I turned 18, and all my emails started coming to me from my agents and manager,” she says. “I gained a little bit of agency over the work, and I learned how to be more selective with the things that I wanted to do.”
Now, Abdalla has found herself starring in Off Campus. The Prime Video hockey romance series has become a certified hit for the Amazon-owned streamer, and it’s been a wild ride for the actress and the rest of the cast. In the series, she plays Allie Hayes, a free-spirited aspiring actress and the loyal best friend to season one’s leading lady, Hannah Wells, portrayed by Ella Bright.
“I had heard of the books before, so I was somewhat familiar. I was not familiar with the BookTok thing. I did not understand that, and I was not super in tune with the whole hockey romance thing quite yet. That changed very quickly,” she says.
The books and the show are all the rage on social media. “I don’t even seek it out. My entire Twitter… I can’t open any of my social media in public because it’s so embarrassing. It is just my face,” she says jokingly. “I look so self-absorbed, but Off Campus is my life right now. I can’t help it. I’m seeing it whether I want to or not.”
Abdalla began working in the industry at the age of six. “My relationship with the job has changed so many times,” she says.
Photograhy by Max Montgomery; Makeup by Mai Quynh; Hair by Fitch Lunar; Styled by Kate Li
Off Campus was picked up for season two months before the show premiered. From that moment, the questions around who would lead season two began. The show, adapted from Elle Kennedy’s hit book series, takes a page out of the Bridgerton playbook, tapping a new couple to lead each season. The first season is based on Kennedy’s first novel in the series, The Deal.
The actress originally auditioned for the role of Hannah. She describes the potential of her as Hannah as “ultra incorrect.” She and the casting team assured the actress they had another role for her and to just do the tape. “When I got the audition for Hannah, I read The Deal pretty quickly. When I progressed into the callbacks and the chem reads, I read The Score,” she says. “I love them.”
Abdalla’s Allie and her onscreen friends-with-benefits and love interest, Dean Di Laurentis, played by Stephen Kalyn, became fan favorites quickly after the show’s release. It came as no surprise to fans when Abdalla and Kalyn were announced as the leads of season two earlier today (May 28). It was no surprise to Abdalla either.
The actress says she knew from the first audition that she and Kalyn were going to lead season two should they get the roles. “I truly love working with Stephen so much,” Abdalla says of her costar. She adds, “We’re also very similar actors in our insecurities and doubts.”
Abdalla as Allie Hayes in Off Campus.
Liane Hentscher/Prime/Amazon Content Services LLC
In the wake of season one’s release, things have been pretty hectic. But the studio already has the Off Campus cast back up in Vancouver preparing to shoot the next season. “We got sent the scripts while we were in Brazil, and I was trying to read in the car on the way to events and while I’m getting my hair and makeup done. I’m trying to stay on top of things,” Abdalla says.
“We’re not trying to find the characters anymore. We know these characters not only from portraying them, but also just from seeing fan reactions to the teasers or the trailer,” she says. “I know so much more about Allie and these books than ever before. It’s definitely going to be a lot less stressful this time around.”
Last season, the actress worked with coaches on a variety of things and feels it’s even more important this time around. “Once the crazy press tour is done, I’m really looking forward to digging in and breaking down what’s going to happen because there’s a lot,” she says.
Off Campus, and her move to leading the show this season, has been an emotional and exciting more for Abdalla but also the team around her. The actress has been with her manager, Kanica Suy, since she was 11 years old. “It’s very emotional for her,” she says. “I’m also so grateful for the way that I get to be going into this season. We’ve been doing press for the last three weeks. I’m with genuinely my best friends.”
The actress also can’t express enough how grateful she’s been to see the way her fellow costars have led the show. “Belmont and Ella are both so incredible and so wise and they did such an amazing job carrying this first season. They did such a great job setting an example of how to be the leads and how to hold a set and how to hold yourself in an environment where there’s so many of us,” she says. “It’s a huge ensemble cast and they just did such an amazing job being our beacons of energy.”
While all of her focus has been on Off Campus as of late, she’s not forgetting the road that led her to this point and where she’s headed. “I always like to find a little piece of myself in every character that I play. If I read a script and get a feeling like, I know this person. I know this girl,” she says.
Abdalla on season two filming: “We got sent the scripts while we were in Brazil, and I was trying to read in the car on the way to events and while I’m getting my hair and makeup done.”
Photograhy by Max Montgomery; Makeup by Mai Quynh; Hair by Fitch Lunar; Styled by Kate Li
“It took me a while to realize that you don’t just move out of the house and become a fully functional, adult, formed person… For me to be OK with myself not having it all figured out,” she says.
Abdalla’s excited to get the same good experience on Off Campus season two that she did in season one. “I cannot get enough of these people. Truly on this press tour, I cannot imagine if I wasn’t immediately flying to Vancouver with all these people,” the actress says.
Outside of Off Campus, Abdalla’s heart has always been drawn towards independent film. “I love the quick and dirty guerrilla filmmaking thing that comes along with shooting something like that. It’s extremely different than what we’re doing right now, which I also love,” she says.
“Hopefully in between season two — and hopefully there is a season three and four and whatever — but I would really like to balance out both sides of the coin a little bit,” she continues. “[I’d like] to do my fun, commercially viable book adaptation show for Amazon, and then also do something that 11 people are going to see.”
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Off Campus is now streaming all of season one on Prime Video. Read THR‘s show coverage here.
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