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Dancer and actor Alyson Stoner is best known to many as the young performer in Missy Elliott’s Work It. She also appeared in Elliott’s Gossip Folks and I’m Really Hot.
The Step Up actress says that recognition often feels like being asked about a “second-grade show and tell” for the rest of her life.
On a recent appearance on The Zach Sang Show, interviewer Dan Zolot asked: “When people still see you as a little white girl from the Missy Elliott video, does that make you proud or is that you kind of, like, ‘I’ve done more?’”
Stoner described that attention as “just our initial connection point” and credited Elliott with the creative vision, noting that the casting decision was not theirs.
The opportunities with Elliott helped launch Stoner’s acting career. Since then, she has taken on roles in Cheaper by the Dozen, Step Up, Camp Rock, and Disney Channel productions, as well as voicing Isabella in Phineas and Ferb and its reboot. In 2019, she reunited with Elliott onstage for the singer’s MTV Vanguard Award performance.
Today, Stoner advocates for mental health and the protection of child actors and influencers, working to improve online safety protocols and industry standards. Her memoir, Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything, is available now.