A North Vancouver teen is getting screen time with Disney.
Casey Trotter, 15, is making his feature film debut in Camp Rock 3 and has been cast for a new reboot of The Mickey Mouse Club.
“I feel so good right now,” Trotter said. “For someone that got into this whole big Hollywood world just a year ago, [I’m] pretty amazed by everything that’s happening right now.”
Trotter is a triple threat performer – a musician, dancer and actor. The Lynn Valley youth got his start at Deep Cove Music Studio and went onto various acting schools in Vancouver, including Arts Umbrella.
In 2024, he landed his theatre debut as Freddie Hamilton, the drummer, in Theatre Under the Stars production of School of Rock: The Musical. He’s also been seen in Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans as a co-star and as a background actor in Hallmark’s movie Sugarplummed.
In the latest Camp Rock movie, Trotter stars as Cliff – a drummer who competes against other young musicians to be in the opening act for Connect 3’s (played by the Jonas Brothers) reunion tour. However, as friendships form and even romances, the stakes rise as they decide if there’s more to life than stardom.
Trotter describes his character as the jokester of the group.
“He brings a lot of comedy to it, but at the same time he has an emotional side and that’s something that you’ll get to see when you watch the movie,” he said.
The actor was in Scotland backpacking when he found out about auditions for Camp Rock 3. He quickly packed his bags and got on a plane to Los Angeles, watching the movies in preparation.
When he got the part, he called his best friend to celebrate.
Now known as a Disney Channel musical franchise, Camp Rock first aired in 2008, starring Demi Lovato, the Jonas Brothers, Meaghan Martin and Maria Canals-Barrera. It quickly became a hit, with 8.9 million viewers the night it premiered, and the soundtrack debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Two years later, the sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam was released.
Camp Rock 3 was filmed in Metro Vancouver, a key location being Barnet Marine Park. Trotter said he’s excited to show his local roots on screen.
“It’s so cool because Vancouver, it’s a versatile city. There’s so much variety in it. You go to the North Shore and you get mountains and skiing. You go to the city, you get a kind of New York vibe,” he said. “It’s my home.”
To be clear, the young North Van resident considers himself a “mountain kid.”
“My dad works for North Shore Rescue, so I’ve always been up there in the mountains,” Trotter added. “I started skiing as soon as I could walk. I’m always up at Grouse and I just feel like everybody is so nice.”
Trotter said he hopes that people watching Camp Rock 3 will see the process of what it took to get there.
“I feel like a lot of the time these days, a lot of people look at what comes out of it and not what went into it,” he said. “With Camp Rock, you can kind of see it’s really about the product about how we got there. It’s about the music we made along the way.”
The Mickey Mouse Club revival is still in the early stages, currently filming the pilot in L.A. Trotter said he hopes to share more information soon. The show ran intermittently from 1955 to 1996, bringing stars like Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling to the world stage.
Camp Rock 3 airs on Disney Channel Aug. 13 and Disney+ the following day.