{"id":690683,"date":"2026-07-14T06:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T06:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/690683\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T06:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T06:59:09","slug":"cheetah-girls-county-down-girl-has-life-changed-overnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/690683\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheetah Girls: County Down girl has &#8216;life changed overnight&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Things are about to get a lot more Cheetahlicious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For millions of Disney fans, that phrase instantly conjures up memories of one of the biggest musical franchises of the 2000s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Now, more than 20 years after The Cheetah Girls first burst onto screens, the much-loved musical film is making a comeback with a new generation getting ready to strut like they mean it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Among the fresh cast is a teenager whose biggest worry just a few weeks ago, was sitting her GCSE exams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sophie Lennon, from Mayobridge, County Down said her &#8220;life has changed overnight&#8221; since receiving the news she &#8220;always dreamed of&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But landing the role wasn&#8217;t easy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She managed to see off 300,000 other teenagers who auditioned during a global casting search, to secure just one of the four coveted roles. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Her self-tape had to showcase all three of her talents \u2013 singing, dancing and acting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Luckily the 16-year-old is no stranger to the spotlight, having appeared on both Britain&#8217;s Got Talent and America&#8217;s Got Talent, performed on the West End, and represented Ireland at the 2022 Junior Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But coming from Northern Ireland, Sophie knew she was an unexpected choice for a role so closely linked with American performers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I genuinely thought I had no chance,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So when I got the callback about a week later, I was completely shocked.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things are about to get a lot more Cheetahlicious. For millions of Disney fans, that phrase instantly conjures&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-690683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}