Elizabeth Gillies Says Watching Quiet On Set Doc With BFF Ariana Grande Made Her 'Reevaluate' Her Nickelodeon Experience!

Another cast member from Victorious has broken their silence on Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

As Perezcious readers know, the shocking documentary addressed allegations of creepy and toxic workplace behavior from Dan Schneider, who worked on and created many Nickelodeon shows for years — including Victorious. Quiet On Set slammed the sitcom, created by the producer, for being filled with inappropriate sexual innuendos for its young cast and audience. Looking back at Victorious, Ariana Grande got much of the adult material. You see her pouring water on herself while lying upside down on a bed in one clip. Meanwhile, another showed her sucking her toe. And this was on a kids’ show! What the f**k.

Last month, the pop star spoke out about the documentary bombshells on an episode of Penn Badgley‘s podcast Podcrushed. She told the host she was “reprocessing” everything she experienced on Nickelodeon after watching Quiet On Set and old videos from the show. And she is not the only one from her cast!

Elizabeth Gillies finally addressed the documentary for the first time. She and BFF Ariana actually watched the doc together, and now she’s reevaluating her time on Victorious, too. The Dynasty alum said in a new interview with Variety on Tuesday:

“I certainly reevaluated my experience with Ariana over FaceTime. We watched it together, and then we got together later that week or the next week, and we sort of broke the whole thing down and talked about it, and reprocessed everything together. There was a lot to go through.”

Initially, Elizabeth had nothing but fond memories of Victorious. But in light of the new details from the documentary and really thinking about her time on the show? Her memories soon became tainted:

“It’s tricky when you look back on something incredibly positively, and then you learn a lot of information and also revisit things as an adult through a new lens that reframe the memories in your mind a little bit, or cloud them, or taint them — maybe rightfully so. So, taking that time to thoughtfully look back, reassess and reevaluate was an important thing to do, and that’s something we did.”

Looking back, Elizabeth feels “lucky” to have had not only Ariana but the rest of the Victorious cast, including Victoria Justice, Avan Jogia, Leon Thomas III, Daniel Monet, and Matt Bennett, with her at the time. She added:

“I’m very lucky I have such a close relationship with my cast — and with Ari — and that we were all able to do that together, because we definitely leaned on each other, talked amongst each other and checked in with each other.”

When asked what kind of “protections” should be in place to “protect child actors,” the Broadway star noted that “parents should be allowed to be wherever they want to be, whenever they want to be” — especially if the child is “very young.” She continued:

“In the event that they’re not different, I do think the responsibility is on the parent to assess the situation. And sometimes, the parents are part of the problem too. I think you’ve got to listen to your kid, too, and know what kind of a kid you have. And I know that sounds weird, but certain kids don’t really know what they’re getting themselves into. A lot of the realities of acting in general, even if you take the word ‘child’ out of it — it’s grueling, it’s difficult. The child has to want it so much.”

Furthermore, Elizabeth feels a “psychiatrist” should talk to an aspiring young actor and their parents before starting a project. As she put it, this career “has to be what the kid wants” at the end of the day, with no pressure from their parents:

“I almost wonder if a psychiatrist or a psychologist should evaluate the child and speak to the parents before they sign them off to let them be on a set or a show, just because it’s such a huge undertaking, and children don’t often know what a huge undertaking it is, and then they can feel trapped or pressured. I think it can’t come from the parents. I think that’s always a recipe for disaster. It has to be what the kid wants, 110,000%, and they have to be ready to work. [Parents] have to make sure that there is respect on the set for the children, that they’re being treated as children, although it is an adult job. It’s a tough one, man.”

It’s definitely not an easy answer! Elizabeth went on to point out how “damaging” it can be to force a kid into this job:

“[Acting] is all I wanted, and all I wanted to do was go there every day and put my head down and work. I cannot imagine what it must feel like for a child that was pushed there by their parents and had no interest in acting and had to come to work and do that grueling job every single day because for me, it was a treat. And for someone else, I mean, what a nightmare. It’s like, if someone made me go play baseball for 10 hours a day, I’d be crying in my room at night. It’s just because it’s not what I want to do. Everything’s hard. Sports are hard. Acting is hard. Any job is hard. And if it’s not your dream and you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, it can be a total nightmare, and it can be very damaging to your life, your mind and your mental health.”

Very true. Thoughts on what Elizabeth had to say, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below!

[Image via DanWarp/NickRewind/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube]