The 2006 teen movies were stacked with rising stars, including Channing Tatum, Amanda Bynes, Ashanti, and Brittany Snow.

Actress recalls John Tucker Must Die, She’s the Man casts staying at same hotel: ‘Good thing Instagram didn’t exist!’

The 2006 teen movies were stacked with rising stars, including Channing Tatum, Amanda Bynes, Ashanti, and Brittany Snow.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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March 18, 2026 11:38 p.m. ET

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'John Tucker Must Die' starred Brittany Snow, Ashanti, Jesse Metcalfe, and Arielle Kebbel. Credit:

Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic

Actress Arielle Kebbel has fond memories of her time filming 2006's *John Tucker Must Die*, not in the least because the cast stayed at the same Vancouver hotel as that of the *She's the Man *actors.

Both were teen comedy movies packed with up-and-coming stars.

"There was about 20 of us, and we just, like, moved as a herd," Arielle Kebbel said on a recent episode of the *Chicks in the Office** *podcast. "It was this hotel called The Sutton Place. We called it The Slut-ton Place."

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"We would go visit their set," Kebbel said. "They would come visit our set." She joked that it was "atrocious" and "like summer camp."

"We were all young 20s," she said. "You would see us walking down the street in a line of 20. We literally moved in a herd. We would go to a club together. We would go to a dinner together" —they liked frozen Bellinis — "and then on the weekends, we would all have a party in someone's hotel room and people would bring guitars."

The 'She's the Man' cast.

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

The *John Tucker* cast included Kebbel, as well as Brittany Snow, Jesse Metcalfe, Ashanti, Sophia Bush, and Penn Badgley, in the story of a high school player — both when it comes to sports and the ladies — who receives a lesson in heartbreak.

Meanwhile, *She's the Man* starred Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum in the story of a girl who disguises herself as her twin brother to play soccer on the boy's team.

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Not only were those two movies closely aligned, but Kebbel recalled that she was preparing to audition for another 2006 movie, *Step Up*, during the same period. Tatum, who would go to star in *Step Up*, helped her.

"Channing read off camera with me for *Step Up* in the hotel room when I was filming *John Tucker*." Kebbel said. "Got down the line. They flew me from Vancouver to L.A. to test against Jenna Dewan for *Step Up*."

Of course, Dewan ended up winning the role and marrying Tatum. They split in 2018, after almost nine years of marriage.

Arielle Kebbel recalls filming 'John Tucker Must Die'.

Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty

"She's such a beautiful soul," Kebbel said. "Before we went in, we were like, 'Good luck.' It was always good vibes. I literally remember at one point dancing next to her in the mirror and I was like, 'She's going to get it. They're definitely going to go with a real dancer.' I was like, I'm good-ish, you know? I always did want to be Britney Spears, but ... she got it."

Kebbel and Dewan were both cast in the same year's horror movie *The Grudge 2*, when the women were "able to laugh about it all," Kebbel said.

Watch Kebbel's full conversation above.

- Comedy Movies

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Source: “EW Comedy”