Hannah Simone has been dominating the big screen for some time now, long before her acclaimed role as CeCe on Fox hit show New Girl.
Recently, she has been making waves for her philanthropic efforts, as well as her role as host of Fox’s newest show Kicking and Screaming, and all-female produced film Band Aid. We caught up with her at Swiffer’s 18th Birthday party to find out more about her latest ventures and girl-power lifestyle.
Swiffer swept the nation by storm in 1999 and this year the brand is celebrating its 18th birthday. Now 18 itself, Swiffer is on a mission to show consumers that while #adulting is hard, Swiffer makes it easy! The birthday bash taught guests how Swiffer, now an “adult” itself, can help you nail those key #adulting moments – like dancing your way to a quick, clean home!
On the transition from playing Cece on New Girl to hosting Kicking and Screaming:
“For me, it goes back to something my dad taught me. This idea that you can do multiple things that you’re passionate about at the same time. And so, I was shooting new girl and then a week later I was in Fiji shooting Kicking and Screaming so I never saw it as a great change but rather just two great passions of my life. I love comedy and I love traveling and adventure and because of New Girl I’m in LA 9 months of the year just shooting so I go home and sit on my couch just like everybody else and turn the T.V on and what I like to watch are travel adventure series, competition series, so for me this was an opportunity for me to get off my couch, crawl through my t.v. screen and find myself in the jungle and I started to realize that every single show that I would watch that was a travel adventure series was hosted by a man and I thought how dope would it be for little girls watching their t.v. to see a women in the jungle leading the way setting the rules. And I don’t know another women of color that’s doing that, so I think it’s really cool for representation in the industry, I think it’s cool for young girls of all colors to be able to go like ‘That’s a women out there that’s doing that’, so that made me excited. And just as a fan of the genre it was cool to be there on set everyday and to watch people build strategies and learn survival skills, I just geeked out the whole time.”
On her upcoming film Band Aid:
“If you’re a fan of New Girl, I don’t know if you remember but Schmidt had a girlfriend named Fawn Moscato who was played by the phenomenal Zoe Lister-Jones who is now on Life In Pieces. She wrote the script called Band Aid, and she’s such an incredible woman for not only what she does as her own art, but how she helps uplift other women. We’re all trying to find great jobs with great roles and they’re hard to come by so she called me and said ‘I wrote this script. Can you read it?’ and I read it and said what do you want me to do, do you want me to come and make sandwiches for the crew and she was like maybe you could act. And so I play her best friend in the film, it was incredible she wanted to not only uplift camera in front of the camera but also behind the camera. So every single crew member was a woman, and it was a completely unique set and such a positive environment and community to be in. But this is the thing, I think we talk so often about the challenges but there are people out there with great solutions and they’re creating the solutions themselves. So it’s cool for you to ask that question to celebrate Zoe Lister Jones or Fox for choosing a woman to lead their tough, adventure show in the jungle – that’s wonderful and what we should focus the conversation on. Because when people see ‘oh people like to talk about that and pay attention to that’, they see we should do more of it.
On activism and philanthropy:
“I work with Free the Children which is an incredible organization that helps young girls and young boys in rural poverty have an education. So I’ve traveled with them to Kenya, I’ve traveled with them to rural Rajistan in India, I just actually went and taught a class in South Central, LA, but it’s really just about all the international pillars of development, you can’t just build a school, and you can’t just build a well. So you have to realize every community and very culture is different to identify what the needs are. And usually they’re the five pillars which is agriculture, water, education, alternative income, healthcare. So they address that and they get the community to understand it and find comfort in how they’re doing it and then usually within 10 years it’s up and running and then the girls and boys have the ability to go to school because there is other sources of income coming in that the kids are doing it makes sense. And then really the focus of what they’re doing in North America is finding the genuine passions of young people and then finding the causes that touch their art, and then allowing them to find their way to a solution. So we could say ‘this is the solution to the environment turn off your lights’, but a young kid who is passionate about video games and the environment might find a way to do something so why don’t we just let these young minds share what their thoughts and ideas are as oppose to just telling them what to do.
Upcoming projects:
“So the last three episodes of New Girl start on Tuesday, sixth season, it feels so crazy that we’re already there. And then Kicking and Screaming, now is every Thursday night and I shot a movie last summer called ‘ Why we’re killing Gunther’, it’s an action comedy with Arnold Schwarzenegger and a couple of the guys from SNL Taran Killam, Bobby Moynihan, so I’ve been busy.
