Are you ready for VH1’s new scripted show, “Hit the Floor?” The show gets into the lives of the “Devil Girls,” the dance squad for LA’s fictional pro-basketball team, The LA Devils. Recently I had the opportunity to interview 4 members of the Devil Girls and get all the deets on their characters and what we can expect to see this season.
There’s the “new girl,” rookie Ahsha (Taylour Paige), whose mother, Sloane (Kimberly Elise) was an original Devil Girl and doesn’t want her daughter to follow in her footsteps for fear the lifestyle will swallow her up; There’s rookie number 2 Kyle, a gold-digging stripper (Katherine Bailess); Raquel (Valery Ortiz), the seemingly sweet single mom and lastly, there’s the captain Jelena (Logan Browning) the bit*h of the crew. Ready to meet them?
Ahsha is new to the Devil girls and has already got the negative attention of Captain Jelena. Taylour Paige says that there are a lot of parallels between Ahsha and herself. Taylour just finished college like her character and has been involved in dance her whole life. One of the most exciting aspects of “Hit the Floor” for Taylour was working with Kimberly Elise, who has become a mentor to her.
Ahsha has a huge secret revealed in episode one.
Kyle is a stripper who auditions for the Devil Girls. Both Kyle and the actress who plays her, Katherine Bailess, are southern girls. Katherine is from Vicksburg, MS. and grew up a cheerleader and football lover, her dad played at Ole Miss with Peyton Manning’s dad, Archie. Like her fellow rookie Devil Girl Taylor, Katherine has danced her whole life and studied musical theatre in college.
Kyle shows you just how she gets down in episode one.
Raquel is a current Devil Girl who’s a single mother of a 4-year old son. His father is “a deadbeat bully who’s also the manager of half the players on the Devils.” Valery Ortiz the actress who plays her says Raquel is a regular woman chasing a dream. Though Valery doesn’t consider herself a “dancer” she has a passion for dance and working out. She’s more of a Zumba girl. She trained hard in the time between the pilot was shot and the show was picked up. She promised me that her storyline gets pretty juicy
Jelena Howard is the Captain of the Devils Girls squad and resident hater. She’s dating one of the Devils players even though the rules forbid it and we know out the gate that she has no love for Ahsha. Logan Browning says she took inspiration from 80’s Nighttime soap villainess, Alexis Carrington from Dynasty. Quite the opposite of the roles we’re used to seeing Logan in “Bratz” and “Meet the Browns.”
Logan said it’s important to pay attention to Jelena’s moves from the start so you won’t be lost later. She’s a crafty one.
Check out episode 1 Below for your sneak peek.
“Hit the Floor” kicks off on VH1 Monday, May 27th at 9:00 PM.
photos and video via VH1
