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You go, girl

By TAYLOR GLOGOWSKI X-team
Published June 4, 2007

On her MySpace page, Carly Schroeder lists her various interests in this order: acting, sports, fashion and films.

It's a good thing she likes acting and sports. She combined them in the new film Gracie, released Friday. Schroeder plays Grace, a teenage girl who deals with her grief after her brother's death by trying out for the boys soccer team at her high school in 1978. But she faces disapproval from her family, the school board and the team.

Schroeder, 16, trained three months with the former captain of the Los Angeles Galaxy, a Major League Soccer team, to make the soccer scenes look convincing. Training included 500 situps a day and a 3-mile run every other day. Giving up her beloved french fries was the hardest part of the training, she said in a recent phone interview.

One of the training exercises included learning how to drop an egg and cradle it on her foot without breaking it. She went through five cartons of eggs perfecting that skill, she said.

Schroeder, who has been acting since she was 6, wanted to play Grace when she first got the script two years ago. She loved how fierce Grace was, how she stood up for what was right and worked around her grief to reach her goal.

Her own competitive spirit led Schroeder to try out for the boys wrestling team when she was 13. "They didn't want me, " Schroeder said of her teammates, but she still made it. She said the film made her realize the hardships that some girls had to go through when they wanted to play sports but couldn't because there was no team for them.

The movie also is a family affair of sorts. The story is based on events in the lives of the Shues, a family of actors whose most famous members are Elisabeth, who plays Grace's mother, and her brother Andrew, who produced the film and also has a role. Schroeder was able to work with her own younger brother, Hunter, who plays her brother in the film. It was fun having him there, she said.

Schroeder has had many roles on television and in movies, including Mean Creek and Firewall, and has been on the Disney Channel show Lizzie McGuire.

Schroeder hopes that, after seeing this movie, boys and girls will think about all the kids like Grace who do not get support for their ideas. And that moviegoers will remember the central theme, that you should "never give up on your dream."

Unlike Grace, Schroeder is both a girly-girl and a tomboy who loves to hang out with her mother and father. Schroeder said that she loves to play sports, but by the end of the day she likes to get all dressed up. "I love . . . not having to choose, " she said.

Taylor Glogowski, 16, recently completed 10th grade at Land O'Lakes High School.

Fast Facts:

Find out more

Check out the movie Gracie at www.graciemovie.com. And for more from Carly Schroeder's MySpace page, go to www.myspace.com/carlyschroeder.

[Last modified June 4, 2007, 02:12:08]