It’s been 20 years since Center Stage became a cult favorite, telling the story of a group of ambitious young dancers and their tangled relationships with each other, their parents, and their mentors. On Tuesday, four of the cast members reunited for a live panel discussion benefiting the American Ballet Theatre. They shared memories from making the movie, caught up with each other’s lives, talked about the movie’s legacy and its impact on a generation of dancers, and shared a few details about what their lives are like these days. Keep reading to find out what your favorite stars from Center Stage are doing today!
Ethan Stiefel as Cooper Nielson
Ethan Stiefel Now
Stiefel continued to dance with the American Ballet Theatre until 2012, when he officially retired. For the most part, he’s stayed in the ballet world, with few screen credits since the Center Stage movies. He shared on the live stream that he is teaching dance classes (virtual, right now) and has also gotten into motorcycle maintenance! He married fellow dancer Gillian Murphy in 2015, and their son was born in 2019.
Amanda Schull as Jody Sawyer
Amanda Schull Now
Although she’s a trained dancer, Schull has focused more on her acting career in the past decade or so. She’s had guest roles on several shows, including One Tree Hill, Bones, and Psych. Her role as Byron Montgomery’s ex Meredith was a recurring character on Pretty Little Liars, and she also had a recurring role as Katrina Bennett on Suits, which became a series regular role in 2018. Schull and her husband, George Wilson, married in 2011 and welcomed a son earlier this year.
Sascha Radetsky (left) as Charlie Sims
Sascha Radetsky Now
Years after hanging up his own dancing shoes, Radetsky took a different kind of role: artistic director at the American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company. He spent most of his career at ABT and retired in 2014. He’s acted a few more times as well, most notably as Ross on the Starz dance drama Flesh and Bone – which, incidentally, included former costar Stiefel as a consultant and choreographer. Radetsky has been married to Stella Abrera, ABT’s first Filipina principal ballerina, since 2006.
Zoe Saldana (center) as Eva Rodriguez
Zoe Saldana Now
Out of all the Center Stage stars, Saldana has definitely had the most high-profile career! Her breakout role came in 2009, when she took on the iconic role of Nyota Uhura in the reboot of Star Trek, a role which she played twice more in sequels. That same year, she starred in Avatar as the indigenous alien heroine Neytiri. In 2014, she continued her franchise role-building as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, which she has continued to play in multiple Marvel films. In 2017, she founded Bese, a Latinx-focused digital media company. Since 2013, Saldana has been married to Marco Perego, and they have three sons together.
Peter Gallagher as Jonathan Reeves
Peter Gallagher Now
Gallagher has continued a steady acting career over the past few decades. You probably know him as Sandy Cohen on The O.C., Nick Skolka on Grace and Frankie, or Mitch Clarke on Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, but his resume is much more than just a few buzzy screen roles. He’s a Tony-nominated stage actor and has a slew of both movie and TV credits to his name. He’s not the only performer in his family, either: daughter Kathryn Gallagher is a Broadway actress currently in Jagged Little Pill.
Debra Monk as Nancy Cummings
Debra Monk Now
There’s a pretty good chance that Monk has been in something you’ve loved, even if you don’t quite remember! She’s had roles on Grey’s Anatomy, Mozart in the Jungle, Mercy Street, and dozens of other movies and TV shows. Most recently, she was in the comedy film Standing Up, Falling Down.
Susan May Pratt (right) as Maureen Cummings
Susan May Pratt Now
After a string of hits in the late ’90s and early ’00s, including Center Stage and 10 Things I Hate About You, Pratt has taken a more low-key approach to her acting career, sticking mostly to one-off guest spots on TV. She hasn’t appeared onscreen since 2017. In a 2015 BuzzFeed interview, she also revealed that, at the time, she was finishing up some prerequisites to enter a master’s degree program at the University of Southern California in occupational therapy.