Nick Jonas Says Camp Rock 2 Inspired Him To Hire An Acting Coach

Nick Jonas has been a pop-culture mainstay since his early 2000s Disney Channel days. Now, the 32-year-old is starring in a 14-week run of The Last Five Years on Broadway and preparing to go back on tour with his brothers this August. Looking back on his evolution, Jonas credits those formative gigs with inspiring him to take acting more seriously.

“The acting we did with Disney was obviously really early days for us. It was more about knowing your lines, hitting your marks, and delivering them,” Jonas says ahead of a matinee performance at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.

He pinpoints the Camp Rock franchise, which started in 2008, as a turning point. “Honestly, it wasn’t until Camp Rock 2 that I started to feel like ‘Oh, this is something I really want to get better at,’” he says about the 2010 sequel. “As I was getting older, I had a deeper grasp on how I could tap into some of these emotional moments.”

Even 15 years later, Jonas views those movies as pivotal learning experiences. “Of course, I know it’s Camp Rock. It wasn’t Shakespeare by any means, but there was some really great storytelling in there, and it challenged me at a time when I wanted to be challenged,” he says. “I started working with an acting coach from that point on, trying to really work on that craft.”

Jonas has been singing with his brothers since age 12. When he was 13, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Since then, he’s had to learn to prioritize his health while navigating a busy schedule. He credits the Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitoring device with helping him manage the condition. “You can live a big, full, and exciting life while living with this disease. It doesn’t have to slow you down.”

He may be getting ready for a stadium tour now, but when the Jonas Brothers band first formed in 2005, they were hustling to be recognized as musicians. “The things that stand out about those early days are just how eager we were to get out there and be in front of people, whether it was opening for artists like Aly & AJ, The Veronicas, and Jesse McCartney or popping up at shopping malls,” he says.

“We couldn’t sell tickets of our own yet, but we just loved performing,” he says. “We knew that, given the chance to do that, we could find a way to convince people to be fans.”

Two decades and six studio albums later, it’s safe to say they’ve done that. The Jonas Brothers’ 20th anniversary Living the Dream Tour kicks off with a hometown show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Aug. 10. “So many years later, it’s amazing to look up and see that we’re celebrating 20 years of this band, plus this new era that we’re in and the excitement around it,” Jonas says. “It’s a really incredible thing to have this multi-generational fan base.”