Daniella Monet on Reentering the World of Victorious with Hollywood Arts
More than a decade after leaving the halls of Hollywood Arts, Daniella Monet is stepping back into the role of one of television’s most memorably self-assured performers—even when Trina Vega’s talent did not always match her confidence. Across four seasons of Victorious, Trina approached every audition, performance, and ordinary interaction with complete conviction, transforming even her most misguided ambitions into comedy. Monet’s willingness to play her without hesitation made Trina far more than the older sister standing outside the school’s more polished inner circle. She became a singular presence whose persistence remained strangely admirable, no matter how often reality pushed back.
That appeal has helped Victorious maintain an unusually active audience long after its 2013 conclusion. Since 2024, the series has accumulated more than 45 million views on Netflix, introducing Hollywood Arts and its students to viewers who were not present for the original Nickelodeon run. The upcoming spin-off Hollywood Arts now places Trina at the center of the institution where she once struggled to prove that she belonged.
Years later, she remains an aspiring actor awaiting her major breakthrough, but an unexpected opportunity brings her back to the school as an unqualified substitute teacher responsible for a new generation of performing-arts students. The premise feels especially fitting for a character whose connection to Hollywood Arts was once defined by her desire for recognition. She must now determine whether she can guide others while still searching for validation and direction in her own career. And the same persistence, theatricality, and hard-earned familiarity with rejection that once complicated her experience may ultimately help her reach students navigating similar uncertainties.
Monet also returns with considerably more creative influence. Along with leading the new ensemble, she serves as an executive producer alongside showrunners Jake Farrow and Samantha Martin, allowing her to help determine how this familiar world develops for a different generation (comprised of Alyssa Miles, Emmy Liu-Wang, Peyton Jackson, Erika Swayze, and Martin Kamm), while Yvette Nicole Brown reprises her role as Principal Helen.
Those parallel transitions—from supporting player to lead, student to teacher, and performer to executive producer—give Hollywood Arts significance beyond a familiar character’s return. Monet is revisiting Trina from a position neither of them occupied during Victorious, creating room to examine which qualities have endured and which adulthood has reshaped. Perhaps most intriguingly, the person who once wanted so desperately to be noticed may finally discover what she can offer when the attention turns toward someone else.
Trina has remained vivid in viewers’ memories because she pursued every opportunity with absolute confidence, regardless of how others perceived her. When you stepped back into the character, which parts of her returned immediately, and what needed to be rediscovered?
Daniella Monet: Almost all of her returned immediately. I think the most exciting part about revisiting her in Hollywood Arts was what has she learned—or hasn’t—since we last saw her, and how will she respond to having to be the more responsible one in the room. I also find it a lot of fun to be such a large part of the storyline as Trina. I think prior to Hollywood Arts I thought of her as more of the side character, there for more of the joke, and now there’s more to discover and play with, and she’s a lot of fun, maybe more than I even remember!
Hollywood Arts finds Trina still pursuing her own breakthrough while unexpectedly working as a substitute teacher. What interested you most about placing her in a position where young performers might begin looking to her for guidance?
Daniella Monet: I think anytime you take a character who doesn’t seem to have her life together and make them in charge is funny. Trina was kind of in her own world, she still is, but she has a job to do now, and there’s more to her now, maybe more than she even knew…
Trina once viewed Hollywood Arts largely through whether the school recognized her potential. How does returning from the other side of the classroom reshape her relationship with a place that influenced so much of her self-image?
Daniella Monet: I feel like the audience would agree that Hollywood Arts wasn’t too impressed with Trina, no matter how hard she tried, but if I had to guess, I don’t think Trina has the capacity to hold a grudge. I think one of my favorite things about her is how quickly she’s able to switch gears. She’s someone who just wants to feel good about herself, so whatever she has to tell herself to feel that way—she will. I bet we can all learn a little something from that approach.
Trina understands rejection, unchecked ambition, and the difficulty of finding where you belong. Which experiences from her own path unexpectedly make her well suited to reach these students?
Daniella Monet: I’d say her perseverance is pretty admirable. It can be hard finding that motivation whilst still trying to find yourself, so I hope there’s something the students see in her that reminds them it’s ok to keep trying, you don’t have to be perfect, and maybe someday you too will find yourself in an unexpected role filled with purpose.
The original series often found humor in the distance between Trina’s self-perception and how everyone else saw her. Has that gap narrowed with age, or does she retain the same unshakable understanding of herself?
Daniella Monet: That part hasn’t changed much, and I purposefully feel like I’ve made that choice to keep her perception of herself to be unwaveringly high. You’ll see a few moments where she’s able to acknowledge not everything is going well for herself, but usually it’s followed up with some sort of comedic relief that brings her back to the Trina she’s always been.
Viewers already have a strong idea of who Trina is. How did you preserve her heightened comedic personality while creating space for the emotional layers adulthood might have added?
Daniella Monet: This part was the most interesting, and I think it all came together in the writing. Our writers get it and have done a great job of marrying the broad comedy I love to play with some warranted grounding moments you’d see from a teacher in your corner. I love the balance we have right now.
You are now leading and executive producing the series. How did that greater creative authority shape both your interpretation of Trina and the new version of Hollywood Arts surrounding her?
Daniella Monet: You know what, I had and have the most trust in our showrunners and writers, so the thing I was most excited to be involved in as an EP was casting and morale. I’ve spent the last 30 years in this business, so to be part of a production like this in a bigger way has been a real gift. I feel so proud of the working environment we built, the cast we have, and the entire crew we get to create with. It’s cliché, but this was different than anything else in all the right ways. We have something special, and I hope we get to continue to build out this world for several seasons to come.
After revisiting Trina with a perspective very different from the one you had when Victorious began, what do you understand about her now that you could not have recognized during the original series?
Daniella Monet: She’s actually got a sensitive spot for her sister. In my mind, she was just a big sister with big dreams living in her uber-talented little sister's shadow. I think although Trina would love for it to come easy for her, she deep down is really proud of Tori and proud of herself too. Especially now that she’s been given the opportunity to steward what could be a life-changing future for these students. Maybe that was her purpose all along.
