The Stunning Transformation Of Maia Mitchell

These days, Maia Mitchell has more than 10 million followers on Instagram. You might think that would mean the television star is comfortable in the spotlight, but she insisted to Elle Australia that a massive online following doesn't mean her daily life is much different than it was when she was younger. "I kind of post what I post then sort of check out a little bit. I really haven't had to deal with much loss of anonymity, and when I do experience it, it's pretty chill," she said. "I feel like I've got a really nice little balance."

That wasn't always the case, though. Mitchell has had to calibrate her reaction to her fame over the years, telling Aritzia that she once fled from a fan interaction. "I was in an airport bathroom recently," she said in 2013, "and in the next stall I heard this little voice say, 'Are you Maia Mitchell?' I was like, 'Uh no, sorry.' Then I just up and left."

In other words, Mitchell has had to keep her peace as her career has taken her from her native Australia to the bright lights of Hollywood. She's been a television star and a singer, a Gen-Z fashion icon and even a farmer. From a childhood spent dancing to an adulthood marked by a period of intense social and personal change, Mitchell has had to hold on to that centered existence even as her career transformed her life.

Maia Mitchell grew up in Australia, the daughter of two free-spirited parents who encouraged her to pursue her passions. "[I was] definitely a little wild, hippie kid," she told Elle Australia. "My parents are giant hippies." From a very early age, pursuing those passions meant performing — though for a while, the budding star wasn't sure what avenue she wanted to pursue in the entertainment industry.

At first, she tried dance. "I knew I wanted to perform, whether it was acting or dancing," she recalled in an interview with Aritzia. "I was a ballerina, but I got scoliosis so I couldn't do ballet anymore. I was devastated." The fact that she couldn't dance anymore led Mitchell to explore acting instead. "I don't ever remember consciously thinking, 'I want to be an actor.' But I grew up doing theatre," she recalled. "That is where I felt most comfortable."

Mitchell's career took off at a very early age when she was cast on the Australian show "Mortified." She played a spunky young girl named Brittany Flume on the school comedy, and the experience gave her direction for the rest of her life. "It became clear that acting was what I really wanted to do," Mitchell told Aritzia. A role on "Trapped" quickly followed, sort of an Aussie-kids-TV take on "Lost," as it's about a bunch of kids who survive a plane crash on a deserted island. Soon, Hollywood came calling.

Maia Mitchell had already made a name for herself in Australia, but the lure of Hollywood soon drew her to America. In 2013, she booked a role in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Teen Beach Movie." The film saw Mitchell acting opposite "Austin & Ally" star Ross Lynch in a musical where their characters were transported back to a beach movie from the 1960s. "Some of the great themes in the movie are following your dreams and also a great message of believing in yourself," Mitchell told Channel Guide Magazine.

"Teen Beach Movie" gained Mitchell a legion of American fans, but filming the movie also allowed her to pick up a skill that many people might've assumed — as an Australian — she already possessed. "When I landed the role I had never touched a surfboard. Disney Channel picked out the one person from my hometown who doesn't surf," she joked to Channel Guide Magazine. "The next day I was in the water, mind you, and then every day for the next couple of months. Now it's one of my favorite things to do."

The film was such a massive hit that it drew ratings comparable only to "High School Musical." Reuniting for a sequel was a no-brainer, and "Teen Beach 2" premiered in 2015. Lynch and Mitchell tried to up the romance in the second film, though their unscripted kiss wasn't included in the movie. "Just putting it out there, for the record, it was him," Mitchell told Hollywood Life.

The same year she starred in the first "Teen Beach Movie," Maia Mitchell met more American audiences as Callie on Freeform's "The Fosters." At that point, she'd been traveling back and forth from Australia to the United States pretty regularly, telling Channel Guide Magazine that she struggled on the long flights. "I read and try to get some work done," she said. "I can never sleep on planes and the last couple of hours are always unbearable." One such plane ride brought her to Los Angeles to audition for "The Fosters," and while she wound up getting the role that cemented her career as a rising star, Mitchell practically bombed the audition.

"I had just decided to, like, give up on America," she told Shine On Media. After missing out on a number of roles, she'd convinced herself she was going to move back to Australia; however, when the opportunity to try out for "The Fosters" came along, she decided to give Hollywood one last shot. "I came back to audition for it and blew my first audition. It was so bad. It was awful." Her manager begged producers to give her another shot, and the second time she was able to convince them that she should play Callie on the series. As for the possibility of that first audition making the rounds online someday, Mitchell exclaimed, "It wasn't on tape, thank God!"

Once Maia Mitchell successfully secured the lead role on Freeform's "The Fosters," her career was really off and running. As Callie, Mitchell starred alongside "Grey's Anatomy" vet Bianca A. Santos, anchoring the adoption drama as a girl who'd been harmed by the system and grows to love her adoptive parents. "I had to do a lot of research and really reach out of my own comfort zone," she told Aritzia. Ultimately, her own personal life helped inform the way she approached the role. "I connected to it because I have a close family member who was in the foster system for a while," Mitchell revealed. "The role had texture."

Because of the show's important subject matter, Mitchell threw herself headlong into learning as much as she could about the foster care system. In an interview with Foster Focus Magazine, Mitchell revealed, "I found the first year of playing a foster youth to be really eye opening. It's been really great. We've had foster kids come to the set, which made it real for all of us on the cast." She also acknowledged that the show's first season might've been a bit too optimistic about the realities of living in the system. "Not all foster families are that loving, not all foster kids are as open and well tempered as the kids on the show," she confessed.

Maia Mitchell broke through to American audiences in "Teen Beach Movie" and on "The Fosters," and her characters sing in both projects. In her private life, however, Mitchell told Aritzia that she liked to keep her musical stylings to herself. "Being an actor is so public. Music is a very private thing for me," she said. "Some people keep a journal. I make quite folky and simple music. I write about people I know, people I don't know, the industry. It helps me vent some frustrations." In other words, she was telling the outlet not to expect a Maia Mitchell album any time soon.

As the years passed, however, Mitchell began sharing her music on YouTube. In 2017, she uploaded a cover of Justin Bieber and DJ Snake's "Let Me Love You" to her YouTube channel. The video depicts Mitchell wandering around a subway station strumming on her guitar as she sings, most of her fellow passengers seeming unaware that they were in the presence of a Freeform superstar. She also uploaded music alongside YouTube star Rudy Mancuso, her then-boyfriend. In 2018, she was the featured artist on Mancuso's single "Magic." He told Billboard, "Maia was the perfect partner for the project. ... She would challenge me in ways I truly hadn't anticipated. The song and videos are direct products of that daring spirit."

As Maia Mitchell's star rose, so too did her Instagram follower count. She shares glamorous snapshots online with her millions of fans, showing off her enviable style to everyone scrolling. As such, it's only natural that the fashion world came calling. In 2016, Mitchell spoke with Who What Wear Australia about her personal fashion sense, noting that she actually loves dressing down whenever she can. "I'm so lucky because I'm able to work with a stylist and play dress ups and wear these amazing outfits to events and for work, and then in my real-life I honestly just live in T-shirts, skirts, jeans, sneakers or no shoes," she said.

That bit about dressing up for work, though? She really dresses up! Mitchell has been a guest of Louis Vuitton at several events, including in 2023 when she sat front row at the brand's Paris Fashion Week show. She shared some snaps on Instagram showing herself in an enviable pinstripe blue suit.

As Mitchell alluded to, much of her personal wardrobe is significantly less luxurious than Louis Vuitton. "Most of my shopping happens at flea markets and in my town in Lismore," she told Who What Wear. "There's this unbelievable market that I go to every Sunday, and pretty much all of my wardrobe is what I bought there from when I was in high school. I don't really shop, and I don't usually go for high-end designers when I shop." If you want to find great secondhand deals like Mitchell, check out our simple thrifting hack to score the best chance of finding quality clothes.

After the five-season success of "The Fosters," Freeform built a spin-off around Maia Mitchell's character Callie. The show, "Good Trouble," ran for just as long, following Callie as she moved to Los Angeles to work as a law clerk.

Though the show ran for five seasons, Maia Mitchell decided to leave "Good Trouble" shortly into Season 4. In the world of the show, Callie accepts a job in Washington, D.C., leaving behind the show's characters to work for the ACLU. Mitchell herself had decided that it was time to step away, largely because she'd been rattled by the instability of the COVID-19 pandemic. She told Entertainment Weekly that she'd sent her mother home just before the show got shut down. "I couldn't go [back to Australia with her] because we didn't know when we'd start production again," she said. "It was during that shutdown when I couldn't be around ... my 'Good Trouble' family either. It was quite a lonely time for so many people and that was when I felt that I needed to let them know that this needs to be my last season."

Leaving the show was an emotional experience after nearly a decade of playing one character. Nevertheless, she found that her cast and crew had her back. "There was only support," she said. "Everyone knows that family comes first right now. So I was terrified but I didn't need to be, they were really amazing."

"Good Trouble" star Maia Mitchell was in a relationship with former Vine star Rudy Mancuso. He spoke about their love for each other on a 2017 episode of "The Zach Sang Show," singing his girlfriend's praises as he described their partnership as both a romantic and creative one. "I think I've always been a little bit of a hopeless romantic, and since Maia I'm a hopeful romantic," he said. "She's great. She's incredible. ... I just don't deserve her, and she's way smarter and cooler than I am."

Mancuso started out making videos online, making content himself rather than acting in other people's projects. For a time, he gave it a shot, noting that Mitchell helped him learn the ropes. "Maia is incredibly good at auditioning. It's a muscle that she has worked out," he said. "[She] memorizes lines so quickly ... I hate it." Instead, Mancuso continued developing his own content, often including his girlfriend in his videos.

In 2022, the two broke up, going their separate ways after six years together. Mancuso later partnered up with a member of the "Riverdale" cast, Camila Mendes.

Finding herself at a pivotal moment in both her career and her personal life, Maia Mitchell made a move she'd been thinking about for a long time. Leaving Hollywood behind, the "Never Goin' Back" star went back to her native Australia, trading her Los Angeles TV star life for a life out in the bush. She spoke with Elle Australia about how it felt to come home after all those years acting abroad, noting that it was a long time coming. "I've always wanted to be based at home," she said, "and I just sort of accidentally lived in America for 10 years."

As she expected, heading back to Australia was a massive life change. "Going from that to living out in the bush, just being alone and really separated from the industry, was a really good thing for the old mental health," she admitted. "You have to undo those tethers and be okay with stepping away."

That smaller life in the Australian countryside is what Mitchell always wanted, as she explained in an interview on "The Zach Sang Show." "LA's not for me," she said. "It's not my favorite city ... I'm a small town girl. I'm a country girl. I just wanted to be home and closer to family." Whereas her life in Los Angeles involved constant industry pressure, she gets to relax in Australia. "I live on a farm, a 20-acre farm," she said. "I just hang out there by myself."

Even though Maia Mitchell moved back to Australia, that doesn't mean she's stopped acting. She even continued to make appearances on "Good Trouble," appearing several more times as Callie via video call. In 2023, she starred in "The Artful Dodger," a Disney+ show that serves as a sequel to "Oliver Twist," depicting a world where the show's titular character (played by "Love Actually" star Thomas Brodie-Sangster) moves to Australia to become a doctor.

Speaking with news.com.au, Mitchell said she chose the show because it was so different from projects like "The Fosters." She explained, "I was just looking for something transported you to another world. I've done a lot of very grounded drama and so I was excited to do something that was a little more genre and that was a little more of a challenge." 

For the first time in a while, Mitchell got to act in her native Australian accent, and she also got to wear fabulous fashions that were a far cry from the toned-down wardrobe sported by her character on Freeform. "it was fun to play with the uncomfortable nature of the costumes and live in that and let that show," she said, recalling days spent in an Australian warehouse studio where temperatures climbed quite high. "It was good, but it was very hot and so sweaty," she said. "We would have AC vents just pumping directly under our skirts at moments. It was chaos."