Kenny Ortega Latest News, Photos, and Videos

With only a few more days until the premiere of Descendants 2, director Kenny Ortega is hyping up the DCOM sequel.

The biggest thing that you’ll see in the new movie, starring Dove Cameron, Sofia Carson and China Anne McClain, is bigger productions and performances.

“What with the music, the choreography, the visual effects, the physical size of this TV movie’s production design, all of the location work, this is certainly the biggest thing that I’ve ever done for television,” Kenny told Huffington Post in a new interview.

He adds, “What’s kind of ironic is that – because we knew what the fans would be expecting from ‘Descendants 2′ … Well, we obviously wanted to surprise them. Raise the bar a bit. But we never went into this Descendants follow-up saying that ‘It has to be bigger.’”

But that’s exactly what happened: “Over time – what with all of the different elements we play with here, water & weather, Descendants 2 did eventually get bigger.”

Click inside to see what Kenny shared about how the cast prepared for the big scenes… More Here! »

It was another High School Musical reunion at the Descendants 2 premiere!

Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel, Olesya Rulin and the ever hunky Corbin Bleu hit the red carpet in support of their fave director, Kenny Ortega, who helmed the sequel flick.

If you didn’t know, Corbin will also star with Dove Cameron this summer in Mamma Mia! at the Hollywood Bowl.

Lucas brought along his longtime love Emily Morris and sister Autumn, and Corbin stepped out with wife Sasha Clements and sisters Jag and Phoenix.

Dove Cameron may be making her time on Descendants super permanent – in the form of a tattoo!

The 21-year-old actress recently revealed that she pretty much convinced boyfriend Thomas Doherty, co-star Dylan Playfair, and director Kenny Ortega to get matching ink to commemorate filming the popular Disney Channel Original Movie franchise.

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Dove Cameron

“I know that the pirates got some,” Dove told us. “And I don’t care what you say, Kenny. Me and Thomas and Dylan…we talked Kenny into getting one with just the four of us. And then he backed out. But I’m going to get him.”

In case you missed it, Dove also recently told us the first thing she loved about Thomas. Aw!

The cast of Descendants 2 looks like they’re about to drop the hottest album of the year in this Instagram shot — which, they probably are.

Booboo Stewart, Cameron Boyce, Brenna D’Amico, and Dianne Doan headed to the 2017 Banff Media Festival in Canada to celebrate and honor their Descendants director Kenny Ortega.

On to of being honored at the festival, Kenny and the cast also spoke at a Master Class, sharing behind the scenes insight about the upcoming sequel.

“Thank you #banffmediafestival #disneyabctelevisiongroup and to my most loving and gifted @thecameronboyce @brennadamico @dianneldoan and #booboostewart I L.O.V.E. you guys,” Kenny later shared on Instagram, giving his love to his cast for being there with him.

Check out Cameron‘s slideshow below!

You probably never would have guessed this, but Dove Cameron is not a natural dancer.

In fact, the actress recently revealed that she was almost afraid to be a part of Descendants because Kenny Ortega was attached to the project.

“I never thought I’d get to work with someone like Kenny Ortega. He is responsible for the High School Musical movies and he’s also the director of Descendants – but I’m not a dancer at all,” she says.

“When I heard that he was attached to this movie, I said, ‘Wait, what? Kenny Ortega is attached to Descendants? You guys know I can’t dance, right?’” Dove remembers.

“I was really scared because I thought he was going to say, ‘Send Dove home. She cannot dance. She cannot be my lead.’”

Thankfully, Kenny‘s not like that at all!

“He was absolutely wonderful,” Dove added. “One of Kenny‘s favourite things to do is turn someone who’s not a dancer into a dancer. I worked with him intensively to make sure that I was up to par with the rest of the cast. It was a really big education for me, but I loved every minute of it.”

Descendants 2 is out on July 21st.

We can’t believe that we missed this tiny, but still amazing reunion with Raven Symone and Kenny Ortega!

Raven and Kenny ran into each other at the 2017 Radio Disney Music Awards last weekend, as Raven was promoting her new show, Raven’s Home and Kenny was with his super-talented Descendants 2 cast.

The two actually worked together on the sequel to Cheetah Girls, Cheetah Girls 2, back in 2006 — which, obviously was the best CG movie.

If you haven’t watched the second movie, we suggest you do that right now. It has the Cheetah Girls heading to Spain to take part in a music festival.

Descendants 2 stars Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce, Booboo Stewart and Sofia Carson performed a medley of “Ways to Be Wicked” from the upcoming sequel and their classic hit “Rotten to the Core” on Dancing with the Stars last night.

No surprise, they totally killed it, turned the whole crowd rotten and made us even more excited for the movie’s premiere this summer.

After the performance, we talked to D2 director Kenny Ortega backstage at DWTS, where he opened up to us about how the cast has grown since the first film and how you guys, the fans, played a major role in the creation of the upcoming film.

ICYMI: Descendants 2 is doing something that no Disney Channel show has EVER done before

“My cast, for one, they’re not only triple threat actors, singer, dancers, they’re partners. And every day they come prepared, passionate, excited and they help me raise the bar on ourselves,” Kenny told JustJaredJr. “They’ve grown so much as artists and everyone that’s seen the movie has said it’s the strongest cast the Disney Channel’s ever had.”

The strongest cast Disney Channel’s ever had? That’s a big statement coming from the man behind the High School Music trilogy.

One thing that’s changed since Kenny taught us we’re all in this together is how fans use social media. The director says Descendants fans voicing their opinions about the characters and the movie on the Internet greatly influenced how they approached the sequel.

“We didn’t really go at it to make it bigger or better [than the first movie], what really motivated us were the fans. The fans embraced us internationally and they’re very vocal on social media, so they let you know what they love. They let you know what they want more of, they let you know where they want to go back to,” Kenny said. “So they’re not writing the movie, but they really help sort of set you in the right direction and what we wanted to do is we wanted to fill their expectation and then go beyond, and I hope we have.”

More than 11 years after HSM premiered, the director says he feels “superb and lucky” to be back with Disney Channel for another musical saga that inspires a new generation.

“I feel very lucky and humbled,” he confessed.

Catch all the wicked goodness when Descendants 2 premieres on July 21, 2017.