Emily Skinner plays Amber on Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack.” (Photo by Fred Hayes, Disney Channel)

Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” stars Asher Angel as Jonah Beck, Sofia Wylie as Buffy, Peyton Elizabeth Lee as Andi Mack, Emily Skinner as Amber, and Joshua Rush as Cyrus. (Photo by Craig Sjodin, Disney Channel)

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Emily Skinner was born and raised in Orange County and has been working as an actress in Hollywood since she was 7. She’s currently in the cast of Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack.” (Photo by Craig Sjodin, Disney Channel)

Emily Skinner, right, plays Amber on Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack,” which stars Peyton Elizabeth Lee, left, in the title role. On a new episode that airs on Fridaqy, Nov. 24, 2017, the Andi and Amber decide to move past their old rivalries and get to know each other better. (Photo courtesy of Disney Channel)

Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” stars, left to right, Asher Angel as Jonah Beck, Sofia Wylie as Buffy Driscoll, Joshua Rush as Cyrus Goodman, Peyton Elizabeth Lee as Andi Mack, Lilan Bowden as Bex Mack, Lauren Tom as Celia Mack, and Stoney Westmoreland as Ham Mack. (Photo by Craig Sjodin, Disney Channel)



Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” stars Emily Skinner as Amber. (Photo by Craig Sjodin, Disney Channel)

Emily Skinner, as Amber, and Peyton Elizabeth Lee, as Andi, started out as rivals on Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack,” but in season two that distance starts to thaw as Andi realizes Amber really needs a friend. (Photo courtesy of Disney Channel)

In the first season of Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” Emily Skinner’s character Amber had it all. Now, though, her family is struggling and Amber has to take a job at the diner where all the other kids hang out after school. Seen here, left to right, are Peyton Elizabeth Lee as Andi, Asher Angel as Jonah, Joshua Rush as Cyrus, and Emily Skinner as Amber. (Photo by Fred Hayes, Disney Channel)

When Emily Skinner first read the script for a new Disney Channel show called “Andi Mack” the then-13-year-old actress from Trabuco Canyon says she connected strongly with it from the first few pages.

It was written and created by Terri Minsky, whose previous show for younger audiences, Disney Channel’s “Lizzie McGuire,” Emily had loved. It was intended to be a single-camera show which meant it would have the look and feel of a movie more than a typical TV situation comedy.

“The characters were so relatable and real,” Emily says. “And the script, the story line, was so interesting.”

In “Andi Mack,” the title character played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee discovers as she’s turning 13 that her older sister Bex (Lilan Bowden) is actually her mother, and her grandparents (Lauren Tom and Stoney Westmoreland) have been raising as her parents. Her best friends include Buffy (Sofia Wylie), a no-nonsense girl who plays basketball on the boy’s team at their middle school, and Cyrus (Joshua Rush), whose character realizes he is gay – a first for a Disney Channel character — at the start of the second season in October.

“I started with auditioning for Andi,” Emily says. “And I got pretty close for that role. And then I auditioned for Buffy, and I got closer, I did chemistry tests (with other actors). And finally after that I auditioned for Amber.

“I was just excited to have any part on the show,” she says. “I didn’t even know there was an Amber and when I saw that I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I still have a chance.'”

Amber, the part she landed, is bit of a mean girl character in the first season, which premiered in April, and the girlfriend of Jonah (Asher Angel), on whom Andi has a crush. In season two, though, Amber’s role starts to expand, which Emily says has been a fun and exciting change.

“Even though she was a very flat character in season one, the ‘It Girl’ who has it all, from the beginning I always had a back story for her in my mind,” Emily says. “I always do that to give myself a better understanding.

“So when they gave her a back story it was really exciting because her character became more interesting for me to play,” she says. (A new episode titled “The Snorpion” highlights Skinner’s transformation as Amber. It premieres on Friday, Nov. 24 and will repeat throughout the week that follows.)

Now Amber’s family has fallen on hard economic times. She’s had to get a job at the local diner where all the kids hang out after school. And she and Jonah break up at the same time he realizes he kinda sorta likes Andi.

“I love that Terri keeps it real with her writing,” Emily says. “(Amber) doesn’t change overnight, you see the process of her learning and changing.”

If this discussion of character development and acting sounds awful grown-up for a teenager whose not quite 15 – that birthday arrives on Nov. 30 – it’s largely due to the fact that Emily has been a professional actress in film and television for half her life now.

“When I was little I was very shy,” she says. “But I told my mom one day I want to do acting. And she was like, ‘Acting?’ Then she said, ‘OK,’ and put me in a class, and thought maybe it will help with my shyness.”

Which it did, but it also unveiled a serious talent, which her teacher recognized, mentioned to her parents, Jennifer and Steve Skinner, and helped her find an agent, with whom she’s still with more than seven years later.

“The very first (role) was ‘Numbers,'” says Emily, the only one in her family, which includes sister Lauren, 17, who works in entertainment. “I was like a kidnapped girl. And it was super fun to play, because it was a pretty dramatic role.”

Since then she’s worked regularly, playing some kid roles – a tiny beauty pageant girl on Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up!” – but also parts including a young vampire in the movie “Blood Ransom” and a juvenile murder victim on “Rizzoli & Isles.”

“I love playing those kinds of roles,” Emily says of the scarier fare. “They’re just so much fun to become that character and that person because obviously that’s never going to happen to me.”

Even so, “Andi Mack” is “the most fun project ever,” she says. “We’re all best friends. It is so amazing how everyone on the cast just clicked. We do everything together.

“It’s funny how Andi and Amber are enemies on the show because we have so much fun off the show,” Emily says. “In the scenes were we have to be mean to each other or glare at each other we always end up laughing.”

It also feels good, she says, to be part of a project that includes such a wide range of characters.

“I love how they show different cultures,” Emily says. “There’s an episode where they show Chinese New Year’s. And I love how diverse the cast is.

“And it’s so wonderful with the Cyrus story line. Every child can see themselves on the screen and know, ‘I’m not alone.’ We can all accept each other for who we are.

“Hopefully we’ll be great role models for the kids watching the show.”

‘Andi Mack’

When: 8 p.m. Fridays with repeats throughout the week

Where: Disney Channel