HOLLYWOOD—“Look at all these reporters,” says Pfeifer Brown as she’s trotted out to face the media in the auditorium of Hollywood High School. “I wonder if I sung my loudest, would they even hear it?”

Since graduating from secondary school in 2010 and leaving her hometown of Springfield, Missouri, for the bright lights of L.A., Brown has chased the American dream. Appearances on America’s Got Talent and American Idol paved the way for this, her first feature film, The Gallows (now playing), in which she takes a starring role. So forgive her if she’s a bit nervous.

Directed by both Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff, The Gallows revolves around Reese (Reese Mishler), a football star who takes the lead in the school play, mostly because he has a crush on his costar, Pfeifer (Brown). When his football buddy Ryan (Ryan Shoos) and Ryan’s girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) try to cajole him into sabotaging the play by going to the school after hours and tearing down the stage, Reese’s fear of sucking in the role takes over and he obliges.

Pfeifer, the head of the school’s theatre department, shows up to stop the wreckage. The stakes are raised, of course, when it turns out the theatre is also haunted, leading to some complications for the foursome.

Comparisons to Glee’s Lea Michele are tempting when you watch Brown, with her small stature, radiant brown hair, and willingness (insistence might be a better word) to take a leadership role in any endeavour. Since Brown shares, like all her costars, the first name of her character in The Gallows, we’re further invited to figure that they’re one and the same. And we wouldn’t be completely wrong.

“My character is head of the drama department and I can relate to that. I was never head of the drama department, but I was always very artistic and singing and dancing and in school plays. And so I was able to kind of feed off of that relation,” she says, her words quick and direct. “But my character, Pfeifer, was a complete perfectionist and always on time and organized, and I am not those things. I am so horrible at being on time. Organization is not one of my strong suits. I’m way more laid-back. But, yes, I can relate to my character because I’m passionate about acting and singing in real life, just as I was in the movie.”

For the rest of the conference, Brown is a veritable hummingbird, buzzing around everyone else’s responses and inserting jibs and jabs, as when Mishler reveals he quit football due to a broken pelvis and she makes the sad trombone “wah, wah” noise. When asked at the same conference why Brown was cast in the role, Cluff acts as if it’s a no-brainer.

“She was just too cute to pass up, I think,” he says. “No, seriously, we thought she was just great. She had this great personality and we really just thought, ‘You were great.’ That’s all there was to it.”

Aren’t those talent shows supposed to spot that?