The “Runaways” cast included Gregg Sulkin, a British actor who started his American career with the Disney Channel. In fact, when “Wizards of Waverly Place” ditched its “Harry Potter”-style plotlines and went a bit more “Twilight,” he played Alex Russo’s (Selena Gomez) werewolf love interest, Mason Greyback.
In 2010, Sulkin’s first American acting job (as he told FanLaLa) was in “Avalon High,” a Disney Channel Original Movie based on a Meg Cabot book (she also wrote “The Princess Diaries”) — only with a gender-bending twist. The original book had Ellie Harrington entering Avalon High only to discover that her new friends, including Will Wagner, might just be reincarnations of King Arthur and other characters from the legends surrounding Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. Ellie soon discovers that she herself has a role to play in the battle between good and evil that’s apparently shaping up between Will and Marco, his stepbrother. In the DCOM, Ellie became Allie Pennington (Britt Robertson), and Sulkin plays football quarterback, golden boy, and all-around nice guy Will — but the reincarnation of Arthur isn’t the obvious candidate, unlike in the novel.
In an interview with ClevverTV, Sulkin called Will “the kind of guy that everyone looks to for inspiration” and the “guy who leads by example.” He said one reason he liked the story so much was that “every character is very, very relatable.” The TV movie was filmed in New Zealand, where the cast became close quickly because of the location away from family and friends.
At around the same time that he was filming “Avalon High,” Sulkin joined the cast of “Wizards of Waverly Place” as a recurring character, which led to his second Disney Channel movie appearance.