The new girl in school

[attach]6133[/attach]Taking time off between high school and university to figure out what kind of music she wanted to pursue, Sarah Fisher surprised her parents with another plan.

“I was like ‘Hey mom, I want to try acting’ and she’s like ‘What?’ because we’ve been working with all these classes and all these things just for singing and music, and I write and I play piano,” she says.

Shortly after wrapping up acting classes and securing an agent, she landed a role on the latest season of Degrassi, set to premiere on July 16 at 10 p.m. on MuchMusic.

Fisher plays grade 11 student Becky Baker who recently transferred from Florida.

“She has an extremely religious background and she’s faced with a lot of challenges because she’s coming from a school basically of all Beckys to a school that has drinking, gays, transgender. They have everything,” she says. “But when she comes to school people look at her like she’s really different because they’ve never really been with someone who is that religious before.”

After getting the part — and flipping out — Fisher discovered the actor playing her brother was childhood friend Craig Arnold.

“We both freaked out,” she says. “I feel like he’s a brother because I knew him for so long.”

Although she was an honour roll student in high school, the Hoggs Hollow resident says one of her favourite memories was singing Celine Dion’s “The Prayer” at her Bayview Glen graduation in 2011 because she was able to showcase her passion and what she was good at beyond academics.

“I got a standing ovation from all my teachers, all the kids in the grad year and all the parents that were there,” she says. “Everyone stood up and it was loud cheering for a really long time and it was just the best feeling because it was the first time I really got to show what I do.”

Fisher hasn’t entirely put music on the back burner. Her first single, “You Weaken Me,” has been released on iTunes, and she still plans to study music once the acting opportunities wind down.

For now Fisher, who also works for Elite Models International, hopes viewers learn from her character and the show’s storylines, which deal with big themes in society, she says. Having received a lot of support to follow her interests, she also hopes to encourage others to do the same.

“Anything can happen,” she says. “If you work at something and you really want something, then I totally think you can work towards it.

“I kept working at it and I didn’t expect it to happen to me so, it could happen to you.”