So happy for this! Shay is gracing the cover of the December/January 2011 Issue of Seventeen Prom Magazine! We added a few outtakes of her photoshoot to the Gallery! Shay looks absolutely breattaking in every picture and she rocks those dresses even though we don’t like them. Check them out! We’ll add high quality scans as soon as they will be released!

Picking The Perfect Dress
“For my prom I really wanted to wear a bright color — something that was going to pop and stand out. [You have to think about] how you are going to shine in your photo and how you’re going to look different.”

Whenever I ask someone from the Pretty Little Liars set to describe Shay Mitchell, they all say the same thing: “She’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.” And that is saying something. Shay Mitchell landed on our radar when ABC Family launched Pretty Little Liars last year. Emily Fields quickly became one of our favorite lesbian characters, and Shay Mitchell became one of our favorite straight allies. She’s gorgeous, yes, but she’s also charming and articulate and full of life. Every time I interview her, I can feel her enthusiasm coming through the phone. I caught up with her yesterday to talk about Pretty Little Liars’ second season, Emily’s love life and why she’s never going to worry about being typecast as a lesbian.

AfterEllen.com: Did you know that you landed the number seven spot on our AfterEllen.com Hot 100 list this year?
Shay Mitchell: Did you know I just finished reading your recap from last week’s Pretty Little Liars and I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself?

AE: Don’t tell me that. I can’t deal with my life if you’re reading my recaps. Oh, s–t, please don’t tell Troian [Bellisario] the things I say about her voice.
SM: Too late! Actually, I found out about the Hot 100 just a couple of days ago. I was in hair and makeup with Troian and I was like, “Holy crap, look at this — we both made the list!” She was like, “What?! Awesome!”

AE: I mean, of course you were going to make the top 10. You were in hair and makeup, so presumably you’ve seen yourself in the mirror.
SM: Oh, stop. No, really, I’m not going to lie: It was totally unexpected and really cool to make the top 10 on the Hot 100. I’m flattered.

AE: You deserve it. Where are you guys at in filming? You’re filming all 25 of this season’s episodes at once, right?
SM: Right. We are on episode 209 right now. We still have a while to go, but it’s flying by. We’re started filming in April and we’re filming until Christmas. I watched the episode on Tuesday night, and it feels like it happened so long ago, but also like it was just yesterday. The scenes we’ve been filming lately are insane. I know I need to come up with a better word, but I don’t know how else to describe it. The writers, Marlene [King] and the rest of the staff, I don’t know how they come up with this stuff. They’re so creative, and so twisted! I seriously can’t wait for the fans to see it!

First of all, congratulations are in order — you successfully endured the three month hiatus between “Pretty Little Liars” season one and tomorrow night’s season two premiere! So to reward your patience, I rung up one of the prettiest little liars the small screen has ever seen: Shay Mitchell! When we last saw Emily, she learned that mommy dearest was planning on moving them from Rosewood to Texas. But fans had to put in a pin in that shock because Ian’s “dead” body also disappeared from the church, making the “Little Liars” look like big fibbers to their parents, their neighbors and the police. Which is right where the premiere picks up: The Rosewood Police Station. And a quick trip to the slammer isn’t the only place all four are required to go this year. As any loyal PopWrap reader learned months ago, they will be enrolled in non-negotiable group therapy. But how to they handle the couch? That’s just one of the secrets Shay opens up about in this exclusive interview!

PopWrap: During the off-season, what was the number one thing you heard from fans?
Shay Mitchell: Everyone is wondering how we can top season one – the finale was so insane and so many other parts about the first year were just like, [gasps]. People didn’t know if we could outdo ourselves and I can tell you, not even as a sales pitch, but honestly, the show gets so crazy this year. It’s so amazing. I don’t know how the writers come up with it, but there will be some very intense events that are going to take place in season two. A lot of them.

PW: Obviously one of those will revolve around whether or not Emily moves, as her mother mentioned in the season one finale.
Shay: Right. But more than that it’s about how that possibility affects her relationships with Samara. This season picks up on their relationship and we really see how hard it is for Emily to get close to anyone after what happened with Maya. She doesn’t want to go through that again, but at the same time she doesn’t want to start anything she can’t finish. So basically moving is putting a halt on their relationship. Which sucks because she’s finally comfortable with who she is, and wants to be with her friends, so to get uprooted is totally the opposite of what she wanted.

The season two premiere of Pretty Little Liars airs tonight (ABC Family, 8 pm et/pt), and cast member Shay Mitchell talked about her initial audition for the series.

“When I first auditioned I was like ‘Wow this is really interesting,’” said Shay Mitchell, who plays Emily Fields on the show. ” I read the script for the first episode and I was thought that’s kind of risky for what I thought ABC Family was. But again, it is a new kind of ABC Family and these are all new shows and I think with our show, yes it does push it, but I don’t think it goes overboard. Everything is done kind of tastefully. As far as things getting more and more intense especially with this season, that definitely happens. It’s even more intense than the first season, if that’s possible, but it is.”

Returning after its super-hot freshman season for an even more electrifying second season, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS continues to see Aria, Hanna, Spencer and Emily haunted and tormented by the mysterious ‘A.’ Just who is ‘A’ and what he or she really wants remains murky and now more life-threatening than ever.

What’s your reaction as you’re coming off this amazing first season and you’re about to start your second season?
Shay: Surreal. I mean it’s not the only word. We’re having so much fun with it, and now we‘re on the verge of the first episode of the second season. So, yeah, we’re having fun.
Troian: There’s a really big like cycle. I don’t know if you’re experiencing it. But like when I think back — I’ve seen pictures of the fourth episode of the first season and like shooting certain sequences — that felt like eons ago ‘cause so much has happened. But, for the girls, it’s only been like a few weeks or something like that. So it’s just kind of funny that to us it feels like a lifetime ago. So it’s cool.

So do we find out what happened to Ian?
Troian: You definitely find out about Ian. I mean, they all saw him swinging dead and there’s no body whenever anybody came to check. So you definitely find out what happened.
Shay: It’s cool that the season 2 premiere episode takes place moments after the season finale, so you’re not left wondering what happened in that hour afterward. It’s moments after we left the church.

Is Emily moving to Texas? What will Spencer tell her big sis about Ian’s antics? We’re in Burbank, Ca. with Shay Mitchell and Troian Bellisario to get the latest on the new season of “Pretty Little Liars” starting on June 14 on ABC Family.

TeenTelevision: Tell us what you can tell us without getting in trouble with your bosses. We know we pick up with where last season left off and we’re wondering about Ian’s fate. What else?
Shay: Yes. I guess the big thing is just finding out what really happened to Ian. Is it he dead? Is he alive? And, if so, how did he manage that?

TeenTelevision: We know a therapist is coming into the mix so are the girls going to maybe clash over what to tell he and maybe to reveal anything to her?
Troian: Definitely. I think when you’ve all shared a traumatic experience but you all have very different opinions on where you stand, how far you are into wanting to let it go or wanting to rehash it? Doing something like therapy together is a really stifling experience. And especially because the girls have so much to lose and so many secrets with each other. They have to work through that. Or decide if they’re going to let that go.

TeenTelevision: What sort of new things are happening for each of your characters?
Shay: I would say that Emily is moving. She’s packing up. I think, with her, it’s always been divide and conquer. She’s kind of wanting to separate the girls and give them alone time to kind of mess with them individually. So they don’t have their group of girls to fall back on for a little bit. So, where is she going? Is it Texas? I don’t know. I do know but I can’t say but she’ll be connected even if she moves. “A” still wants her in the game.

Pretty Little Liars is definitely a guilty pleasure. With its twists, turns and dark secrets, it’s wickedly entertaining – and if you haven’t caught it in the UK yet, don’t fret! The first season has just started on airing on MTV, so you’ve got a chance to tune in and see what all the fuss is about. To celebrate, we called up Shay Mitchell – who plays Emily – to have a chat about the show. If you want to remain completely spoiler-free you might want to avoid this, but otherwise read on to find out what she had to say!

For people who haven’t seen Pretty Little Liars, can you tell us what it’s about?
“It’s basically about the relationships between four different girls. Alison, the queen bee of their group, disappears and so now they’re all trying to go on with their lives and everything. But this mysterious ‘A’ person is threatening to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets, and only secrets that Alison would have known. So it’s a mystery, there’s romance in it with the relationships that each of the girls have with certain people, and the relationships with their parents that they have too. It takes place in a smaller town, Rosewood, and basically these girls are trying to grow up and figure themselves out in high school along with having to deal with someone threatening to tell their secrets.”

Can you tell us a bit about Emily?
“She’s the competitive one – she’s on the swim team. She is brought up in a very conservative family – her dad is in the military and her mum is like a Martha Stewart type, so she’s very proper and likes everything to be perfect. But Emily is figuring herself out right now and as she’s going through high school she’s realising that she’s wanting to experience relationships with girls. So she’s dealing with her sexuality.”

What has it been like playing a teenager who is a lesbian?
“You know, I’m playing a character and I absolutely love my character so I’ve been having fun with it. It’s great. And the feedback that I’ve been getting from a lot of young people all around the world has been amazing. They’ve said that the character that I play has really helped them deal with their own issues at home and at school, and that’s amazing. I’m very honoured to play a character who’s living an authentic life and being true to herself.”

On Monday night, “Pretty Little Liars” wrapped up after a super-successful, what-will-happen-next first season. Shay Mitchell, who plays lovable lesbian Emily on the hit drama, admitted that when she watched the episode along with fellow “PLL”er Ashley Benson (both pictured), she was pretty surprised.

Last night, I watched it with Ashley, and honestly, there were a couple screaming moments,” she told Hollywood Crush. “For me, I totally forgot about Lucas picking up Caleb and even the whole moving thing with Emily. I can see why fans are shocked. It was intense and well-shot [to show] the whole intenseness of it all.

I love the fact that Florence and the Machine was playing as the song at the end,” she continued. “For me, because I had seen what was shot of course, I would have said the whole thing with Spencer and Ian [was shocking for fans]. For me it was Melissa and Spencer’s car accident [that was shocking]. Ashley looked over at me and was like, ‘Are you serious?’ We turned off the lights and everything. I was genuinely freaked out.”

ABC Family’s freshman series PRETTY LITTLE LIARS, based on Sara Shepard’s novels about four high school friends sharing a variety of dangerous secrets, has been a breakout hit this season. With the season finale tonight, we talk with Shay Mitchell, who plays Emily Fields, about the show and her character.

ASSIGNMENT X: PRETTY LITTLE LIARS has gone beyond being a hit TV show and actually turned into sort of a cult phenomenon. When you first were cast as Emily, did you ever think it was going to turn into something this big?

SHAY MITCHELL: From reading the breakdown and [knowing that] Sara Shepard had such a successful book series [that] the show was based on, I had some kind of hopes for it, but I didn’t know that it was going to be picked up internationally, in the Philippines and in Australia. And then to have the ratings come in like they were, which were phenomenal. No, I didn’t expect it to be this big, but I did know that Sara Shepard had something really good with the book series.

AX: How has your character changed over the season? In what you can say – we know you can’t give out season finale spoilers.

MITCHELL: She’s definitely become a lot more comfortable with herself, and she’s figuring out her sexuality, but I think her coming out to her father was a huge step forward for her and a big weight that was lifted, so I think she’s just evolving and growing and discovering who she is.

• Read More?

Monday night is the big season finale of Pretty Little Liars and I am beyond excited. Will all of our questions finally be answered? I have a feeling we will be given some answers and left with many more questions. In Rosewood, there are so many secrets, but will we find out even more? I recently had the chance to catch up with the stars of the show and they had a lot to say about what’s coming up. Shay Mitchell, who plays Emily Fields, talked about not one but two girls after Emily’s affection, the whole Paige mess, and what she’d like to see from Emily in season two.

So when I spoke to Marlene King, she said there would be two girls vying for Emily’s attention –
Yes.

So can you talk a little bit about that? Could it be Samara?
Well, I mean we do have Paige. And there could be somebody else. And Maya’s still here. They had a very strong relationship. So yeah. But Emily’s having fun right now and I love the fact that Paige totally brought out that crazy wild side of Emily. I think that’s really neat. It was fun to play her and the whole karaoke scene was so much fun.

And what are we going to see from Paige and Emily going forward? Last week seemed like it might be coming to an end.
I don’t know. Like I said, Emily is going to continue to have fun. As far as how far it’s going to go and where it’s going to go, you have to watch!

And there’s a lot of Emily and Maya fans out there –
There are a lot of Emily and Maya fans out there and all I want to say is that Maya hasn’t disappeared off the face of the planet. She is still here. Her coming back to Rosewood is a possibility. Continue reading?