The ‘Deadly Class’ Cast Reveal Their Favorite High School Movies

SYFY’s Deadly Class, an upcoming series based on the Image Comics title of the same name, centers around an elite boarding school for assassins-in-training, where high school is every bit as life-and-death as it feels at the time you’re living it.

During the show’s press room at New York Comic Con last month, though, we asked series stars Maria Gabriela de Faria, Benjamin Wadsworth, Luke Tennie, and Liam James to tell us their favorite high school movies — and got a pretty interesting variety of replies.

“I remember going to the movies with my two best friends when I was super little to watch the Britney Spears movie — Crossroads,” said Maria Gabriela de Faria, who plays Maria on the series. “I just remembered it last week and was like ‘That was a good moment.’ I wouldn’t watch it right now, but that was a good moment for me.”

Her onscreen crush, Benjamin Wadsworth, was more brief: “Mean Girls? It’s a classic,” said the actor who will play point-of-view character Marcus.

“I do love The Breakfast Club,” said Luke Tennie, who plays Willie. “And you know what? I’m gonna be honest: one of the things that got me excited for high school? High School Musical. I watched that, and what’s crazy is that I played football in high school and had no idea I was going to be an actor. So seeing this guy who wanted to be in musicals and playing sports actually might have influenced the way my life turned out. High School Musical was great. It’s about teamwork, and being who you are.”

Last but not least, and appropriately enough for Deadly Class, we go back to the ’80s.

“The movie The Breakfast Club is part of the reason I wanted to be an actor,” said Liam James. “It’s about finding out that everybody is human, and I think that’s what Deadly Class does the same way The Breakfast Club does. The more walls that you put up, the more you’re boxing yourself in.”

James, of course, appeared on more than fifty episodes of Psych — a series from Deadly Class distributor Universal Cable Productions, in which The Breakfast Club stars Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, and Molly Ringwald all appeared at one point or another.

Deadly Class will premiere on SYFY on January 16, 2019.