Shay Mitchell isn’t afraid of roughing it. When the Mississauga, Canada, native showed up on the set of Nick Jonas’ “Under You” music video, she had to cover visible injuries from doing her own stunts on Pretty Little Liars just hours earlier. “I got bruises the night before because I was shooting on PLL until 4 in the morning, and then I had to be at Nick’s video at 9 a.m,” Mitchell, 29, tells Us Weekly. “We had lunch the day before, pre-bruises, but when he saw me after, he was slightly worried.”
Despite having to constantly reapply makeup due to the addition of a shower scene, “it was incredible and he’s such an amazing guy,” Mitchell says. “It was painful at the time, but now it’s hilarious.”
Although the video required stripping down, Mitchell took a healthy approach to preparing for the steamy scenes. “When I am getting ready for something in particular where I want to be a little bit more confident, then, yeah, I’ll hit the gym a little bit more,” she says. “I maybe eat a little bit cleaner and not have two pieces of pizza. I’ll only have one.”
One place she definitely wasn’t counting slices: PLL costar Troian Bellisario’s recent bachelorette-party vacation in Italy. “We went to Rome, Positano, Capri and then Naples, obviously, had to have some pizza,” she says of the trip, which also included costar Ashley Benson. “It was so much fun being with the girls and fully indulging in everything from the wine to the gelato.”
The travel enthusiast, who is currently partnered with interactive mapping app Delightways from Sanpellegrino Sparkling Fruit Beverages, found a way to burn calories on the trip without logging hours at a gym. “In Rome one day, I remember Ashley and I checked our little watches and we had walked over 25,000 steps. It was kind of insane,” she says. “You kind of lose track when you’re in a new city and exploring.”
It seems that Italy isn’t the only place where she indulges with her costars. “We’ll all go and have a bottle of wine together,” the BaubleBar Guest Bartender tells Us of the PLL cast’s off-set bonding. “We tend to do that a lot at each other’s houses. I think it’s also nice when we check out new restaurants together too. It’s just about sharing a good meal.”
While the cast, including Lucy Hale, Sasha Pieterse, Ian Harding, Tyler Blackburn and Keegan Allen, have spent the past seven years together on-and-off set, Mitchell explains that the Freeform series coming to an end is a bittersweet change.
“I think you grow when you’re uncomfortable, and new things are on the horizon for all of us, but at the same time it is really sad because we’ve built a family,” she says. “It’s sad to say bye to an era.”