Sarah Eve got to speak with Francia Raisa and Brendan Fehr, the stars of ABC Family’s original movie, The Cutting Edge: Fire and Ice. The movie premiers this Sunday, March 14th at 8 p.m. eastern time. You’ll recognize Francia Raisa from The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Brendan Fehr from Roswell.

Francia, how were you chosen for the Cutting Edge III: Chasing the Dream?

Francia Raisa: I auditioned for the role shortly after I came back from a movie I did in Spain. When I went in, they had asked me if I figure skate. I said, “Coincidentally I do,” so I think that played a big part in getting the role, but I also had a long audition process that lasted a couple weeks.

What was the inspiration to go ahead and make a sequel to it?

Francia Raisa: I really enjoyed doing the third film. I wanted to go back to Montreal and shoot again. I wanted to figure skate again. I was really intrigued by skating the first time I did it for the movie. Then, they told me a possible storyline, but I didn’t get a script, but I was really inspired by the third one and I said, why not. The third one was such a hit, let’s just do it again.

In this movie your character has a new partner. So what happened to the character Zach from Cutting Edge III: Chasing the Dream?

Francia Raisa: Zach had an accident after the movie, and he was tired of figure skating so he was ready to retire. Alex wasn’t. She had just started skating. She had won the gold and still had that drive in her to continue figure skating. That got in the way of their relationship, so they just decided to part ways and he went on to live his life and she went on to try and figure skate. But it didn’t really work out because she didn’t have a partner, so she just started teaching, and then that’s when James comes in.

Where did filming Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice fit in with your production schedule for Secret Life? Did you do this on a hiatus?

Francia Raisa: Yes, I did it in a hiatus. I had, what was it, a three or four week hiatus in August of 2009. As soon as I got on hiatus, they flew me out to Montreal to start filming. But as I was filming Secret Life, I was training on the days off. So I was juggling both for that.

Brendan, since Francia has already done one of these movies before, what was it like for you to be strapping on the skates?

Brendan Fehr: Part of it just came naturally. I played hockey my whole life, so obviously the ice skating, just the regular skating backward and side-to-side is pretty much the same. I was comfortable on skates, but then there’s a difference between skating and figure skating. When you’re asked to exhibit a little bit of grace out there, then that’s when all hell broke loose.

What did you two have to do to train for this movie to prepare for the ice skating?

Francia Raisa: We trained about three or four times a week for figure skating and partner skating—we had to do lifts any time we could. Like I said before, my favorite part were the ballet lessons where Brendan failed miserably.

Brendan Fehr: Skating, we would do anywhere between two and four times a week. We would throw in a lift session in there once or twice if we could, just in terms of doing lifts on dry land and getting used to those. And because Francia has taken dance before, we did ballet together as well. I also went a few times on my own just because I was a little behind in the flexibility department—

Francia Raisa: I got in trouble by the teacher, too.

Brendan Fehr:  The ballet was actually possibly my favorite. We just had a blast in there.

Francia Raisa: Yes, because we kept getting in trouble, both of us. Even through I’m a dancer and I knew what I was doing, I still got in trouble and got yelled at.

Brendan Fehr: We had this hard core teacher who I believe was Eastern European. There were no soft spoken kind words in that room. She was there to mold you and to break you, which was was great. We all loved each other, and it was a lot of fun. That was probably a whole movie unto itself, I think.

In the movie, how much of the skating scenes were really you two and how much was covered by stunt doubles?

Francia Raisa: Our work is fairly real, but when it came to the stunts, the doubles took care of that.

Brendan Fehr: Yes, obviously, me and Francia are both okay, we can stand up on skates and skate backwards and do the turns. There’s a lot of general skating around the rink, getting prepared before doing jumps. That’s mostly us. We had done a lot of our training beforehand and got comfortable with that. Anything that has a significant element of skill involved is probably not us.

This trend with what ABC Family is doing, taking a popular film franchise and turning it into a TV movies that keep going, what do you think about that?

Brendan Fehr: I think there’s a place for it. You’re always looking for something original that hasn’t been done before. We have those, but just like there’s a gazillion different types of genres from horror to comedy to whatever else. I think there’s also, there’s different ways to get material out there and to take a successful franchise. I think that’s one way of doing it. I don’t think there’s a right or a wrong. Some people like it, some people don’t. And sometimes you don’t want to remake or add upon a classic and I understand that as well. But I think there’s a time and a place for it and when it’s done right, it gives people jobs and an opportunity to whether it’s provide for their family or to get out there or to launch a career or to kick start one or to help a network get some original programming, I think it has a bunch of positives there.

It’s not something I’d like to see done with every successful film. Like I said, some need to be just left alone and as they are. But, yes, there’s absolutely a time and a place for it. I appreciate that I got this opportunity, so obviously nothing but positive stuff came at it from my end. But I could see the time when it’s like no, no, let’s not do this. I think it’s a smart thing. It obviously has been very successful for them, so that would be my particular take on it.

Francia Raisa: Like Brendan said, not every movie should be turned into a sequel and then some should just be left alone. But me myself, I was a big fan of the first Cutting Edge movie, so getting the opportunity to be a part of it and participate in it was almost like a dream come true, because I also did a sequel to Bring it On. I remember being ….if only I was old enough to do it and then I was able to, so making it is a girl’s dream come true. I guess I appreciate that ABC Family did do this. I think it’s smart for ABC Family to bring these TV movies to life. It’s good for the movie because there are fans for ABC Family. I think they’re very smart with that they’re doing and they’re picking the right movies to continue making, like the Cutting Edge. So I don’t think there’s a right or wrong to it, but this is definitely not one of those movies that they should have stopped at. It could have almost continued from the previous ones.

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What will be your take on the movie Cutting Edge: Fire & Ice? You’ll have to watch to come to your own conclusion. The movie premieres on ABC Family this Sunday March 14th at 8 p.m. eastern time. Afterwards, tell us what you think!