Carla Jeffery, the actress who played Bree across Disney Channel’s “Zombies” films and returned to voice the character in the animated follow-up, has died. She was 33.
Her death was confirmed by her talent agency in a statement posted to her Instagram account. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
Jeffery was one of the few performers to carry a “Zombies” role from the original 2018 Disney Channel Original Movie all the way into animation. She appeared as Bree in all three live-action films and then voiced the character in 15 episodes of “ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series,” which ran on Disney Channel from June to December 2024. Bree was written as a Seabrook High cheerleader and Addison’s best friend, and Jeffery played her across nearly every format the franchise took on.
A Career That Started At Twelve
Born in Houston on July 10, 1993, Jeffery began acting at 12 with a role opposite Mo’Nique in the 2006 feature “Phat Girlz.” Television work followed quickly. She played Keysha Black in a recurring run on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” between 2007 and 2009, appeared in four episodes of TNT’s “Southland” as Janila, and turned up on “Lie to Me,” “Suburgatory,” “Super Fun Night,” “Men of a Certain Age” and “Scream Queens.”
Disney Channel became a steady home well before “Zombies.” Jeffery guest starred on “Good Luck Charlie,” “Shake It Up” and “Best Friends Whenever,” and later voiced Mania in an episode of Marvel’s “Spider-Man.” Outside the company she was seen on “iCarly,” “Game Shakers,” “Uncle Buck,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “Torchwood,” and in 2017 she drew wider notice as Sierra Sherrington in the first season of Netflix’s “American Vandal.”
The Cheerleading Was Real
Jeffery came to Bree with the background already in place. She competed on a squad called the Midwest Marauders in Cincinnati at age nine, and in between jobs she helped teach classes at a local acting school, per Disney’s own biography. Her twin brother, Carlon Jeffery, is also an actor, best known as Cameron Parks on Disney Channel’s “A.N.T. Farm.”
Zombies Became One Of Disney Channel’s Biggest Franchises
“Zombies” premiered in February 2018 and grew into one of the most reliable Disney Channel properties launched in the last decade. Sequels arrived in 2020 and 2022, the animated series followed in 2024, and “Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires” drew 9.3 million global views on Disney+ within ten days of its July 2025 debut. A fifth film, “Zombies 5: Secrets of the Sea,” was greenlit earlier this year with Malachi Barton and Freya Skye leading a new cast, while original stars Milo Manheim and Meg Donnelly stayed on as executive producers rather than returning on screen.
For a generation of viewers who found the first film in 2018 and never quite let it go, Bree was part of the furniture of Seabrook. Jeffery played her for seven years.
Selected credits: “Zombies” (2018), “Zombies 2” (2020), “Zombies 3” (2022), “ZOMBIES: The Re-Animated Series” (2024), “American Vandal,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Southland,” “Phat Girlz,” “Best Friends Whenever,” “Good Luck Charlie,” “Shake It Up,” Marvel’s “Spider-Man.”
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