Recently Caroline Sunshine was interviewed by American Cheerleader and had this to say about how she gets along with Bella and Zendaya:
My relationship with the girls compared to Tinka’s is night and day. The first day on set I literally hugged them and was like, “Hi, I’m Caroline and I think we could be great friends. Sorry I have to say some mean things to you in this scene.” It’s kind of funny because before takes we’ll be gabbing about our nails, chatting about girl stuff, but then when they call “action” we have to start playing our characters.
Obviously outside the show they're all amazing buddies! On set the chemistry of the cast drives the show's inner energy, time and time again.
But most of the time it's not so apparent:
I love playing characters that are a little offbeat and crazy. Tinka is so great because she’s not your typical mean girl-type. She’s really funny, says exactly what’s on her mind and is very driven to get what she wants. She’s not afraid to dress a little differently and express herself.
Listing every moment Tinka's ego or brashness appears on Shake It Up would be an endless exercise, really, though several key scenes come to mind (the ending of Throw It Up, the card game with Gunther in Break It Up). She's cutting but clever (the disguises in Auction It Up!) and rarely finds herself on the wrong end of any situation, looking for advantages where she and Gunther can (their lack of commitment in Show It Up as evidence).
Both Caroline and Kenton immerse themselves into their roles in order to generate their brand of accented snark, as she herself expounds on:
When I’m fully Tinka-fied I stand differently, walk differently and even smile differently.
After all, singing "I'm Getting a Goat for Christmas" probably requires shifting into character!
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Even with her predominant edginess, Tinka does have a few moments where her persona is slightly overridden by that of Caroline's...nothing with the gravity of the serious spots CeCe and Rocky are called for, but still more insightful than the usual mixture of mirth and ambition.
Her and Gunther's involvement throughout Auction It Up serve as an easy example, where they somehow have the numerous greenbacks to toy with our leads in the first place, before finally relenting and handing over the thousands CeCe and Rocky need to save their old dance teacher's studio. Maybe they didn't get to that point through complete generosity (after all, they used the ploy as an excuse to pilfer the girls' concert tickets!)...but for a pair of exchange students in high school, in the end they still dropped serious coin to help their erstwhile rivals.
In "Three's A Crowd It Up" - really a character piece on all three gals in the cast - while self-interest reigns supreme as Tinka, CeCe, and Rocky pursue the same boy...they ultimately see the futility of their figurative sparring and decide to figure out the situation together. It's fair to argue here though that this doesn't really reflect on any one of them as individuals though.
Most notable would be the brief date Ty and Tinka had in Add It Up and their table tennis match in Camp It Up though. Sure, Tinka remains as quirky as ever during her adventure with Ty...but they end up sharing a poignant moment through dancing under a full moon, despite the differences she acknowledged at the end.
In the latter episode...Ty lets his pride get the better of him in his mistaken assumption that Tinka is not much of an opponent - a premise immediately shattered by her dominance in numerous ping-pong battles. When she finally does lose to him, she demands that Ty follow through with the end-of-game ritual of aiming the ping pong ball at the defeated party, despite his own reluctance.
It's a nice follow-up to the excessively competitive nature she demonstrated in Break It Up - sure, she has a fierce desire to succeed over anyone, even her own brother...but in a strange, easy-to-relate manner, she frames that intensity in the midst of the rules of the game.
Certainly not a traditional method of fairness...but is anything about Tinka traditional?
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