Twenty years after its release, Brenda Song still has fond memories of working on Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.

Ahead of the show’s milestone anniversary on March 18, the Running Point actress, 36, spoke with PEOPLE exclusively about playing fan-favorite hotel heiress London Tipton and how her early Disney days as a child star set the trajectory for the rest of her career.

“I wouldn’t be sitting here without that role — that show and that role opened so many opportunities and so many doors for me post-Disney,” she says. “I’m so incredibly grateful.”

Growing up in the spotlight, Song says she and her fellow cast members, including Ashley Tisdale and Cole and Dylan Sprouse, bonded in a special way during the eight years they filmed the show and its spinoff, Suite Life on Deck.

“I truly made a second family,” she says of her costars. “We grew up together. I think the thing that I took the most was my relationships. That’s my family. I love them.”

As a child star, Song adds that another thing that was so meaningful about the series was that she felt comfortable on set.

“Being on that show was really special because I was able to go set every single day knowing that I was in a safe space, getting to do something that I could only ever dream of doing,” she says. “Stepping into the most amazing shoes every single day and playing my dream character and having fun, but still being able to be a kid while doing it.”

Amid her fun experiences, she adds that the show also prepared her for acting as an adult, saying that she learned the “work ethic of a 30-year-old woman” early on as a teenager.

“I feel like it’s just set me up for so many things in my life that I feel like if I hadn’t gone through that I would not be able to handle it the way that I did because of that,” she adds. “It was such a beautiful experience. I look back on it, and yes, as with everything, there was ups and downs, but that is probably the most obviously life-changing experience for me.”

Reflecting on the impact that her character London had on young women growing up, especially young Asian women who saw themselves represented on screen, Song says she’s still seeing the ripple effects even today.

“At the time, I was so young, and I think that’s the beauty of the innocence and naivete. You don’t even think about it,” she says. “You’re just having fun. You get to go and go be on set and make a show. I was living my dream. I was not thinking outside of anything. But I don’t think people really appreciate how incredibly ahead of the curve Disney was when it came to colorblind casting and allowing kids of all ages, sizes, backgrounds, ethnicities, to tell their own stories, and to be represented in media in a time where I feel like it really wasn’t in to do so or it was harder to find those opportunities.”

“Looking back on it, I just feel really grateful to be a part of that,” she says, adding that she’s now seeing that impact firsthand as her 6-year-old niece watches the show for the first time.

“[She] just started watching Suite Life, which was really crazy and weird. She doesn’t quite get it yet, but the fact that a show exists where she can feel in some way, shape or form that she’s being represented, it’s really special,” Song says. “I just feel really grateful that I was able to be a part of that because I just showed up and tried to be my best work.”

“My biggest thing was I just wanted to always make my family and myself proud,” she continues. “I just wanted to make sure that my brothers weren’t embarrassed of me. I mean, they always were, they’re my brothers, but that was always just sort of my mindset.”

She adds, “I just wanted to go to sleep every single night and know that I felt like I made good decisions. My mom always said she never cared when people came up and said, ‘Oh, my Brenda was so good in …’ — she only cared if I was a good person. And I feel like it really stuck with me. That’s what I sort of take away from everything is at night as long as I feel good about the decisions I made in my life, and I feel like I have no regrets, I’m okay.”