Speaker 1: I went to two concerts in three days.
Speaker 2: Oh god, that sounds o me left your house twice.
Speaker 1: I left my house twice in one weekend, both times
Speaker 1: getting back home after midnight and then waking up at
Speaker 1: five point thirty in the morning to do radiation.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: But it was so worth it because I got to
Speaker 1: see Sabrina Carpenter's Short and Sweet tour, which I the
Speaker 1: her La shows were how she ended the tour, so
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe that I wait until the very end.
Speaker 1: I actually all of October, I kept thinking, if there's
Speaker 1: any time I have to take off and fly to
Speaker 1: somewhere else in the country and see the show early,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to see the show early. And
Speaker 1: it just didn't work out that way with everything we
Speaker 1: have going on, really, so.
Speaker 4: I was going to say, the one thing you have
Speaker 4: in abundance is extra time, Danie, I know anything about you.
Speaker 3: You've just got like your schedules.
Speaker 1: Wide open, wide open, calendar, wide open.
Speaker 5: But the tour was so great.
Speaker 1: Sue Will's wife Susan went with me last night. I
Speaker 1: brought some other friends with me, and I brought some
Speaker 1: other girlfriends on Friday night, so we saw her at
Speaker 1: Crypto Arena, which formerly known as Staple Center. Unbelieved that
Speaker 1: this is the way. It's not the Staple Center anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not the Staple Center anymore. It's Crypto dot Com Arena.
Speaker 4: It rolls as to tom different corporations.
Speaker 1: I also, I do want you guys to know that
Speaker 1: I win the Crypto bought Staples. I was like, give
Speaker 1: me a break, I will never ever call it Crypto
Speaker 1: dot com Arena.
Speaker 5: Well, guess who flipped a switch.
Speaker 2: I remember going to a Springsteen concert there when it
Speaker 2: was first Staples and him doing a whole bit from
Speaker 2: the stage like why is this place called Staples, And
Speaker 2: he's like, I can't wait to meet mister Staples. It's
Speaker 2: like this old bit because it was so weird back there.
Speaker 2: It was one of the first to be named after
Speaker 2: a corporation. But I'm totally right now it's crypt Now
Speaker 2: it's Crypto, So look at it this way. In another
Speaker 2: month it's gonna be worth half as much.
Speaker 3: So nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: That'll be great, But I do the show is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: Next year she'll be doing a European leg of the tour.
Speaker 1: If you have not seen the show. It's really truly
Speaker 1: so beautiful. The set is gorgeous. She does these very
Speaker 1: cool vignettes. You know, writer, you got to know Sabrina
Speaker 1: very well. You know, she's an incredible storyteller, she's a
Speaker 1: great actor. Nothing with her is like, oh yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: just do the very basic pop star thing. Like everything
Speaker 1: is well thought out and it's just so well done.
Speaker 5: I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: I you know, sobbed through the first show and then
Speaker 1: actually really got to enjoy the second show. And she
Speaker 1: is annoyed with me because I keep talking about the
Speaker 1: Forum cake.
Speaker 5: So if you've ever been in the Forum.
Speaker 1: Club, which is like the lounge as part of the Forum, No,
Speaker 1: we're not.
Speaker 2: Cool enough to have them.
Speaker 4: Now, I don't think I've ever been.
Speaker 2: Probably every time you go to before, but literally don't
Speaker 2: think it would have been in the Forum.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when artists perform there, they make a cake,
Speaker 1: a big cake with the artist's face on it. And
Speaker 1: for ten years now a little over ten years, I
Speaker 1: have known Sabrina And every time I've been to the
Speaker 1: Forum in those ten years and I see an artist,
Speaker 1: I take a picture of their cake, and every time
Speaker 1: I send it to Sabrina and I say, I can't
Speaker 1: wait for the Sabrina cake. I can't wait until someday
Speaker 1: we're eating the Sabrina cake. And so I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: crying me back. But so when I knew she was
Speaker 1: doing the Forum I was so excited about the Forum cake.
Speaker 1: I didn't even eat the cake last night. It's not
Speaker 1: about eating cake. It's about I don't even like cake.
Speaker 1: It's about the fact that this was such a milestone
Speaker 1: and to see her reach this level and to have been,
Speaker 1: you know, just knowing she would get there eventually, and
Speaker 1: continuing to take pictures. And then yesterday someone told me,
Speaker 1: she said, oh Danielle.
Speaker 5: Cares about is this stupid cake?
Speaker 6: But literally a superstar. Also, I also a gazillion records.
Speaker 6: I was nominated for Acre face is on a freaking cake. Thanks,
Speaker 6: but I've got a sheet cake with my face on it.
Speaker 1: But it really represented something to me, and I was
Speaker 1: very excited. So literally I walked into the Forum Club
Speaker 1: yesterday and I was.
Speaker 5: Like, I gotta find the cake.
Speaker 1: So out we'll post the picture of the Sabrina Carpenter
Speaker 1: Forum Cake on our Instagram for you all to see.
Speaker 4: I'll go to the next one. I want to go
Speaker 4: to her Tall tour. I think that's going to be
Speaker 4: I can't wait for that. That's the one I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: Good lucks, little short and sweet girls. We don't get
Speaker 1: very tall, we definitely get it.
Speaker 2: I want that cake. I remember working with her the
Speaker 2: first first year, you know, meeting her. She was probably twelve,
Speaker 2: she was thirteen, Yeah, she was thirteen when okay, but
Speaker 2: I came and visited. I remember the there's a photo
Speaker 2: of like, you know, because I just came and visited
Speaker 2: this the pilot and it was like, oh, I meet
Speaker 2: the new girls or whatever, and there's a photo of
Speaker 2: the two of us. And then I got to work
Speaker 2: with her and actually, you know, act with her, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, she's just such.
Speaker 3: A great actress.
Speaker 2: But I had no idea about the singing until I
Speaker 2: was directing the episode that was nineteen sixty three where
Speaker 2: it was like we went back in time to the
Speaker 2: sixties and at the table read, she just sang acapella.
Speaker 2: This you know, they had written lyrics, but they didn't
Speaker 2: have a song, and she sang acappella and it was like,
Speaker 2: oh that was that was perfect because I was worried, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have to, you know, figure out a song and
Speaker 2: incorporate it. And Ray Colecord, the late great Ray colecrd
Speaker 2: uh just I met with him afterwards. I was like, so,
Speaker 2: what are we doing about this song? He's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I just wrote down what she sang, like the notes
Speaker 2: she sang. He's like, I'm gonna I'm gonna write the
Speaker 2: song to what she did a cappella because she was
Speaker 2: just that good and and I remember talking to her
Speaker 2: about music. I even like, I wrote her like this
Speaker 2: long Spotify list with like the reasons why I was
Speaker 2: including all these songs that I could tell. I was like,
Speaker 2: you were going to be like, I'm already you're a
Speaker 2: great actress. But like I could tell, it was like
Speaker 2: you you have this musical thing too, you can do
Speaker 2: it all. Yeah, I wonder because I remember then, like
Speaker 2: a couple of years later, she still had the playlist
Speaker 2: on her Spotify.
Speaker 3: She was really nice. There's so few of us triple
Speaker 3: threats like that out there. Yeah, you know, we got
Speaker 3: to stick together. We got to stick together support one another.
Speaker 5: Welcome to pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel.
Speaker 3: I'm right strong, and I'm Wilfordell.
Speaker 1: For one hundred and fourteen episodes of television over five years.
Speaker 1: Our guest this week was one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: pop culture characters.
Speaker 5: Of the late eighties and early nineties.
Speaker 1: It would have been hard to find someone who didn't
Speaker 1: know or a boy who didn't love Winnie Cooper, the
Speaker 1: unattainable love interest for Kevin Arnold on The Wonder Years,
Speaker 1: and those who knew her in real life figured out
Speaker 1: she was just as kind, impressive, and beautiful as she
Speaker 1: was on screen. And we didn't do a ton of
Speaker 1: research into this. But she's also probably our only guest
Speaker 1: to have a mathematical theorem with her name on it.
Speaker 5: Don't worry, Blake, Senate, there's still time.
Speaker 1: Yes, she is an actual genius who outside of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: graduated UCLA with their highest honors in mathematics, and once
Speaker 1: co authored a paper titled Percolation and Gibbs states multiplicity
Speaker 1: for Pharaoh magnetic Ashkin Teller's models on Z to the second.
Speaker 1: While I genuinely have no idea what any of those
Speaker 1: words meant, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Her conclusions are ridiculous in that paper.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, is that your favorite of person?
Speaker 4: No, I just don't know how she You know, I'm
Speaker 4: all for a theorem, but I don't know where she
Speaker 4: came up with this one.
Speaker 2: This was just she was z in the second. Is
Speaker 2: that what you.
Speaker 7: Keep? You know you keep?
Speaker 3: Seriously, come on, come on, rookie mistake.
Speaker 1: She appeared in the movie Sidekicks, and was seen on
Speaker 1: TV shows like The West Wing and Big Bang Theory,
Speaker 1: and has since become a Queen of Christmas, starring in
Speaker 1: some of your favorite festive flicks, including a new one
Speaker 1: just around the corner.
Speaker 5: Please welcome to Pod meets World.
Speaker 1: We're getting by with a little help from our friend
Speaker 1: Danica McKellar.
Speaker 5: So good to see you.
Speaker 7: Good to see you too.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm sure a lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: are brains are exploding with a nostalgia seeing the four
Speaker 1: of us together on their screens.
Speaker 7: Oh my gosh. That cool. So good to see you, guys,
Speaker 7: So good to you.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk to you about the fact
Speaker 1: that is this correct that your very first job was
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, but your second role ever was Winnie
Speaker 1: Cooper on The Wonder Years at twelve.
Speaker 7: Sort of. I did two episodes of the Twilight Zone,
Speaker 7: and I'd done some commercials, some mashup commercials, but that
Speaker 7: was my first like theatrical like non guest dying role.
Speaker 2: Wowt pretty good one to get.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all say, yeah, what was the audition process?
Speaker 7: Like, I mean, it was kind of a last minute
Speaker 7: thing because I was I didn't have many credits to
Speaker 7: my name at all, and so they had done this
Speaker 7: search for the character. And I remember the winning Cooper
Speaker 7: was supposed to just be a guest role on the
Speaker 7: first episode.
Speaker 3: Oh come on, really, yeah.
Speaker 7: Otherwise.
Speaker 3: You gonna say, like Topanga, Wow, Oh.
Speaker 7: Is that the for you too? Yes, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 7: that's amazing. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that's the
Speaker 7: only reason that my mom left me audition for it,
Speaker 7: because at the time we were not considering anything that
Speaker 7: might disrupt our lives. Really, like that was not uh
Speaker 7: it was guest roles commercials only, no feature films, no
Speaker 7: series regulars, and so this was just the That's why
Speaker 7: I got to audition for it. That's why I was
Speaker 7: even eligible to audition for it in terms of it
Speaker 7: because I, like I said, I had no credits. So anyway,
Speaker 7: I I auditioned, bought my sister auditioned for it as well.
Speaker 7: It came down to the two of us and for
Speaker 7: this for this one time guest rule relatively small part
Speaker 7: on the first episode, if you remember, Winnie Cooper was
Speaker 7: kind of seen from afar. There wasn't like there was
Speaker 7: a kiss at the end, but there wasn't like a
Speaker 7: lot of lines. And yeah, I came down to the
Speaker 7: two of us, and I remember they Fred Savage lived
Speaker 7: in Chicago at the time, and so they'd flown him
Speaker 7: out to do like a chemistry read and so Crystal
Speaker 7: and I both did that, my sister and I and
Speaker 7: they came down to the two of us, and and
Speaker 7: then they said, well, we're giving the role to Danica,
Speaker 7: but if we get picked up for Stu, then we'd
Speaker 7: love to give a role to Crystal as well. And
Speaker 7: then during the pilot of The Wonder Years, they said, look,
Speaker 7: the network loves the chemistry between Danik and Fred and
Speaker 7: we want to offer her a series regular like if
Speaker 7: we get picked up. And so the time, like at
Speaker 7: that point, my mom had a chance to meet some
Speaker 7: of the other moms, Juanne Savage, Jane Saviano, these women
Speaker 7: who really cared about their kids being kids. They weren't
Speaker 7: stage moms, you know, So she felt comfortable with it,
Speaker 7: but she had she got me this fancy lawyer to
Speaker 7: put in a loophole because I ever wanted to not
Speaker 7: do it anymore, like you can get out because it's
Speaker 7: a seven year contract, and so she she protected me,
Speaker 7: but I never wanted to quit.
Speaker 5: So, oh my gosh.
Speaker 7: And then they did write a role for Crystal Becky Slater.
Speaker 7: She played the Bred's or Kevin's nemesis, and she did
Speaker 7: nine episodes, I think, which was cool.
Speaker 5: So what was your life on set like then as
Speaker 5: a kid.
Speaker 1: Did you go to traditional school as well or did
Speaker 1: you were you just schooled on set?
Speaker 7: I did both. I went back and forth. So I
Speaker 7: went to Harvard Westlake. Okay, first it was Westlake then
Speaker 7: and became Harvard Westlake. And I would go to school
Speaker 7: when I wasn't working, and then I'd run my school
Speaker 7: work to set when I was working. And we did
Speaker 7: it like that. It was just back and forth.
Speaker 6: It was it was.
Speaker 7: It trained me to be able to like compartmentalize my brain.
Speaker 7: So I mean just being on as you guys know,
Speaker 7: being doing school on set is like that anyway, because
Speaker 7: you're doing this scene and then you take a break
Speaker 7: for twenty minutes. Now you're doing a history test or
Speaker 7: like math concepts, go back and now this is the
Speaker 7: emotional part of the scene whatever. Like you just learned
Speaker 7: to like be here now and then be here now,
Speaker 7: and it trains you. It's funny because so the movies
Speaker 7: that I do now, these romantic comedies in the Christmas movies,
Speaker 7: first for Hamewark Channel, now for a Great American Family Channel.
Speaker 7: We shoot these movies in fourteen days. Sometimes it's fourteen
Speaker 7: or fifteen days. It's a crazy schedule, and you have
Speaker 7: to be like, Okay, I'm here doing this scene now,
Speaker 7: and then now we're doing the end of the movie,
Speaker 7: and now we're doing this little blip from like midway
Speaker 7: through the movie. And as you guys know, it just
Speaker 7: takes this kind of this focus and you have to
Speaker 7: be able to just be where you are now and
Speaker 7: completely shut out all the rest of reality so that
Speaker 7: you can do your job well. And then later Galla
Speaker 7: gets cut together and it's great.
Speaker 1: So the show was such a massive hit for ABC.
Speaker 1: It was always in the top thirty, and it won
Speaker 1: an Emmy for Best Comedy Series in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 5: Was it difficult.
Speaker 1: For you to have a normal childhood or do you
Speaker 1: feel like you got the best of both.
Speaker 7: Worlds Alsiman, We had a very normal childhood because, for example,
Speaker 7: when we won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series, my
Speaker 7: sister and I were not there at the awards ceremony.
Speaker 7: We were on vacation with my dad because we had
Speaker 7: this vacation plan. He's a busy real estate guy. He
Speaker 7: didn't have flexibility, and so we had to either go
Speaker 7: to the Emmys or go on this camping river rafting
Speaker 7: trip thing with my dad. And we did that, and
Speaker 7: we talked about it as a family. It's like, no,
Speaker 7: this is more important. And I remember I remember being
Speaker 7: in this tiny little motel room the night before we
Speaker 7: hit the river, watching the Emmys on this like it
Speaker 7: had to have been a TV from the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 7: My dad was always very frugal, so you know, we
Speaker 7: didn't stay in like it's retain this hotel and everybody
Speaker 7: was like this old yellow little TV. And we watched
Speaker 7: The Wonderers win and we jumped up and down the
Speaker 7: bed like yay. We woke up next morning, like five
Speaker 7: in the morning and hit the river and had the
Speaker 7: trip of our lives. I mean, I remember so many
Speaker 7: details about that trip. I remember solving like these minute
Speaker 7: mysteries at night around the campfire. I remember picking blackberries
Speaker 7: on the side of the river, and that just is
Speaker 7: so emblematic of how I was raised. That the Hollywood
Speaker 7: stuff was not this. There wasn't a big emphasis on
Speaker 7: how important it was, or how glamorous it was, or
Speaker 7: how you know, how that defined me at all. I'm
Speaker 7: so lucky to have had parents who weren't overly impressed
Speaker 7: with it all, and who really cared about us being
Speaker 7: kids first. I mean, you know, as evanced by the
Speaker 7: fact that I wasn't allowed to audition for series regulars.
Speaker 7: I mean, my mom and my dad both had a
Speaker 7: sense of like, Okay, this is all great, but we're
Speaker 7: not going to just take over her childhood.
Speaker 2: So where did the desire to do it in the
Speaker 2: first place come from? Was it just like local theater
Speaker 2: or acting classes? How did you and your sister get
Speaker 2: into it?
Speaker 7: Oh, my gosh. I mean, my mom was a professional
Speaker 7: dancer before we were born, and so she had a
Speaker 7: dance studio that we took lessons in when we were
Speaker 7: very young. And she was also friends with Leslie and Warren,
Speaker 7: who is an actress who did like the original Cinderella.
Speaker 7: Speaking of Cinderella, I have to reach out to her
Speaker 7: actually about that. Anyway, Leslie and Warren wonderful woman, and
Speaker 7: she The story goes that I was sitting on the
Speaker 7: floor of my mom's dance studio, staring at myself in
Speaker 7: the mirror, making faces at myself, and then Leslie said, oh,
Speaker 7: that's an actress. No, that was And then and then
Speaker 7: my mom she moved us up to Los Angeles because
Speaker 7: she was getting into like producing music videos and stuff.
Speaker 7: And it's funny because that never really took off. But
Speaker 7: at Leslie's suggestion, my sister and I tried acting classes
Speaker 7: and we loved it. We went to Lee Strasburg and Stupid.
Speaker 7: It's so much fun. It was singing and dancing, acting,
Speaker 7: it was it was camera work, it was theater work.
Speaker 7: It was like an all day thing on Saturdays. And
Speaker 7: I remember my mom said that she felt back. She's like,
Speaker 7: I'm dropping them off for so long. But the end
Speaker 7: of the day we didn't want to go. Oh we
Speaker 7: had so much fun. So then we did some theater
Speaker 7: there when we were like six and seven years old,
Speaker 7: and then after that we got an agent came to
Speaker 7: one of those shows and started doing commercials and there
Speaker 7: you go.
Speaker 2: Wow, where was your first commercial?
Speaker 7: It was for a nineteen eighty five Volkswagen Golf car
Speaker 7: and it was I was just a family getting out
Speaker 7: of the car. It was supposed to show how big
Speaker 7: the car was on the inside, because I guess they
Speaker 7: were known for being small cars, Like no, no, there's lots
Speaker 7: of space, and so we all like piled out of
Speaker 7: this car like a clothing car.
Speaker 3: Yeah you think, you think of exactly, but yeah.
Speaker 7: I mean you have to pause to see my face
Speaker 7: because I remember my mom saying, oh, the mother in
Speaker 7: this new head of find the camera because she's like
Speaker 7: getting stuff out of the trunk and she turns her
Speaker 7: head towards the camera to get into stuff out and
Speaker 7: I was like, just I had no clue. And basically
Speaker 7: I was like it was like she was holding this
Speaker 7: speech ball and I had pigtails. You could see meet
Speaker 7: my pigtails from behind the ball. And then she moved
Speaker 7: the ball and there I was with.
Speaker 5: Pause, there's there's her face. Yeah, that's so funny.
Speaker 1: So again, similar to me and Topanga, your first episode
Speaker 1: had a kiss on screen.
Speaker 5: What was that experience?
Speaker 7: Like for you, Well, that was my first kiss in
Speaker 7: real life too. Yes, how old were you when I
Speaker 7: had that?
Speaker 5: Twelve?
Speaker 7: Okay, wow, parallel lives, Yes, it was, it was.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 7: It was exciting and nerve wracking. I mean at the
Speaker 7: time I had a massive crush on Fred, so that
Speaker 7: worked out. But it was embarrassing because you're like a
Speaker 7: preteen about to have your first kiss and there's all
Speaker 7: these people watching.
Speaker 5: Yes, including all your family.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, my family and not all my family well
Speaker 7: well eventually my family. It was there at that moment
Speaker 7: outside with us, with the Harper's Woods and the village,
Speaker 7: the uh, the video village was right there, and like
Speaker 7: everybody was just there, you know, and trying to have
Speaker 7: my first kiss over here people can we.
Speaker 4: And you both kissed the Savage for your first time.
Speaker 4: I mean just the parallels are pretty amazing.
Speaker 5: Yes, so funny.
Speaker 1: My my parents were there, but also my grandparents were there,
Speaker 1: so I was literally was like it truly felt like
Speaker 1: this is not usually how I would have chosen for
Speaker 1: a first kiss.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: I think this brings up an important distinction though, is
Speaker 2: that we were a multi camera sit and Wonder Years
Speaker 2: was single camera, so it's actually, you know, even though
Speaker 2: we have a lot of parallels, you were living a
Speaker 2: very different day to day lifestyle. You were, you know,
Speaker 2: you would shoot a scene, you'd get the pages, you know,
Speaker 2: and then shoot that scene that did never have to
Speaker 2: look at it again, whereas we would be rehearsing, you know,
Speaker 2: all week long, and then it would just be.
Speaker 7: Okay, did you rehearse the kiss? Like, did you kiss
Speaker 7: in the rehearsals?
Speaker 5: Yes, for at least the run throughs. We didn't kiss
Speaker 5: necessarily all day.
Speaker 1: During the the rehearsals, but I think it run throughs
Speaker 1: we did the kiss, and then on tape night it
Speaker 1: was still like a really.
Speaker 7: Big deal, yeah, right, because then you've got the live audience.
Speaker 5: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: We had two hundred people in the audience, my grandparents included.
Speaker 7: Yes, we were outside in the woods, you know, sitting
Speaker 7: on that rock, and and and also and Fred and
Speaker 7: I both wear glasses, and we didn't have our glasses on.
Speaker 7: We were shooting, and we didn't work. We were like
Speaker 7: too young for contact or something anyway, so we couldn't.
Speaker 7: Really it was like this haze of people, which is
Speaker 7: actually probably good yestive as clearly because just a crowd
Speaker 7: of people just you know.
Speaker 4: Watching Where's kiss? First kiss should be blurry? I mean
Speaker 4: I should be blurry. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where did you go to shoot Wonder Years? You were
Speaker 2: obviously Yeah, but were you?
Speaker 7: I mean we shot we were we had since we
Speaker 7: had sound stages in Culver City eventually, but we shot
Speaker 7: the the neighborhoods were in Burbank and which is Los
Speaker 7: Angeles for those listening, part of Los Angeles. And yeah,
Speaker 7: we just had we had locations, we were all over.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's very and so what Yeah, what was your
Speaker 1: your typical day then? Like I know, on a single
Speaker 1: cam it kind of changes day to day and your
Speaker 1: location changes.
Speaker 5: But we've talked a lot.
Speaker 1: For our listeners about what our schedule was. We started
Speaker 1: on our week started on Fridays, we would do a
Speaker 1: table read, we'd rehearse for you.
Speaker 5: Every day was probably very different.
Speaker 1: But could you walk us through a pretty typical day
Speaker 1: for you on set?
Speaker 7: Yeah. For the days that I was working kids, I
Speaker 7: would literally work maybe two days out of the weekend.
Speaker 7: The other three days I was going to my school.
Speaker 7: I was bouncing back and forth and back forth. The
Speaker 7: thing that was unsettling about that, honestly, is that like
Speaker 7: they would say, okay, well there's a history of test
Speaker 7: next Friday, and I would have no idea if I
Speaker 7: was going to be there for it or not. All right,
Speaker 7: I wasn't giving my schedules till sometimes the night before.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't know if I was working.
Speaker 5: So he teach you to be like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 5: that's flexible.
Speaker 7: And uh and ready for anything. A lot of interesting
Speaker 7: skill there and this young person.
Speaker 2: But then you guys would have on super early morning
Speaker 2: calls sometimes right like you would be yeah, sure.
Speaker 7: We would always do like too bad. It wasn't well,
Speaker 7: it wasn't as a as a kid, they didn't bring
Speaker 7: in too early. They would bring the parents in early summer.
Speaker 7: Dan and Ali played the parents. I'd get there and
Speaker 7: they were already they'd already shot sometimes by so I
Speaker 7: don't weber being called earlier than eight as a kid,
Speaker 7: whereas you know, Allie Mills would have been there at
Speaker 7: six thirty and here in magup right, and now that's me,
Speaker 7: now I get it was not It was not too early.
Speaker 7: It was pretty reasonable. And we only worked nine and
Speaker 7: a half hours, and that was including lunch and including
Speaker 7: the three hours of school, so we were and they
Speaker 7: did a really good job of protecting us, so we
Speaker 7: were not overworked and and but but that meant that
Speaker 7: we often didn't shoot with each other. So another thing
Speaker 7: that's very it's different from what you guys experienced, is
Speaker 7: that because it was single, Cameron because he had to
Speaker 7: get three hours, had to get three hours to school
Speaker 7: work done. And that was the most challenging brand because
Speaker 7: he was in so like basically all those scenes, and
Speaker 7: and so I was often on my close ups, he
Speaker 7: was never there. And then photo and the foul worked
Speaker 7: a lot too and also needed uh schoolwork. So sometimes
Speaker 7: it was a single, clean single I'd be literally working
Speaker 7: to a piece of tape. And I remember there's one scene,
Speaker 7: there's one episode of It's called a Mad Mad Madline
Speaker 7: World where it was a field trip we were we
Speaker 7: shot at a Griffith Observatory and I remember my close
Speaker 7: up in this scene with like five people, and there's
Speaker 7: four pieces of tape and the trew smile and pieces
Speaker 7: on I knew which tape was each person in the scene.
Speaker 7: And Kirk Trutner, who read the voice of the narration
Speaker 7: while we were shooting it, he would he did all
Speaker 7: the different voices and he would change his voice slightly.
Speaker 7: He was super talented voice actor that we were lucky
Speaker 7: to have on set with us because he was the
Speaker 7: voice of the narration. He would later be recorded by
Speaker 7: Daniel Stern. He was there to guide us through it
Speaker 7: and you Also, the other interesting skills that that I
Speaker 7: you guys probably didn't have to learn is because of narration,
Speaker 7: is that when you're not the one having the thoughts,
Speaker 7: you just have to kind of suspend yourself in that moment. Yeah, right,
Speaker 7: suspended where you are as Bread was getting to act
Speaker 7: the thought that we're hearing.
Speaker 5: Correct, you couldn't even act it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, why I wasn't having those thoughts. I was just right.
Speaker 7: It's like an avatar that's kind of waiting for the
Speaker 7: next instruction. Hey, in the moment, there's almost like, you know,
Speaker 7: like you're shooting something and they're like, wait, come in,
Speaker 7: we fix a hair like wall, but you're still in
Speaker 7: the middle of the scene and they walk off there
Speaker 7: and continue. It's like being that suspending moment. So that's
Speaker 7: a lot in those kinds of situations where there's some
Speaker 7: shuan set that fixed something in the background. We have
Speaker 7: to keep shooting, and I just have to stay where
Speaker 7: I am.
Speaker 2: Well, something we all had to learn holding for laughs
Speaker 2: because that's c you have to sit there. And what
Speaker 2: you realize, you know, especially as a kid or an
Speaker 2: actor who's never done that, you just want to keep
Speaker 2: playing the scene. But what you realize is that everybody
Speaker 2: sort of like turns off and just holds for to
Speaker 2: laugh because if you keep playing the scene, the laugh
Speaker 2: will actually stop. They'll think something else is going to happen.
Speaker 7: Right, And at the beginning of whatever you were saying.
Speaker 2: You know, and I've seen it now, like you work
Speaker 2: with you know, new actors that haven't done it, and
Speaker 2: you have to teach them like no, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 2: like it's like reality stops and it's actually more realistic
Speaker 2: for you to just hold your facial expression for thirty
Speaker 2: seconds or whatever. It's so weird.
Speaker 4: You come to realize though, that that's that's the audience's line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean, that's that's the laugh. Is their line.
Speaker 4: So you're just essentially reacting to another to their yeah.
Speaker 3: Giving their line out and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: But I'm curious, So you the show is obviously a
Speaker 4: smash hit, but this is all pre internet and pre
Speaker 4: social media. When did you realize kind of what you
Speaker 4: were doing in the culturalegeist.
Speaker 7: It's funny because in six seasons and the last season,
Speaker 7: somebody on set asked me what it was like to
Speaker 7: be America's sweetheart. And I had no idea what they
Speaker 7: were talking about. It was clueless, Like what what do
Speaker 7: you what do you mean? I mean, I was so
Speaker 7: busy working, but mostly going to school, you know, a studying.
Speaker 7: I mean I I you know, I went to this
Speaker 7: difficult I mean, Harvard was no walk to the park
Speaker 7: and and you know it prepared me for being a
Speaker 7: math major at U c l A afterwards and all
Speaker 7: all the rest of it. So it was it was
Speaker 7: I was so busy doing that and I was not.
Speaker 7: I was a very I was a good girl. I
Speaker 7: was I didn't go to parties and stuff. I was
Speaker 7: just And even if I did go to a party,
Speaker 7: like nobody was offering me drugs, Like nobody because they
Speaker 7: just could tell I really couldn't.
Speaker 4: This is this is a waste of drugs.
Speaker 7: So it's sorority party is at U c l A.
Speaker 7: I was like, and I would go to a fraternity
Speaker 7: party like maybe once a year, and like, oh, this
Speaker 7: is why I don't usually go. I would take a
Speaker 7: beer cant like because I was so people would just
Speaker 7: pressure you, Oh why aren't you drinking? So I take
Speaker 7: your can, dump it out filled up with water, in
Speaker 7: the bathroom with one of these frat houses, and then
Speaker 7: drink that all night. And then people would not write.
Speaker 5: People wouldn't bother you.
Speaker 7: Then they beat they'd leave me alone. Yeah. So I
Speaker 7: was just always a good two shoes, which I have
Speaker 7: no problem with. I e. I wasn't mean or judgmental people.
Speaker 7: I just like to you.
Speaker 4: Didn't even like cigarette smoking. I remember that distinctly.
Speaker 7: Yes, Oh my gosh. Okay, so there was So we
Speaker 7: have a mutual friend Jason Marson, who I think was
Speaker 7: trying to set us up. But you smoked, and I.
Speaker 4: Told you, yeah, You're like I'm not going to date
Speaker 4: you because you smoke cigarettes.
Speaker 3: And I was like, all right, I will continue dating
Speaker 3: camera lalth.
Speaker 5: Not you don't get any of my camel.
Speaker 4: Bucks, then exactly I could have showered you in camel cash,
Speaker 4: but whatever. Yeah, it's fine. I could have made it
Speaker 4: rain with the camel cash.
Speaker 3: But no, it is like no yet, No, I remember that.
Speaker 3: It was like, it's not it's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: You smoke, and I was like, all right.
Speaker 1: You'll be happy to know Will is ten years free
Speaker 1: of cigarettes, so everyone can enjoye ten years.
Speaker 5: It's been really difficult. Breathe better.
Speaker 7: You probably exercise more, Yeah, but at what cost? So
Speaker 7: I tried a cigarette once when I was eighteen, and
Speaker 7: it was like so good and nutty and satisfying. I
Speaker 7: was like, okay, I'm never touching that again.
Speaker 3: It was exactly the opposite reaction.
Speaker 7: I supposed not like it the first time you try it,
Speaker 7: and its like if I like it the first time
Speaker 7: I try it, then that's bad news.
Speaker 5: That's bad news for you.
Speaker 3: I can see why people do this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I feel this, and I have been I better
Speaker 7: not yep.
Speaker 1: So when Wonder Years ended, did you find it hard
Speaker 1: to be seen as anything other than Winnie Cooper? Did
Speaker 1: you have a hard time breaking out of the like
Speaker 1: child actor stigma?
Speaker 7: Well that's a good question. I mean, I I still
Speaker 7: am recognized Cooper like that's so. Did I have a
Speaker 7: hard time breaking out of it?
Speaker 5: I never did, never did, but it's okay.
Speaker 7: It was. It was confusing when I first went So
Speaker 7: I the Wonder Years ended and I started UCLA within
Speaker 7: a few months of each other, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: new chapter of my life. I'm moving on with my life,
Speaker 7: and everyone else will do that with me too.
Speaker 5: They're all going to move on to.
Speaker 7: Everywhere I went on campus whatever, people like, oh my gosh, hey, Whinny,
Speaker 7: where's Fred? And you know the riche Kevin and and
Speaker 7: uh and that girl friend that show. Oh my gosh, dude,
Speaker 7: look it's that girl from that show. It's like over
Speaker 7: and you guys are I'm sure that guy from that
Speaker 7: show that girlfriend right, yeah, oh yeah, you're like grew up,
Speaker 7: you know, and you're you're that girl played Winny and
Speaker 7: and so I had a big turning point at UCLA
Speaker 7: where I kind of like I just needed to know
Speaker 7: who else I was. And at the time I was
Speaker 7: considering being a film major. And then I had taken
Speaker 7: a math class. I always loved a good challenge, and
Speaker 7: so I took this mathlas multi variable calculus because I'd
Speaker 7: taken single variable calculus in a Harbor West life, and
Speaker 7: so that was the math that I passed into. I'm like,
Speaker 7: oh my gosh, college math, this is gonna be so hard.
Speaker 7: But just I just I just have to see what
Speaker 7: it is like. Let's just see what that would be like, right,
Speaker 7: And I did really really well, and uh the first
Speaker 7: midterm I studied so hard too, I really I put
Speaker 7: everything into it and it paid off. First midterm, Remember,
Speaker 7: I thought, oh my gosh, I failed. Right, I got
Speaker 7: a twenty two out of forty. But apparently it was
Speaker 7: some sort of weader test because the professor like grafted
Speaker 7: the scores on the chalkboard. There was one twenty two.
Speaker 7: This is a class of one hundred and sixty three people.
Speaker 7: There was one twenty two if there were two fifteen's
Speaker 7: and the rest was nine and below. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 7: looking at my test, like that's that's me, And there's
Speaker 7: all these people who looked much more like math people
Speaker 7: than me. I don't know how to say it, but
Speaker 7: they just I thought, well, those people, I'm sure I
Speaker 7: can tell that they're gonna.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're gonna aice this.
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly. They all look like they belong here, and
Speaker 7: I do not feel like I belong in this class.
Speaker 7: And that was a good lesson for me, like, oh, okay,
Speaker 7: I guess maybe I do belong to this class. The
Speaker 7: next day, I had someone tap me on the shoulder
Speaker 7: in that class and say excuse me under that girl.
Speaker 7: And I figured they were gonna say from the morning,
Speaker 7: who got the twenty two? I was like, it is me.
Speaker 7: And that teacher told me, he's like, you have a gift.
Speaker 7: You need to pursue this. You know, you guys weren't
Speaker 7: supposed to do this well and what's going on? And
Speaker 7: so it was like it was just music to my ears.
Speaker 7: I felt so from from being associated with something. It
Speaker 7: was over. It was the one years was done and
Speaker 7: so and it makes you, as you, guys, I'm sure
Speaker 7: have experienced to some extent at some point. Who else
Speaker 7: would I be if I didn't have this character? What
Speaker 7: would my value be if I didn't have this show
Speaker 7: and this character that everybody loves, like who also want
Speaker 7: to be? And so I got to find out by
Speaker 7: I just I decided to quit acting because I was
Speaker 7: still trying to do like I done a TV movie
Speaker 7: up in Vancouver and the Moment of Truth movies on NBC.
Speaker 7: You guys did any of those anyway? I did one
Speaker 7: and then I came back and it was this was
Speaker 7: before I took that math class, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 7: I'm ready to to do a makeup mid term and
Speaker 7: they're like, no, you can't do that. We give you
Speaker 7: an incomplete I'm like what I was like, Oh wait,
Speaker 7: maybe you can't really straddle these two worlds. So anyway,
Speaker 7: as I really fell in love with math, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: I'm not going to be a film major. I can
Speaker 7: do that later if I want to, and you know,
Speaker 7: learned behind the scenes, behind the camera stuff, and I'm
Speaker 7: just going to do math. I'm just going to see
Speaker 7: what that is. And it felt so good. I wore
Speaker 7: no makeup to school. I would wear like jeans and
Speaker 7: a T shirt and my hair and pointing tail, and
Speaker 7: I wore my backpack with two straps and I was over.
Speaker 7: And I would walk to camp like across campus, and
Speaker 7: I just felt so a lot of the professors and
Speaker 7: then the math apartment didn't even have TVs. They had no
Speaker 7: idea who I was. And it was perfect. I went
Speaker 7: from that girl on that show to like that girl
Speaker 7: who helped me pass calculus because I was I was
Speaker 7: a tutor in the math apart I met at that
Speaker 7: point and it just felt so right. I felt really good,
Speaker 7: and it gave me this whole other base. But I
Speaker 7: remember it was interesting when I came back to acting
Speaker 7: and I would go into auditions and I would have
Speaker 7: these casting directories. I'm not going to name any names.
Speaker 7: I won't who were like, oh, so, how have you been?
Speaker 7: You know. That was the time of I'm not a
Speaker 7: writer and like the shoplifting and all that stuff and
Speaker 7: the child stress did not have a good name, right,
Speaker 7: you've been like everything? Okay, I'm like, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 7: we haven't seen you in a while. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 7: yeh know. I was at college like, oh, that's that's great.
Speaker 5: For you, for you who are.
Speaker 7: Like a theater major. It was like and I loved
Speaker 7: this moment, just this little moment in time so delicious,
Speaker 7: Like actually, mathematics and I it's like, what you know,
Speaker 7: for some reason, I just loved that stilly. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm curious. I have to ask why maths.
Speaker 7: Because it gave me this other sense of identity. It
Speaker 7: gave me because it's hard, it's challenging, and I was
Speaker 7: doing well at it. So I felt valuable for something
Speaker 7: that had nothing to do with winning Cooper I got.
Speaker 7: I felt the value of like I felt like kick
Speaker 7: ass for something that's just in my brain something that I.
Speaker 4: I mean, were you were you attracted to math your
Speaker 4: whole life, because again I mean, you could.
Speaker 3: Have done that with it. You could have been an archaeologists.
Speaker 3: You could have been And so why maths?
Speaker 7: Well, I love puzzles and any times I love solving things,
Speaker 7: I always have to this day I do all The
Speaker 7: New York Times calls you the connections and Wortle and
Speaker 7: me too, selling me yeah all that stuff. Connections is
Speaker 7: actually right now my favorite. I pretty much addicted to it.
Speaker 7: And if I do it after a minute, like turn
Speaker 7: it the next day, I don't have it. I've already
Speaker 7: done it. Anyway, I love puzzles. I love, I just love.
Speaker 7: I love the beauty of math. Math is not a science.
Speaker 7: It's a language. So it's much more fiwer than the sciences.
Speaker 7: Sciences are like open term interpretation. People keep discovering things
Speaker 7: that disprove what they used to know, and like that's
Speaker 7: that's kind of defined science. And so with math, it's
Speaker 7: really an exploration of the human mind in a lot
Speaker 7: of ways. It's the patterns and the games that we
Speaker 7: get to play. It's like check simple rules, but the
Speaker 7: strategies are endless and so with math, it's these simple rules.
Speaker 7: There's like seven axioms or something, and then everything is
Speaker 7: built from there. And I homeschool my son, Draco, who's fourteen,
Speaker 7: and we're now doing algebra two. It's so much fun.
Speaker 7: By the way, I've written math books now, but I
Speaker 7: read that night to my son.
Speaker 5: Bathtime math time is a regular in our house.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 5: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 7: I love that. Yes I have. I have eleven math books.
Speaker 7: They're all at mckellermath dot com. You can go there
Speaker 7: and you can there's this big slider button. I'm very
Speaker 7: proud of where depending on the age of your child,
Speaker 7: I have the book that I recommend her books and yeah,
Speaker 7: I've got I got let's see, do I have that.
Speaker 5: One bathtime math time? My son loves.
Speaker 3: Yes, there it is, that's where has to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still there.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I teach I have like this one is
Speaker 7: for multiplication and division, so third and fourth grade, the
Speaker 7: times machine, times tables, and yes there is time travel
Speaker 7: because you know, I mean, I'm an entertainer, so I
Speaker 7: like to make math entertaining. It's it's about you know,
Speaker 7: stories and just you know, like I come up and
Speaker 7: have like different rhymes and things to help kids memorize
Speaker 7: their multiplication facts, which is super important.
Speaker 3: Four did you get rid of that?
Speaker 8: One?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 3: Four? Yes?
Speaker 7: Trust you?
Speaker 2: Yes it was full.
Speaker 5: Never trusted. I've never trusted math.
Speaker 1: Would you say you have like an expertise in math? Like,
Speaker 1: what would your expertise be if you had to say, one.
Speaker 7: Teaching math to kids, making math fun, and teaching math
Speaker 7: through stories and characters and making it not scary anymore,
Speaker 7: it would be what I would say. My my superpower is.
Speaker 1: See my mom would have really benefited from you had
Speaker 1: you been able to help my mom when she was
Speaker 1: a kid. My mom somehow ended up in the wrong
Speaker 1: math class in high school. She like, I think, walked
Speaker 1: into the wrong classroom and no one ever or noticed
Speaker 1: she wasn't supposed to be there, and the teacher it
Speaker 1: was like algebra, and and she literally thought it was
Speaker 1: a joke. When they started adding letters into this, she
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, that's funny. Is what's that X doing
Speaker 1: in there? And then she was like, oh, other people
Speaker 1: are answering this. And she just thought she was She
Speaker 1: hadn't taken the class that led before it. She just
Speaker 1: thought she was incapable of learning, and she just stayed
Speaker 1: the entire year and failed, and from that moment on
Speaker 1: truly traumatized by math. She was like, I'm afraid and
Speaker 1: I can't do it well.
Speaker 7: Like I said, it's a language, and if it's not
Speaker 7: translated properly, then it's like reading Chinese, and it's scary.
Speaker 7: It's scary when you're doing something that's so foreign. So
Speaker 7: that's why I try to make it like not foreign
Speaker 7: and make it just bring it into the world of kids,
Speaker 7: make it feel like kindergarten, even when you're learning algebra.
Speaker 4: And I read I read the other day that in
Speaker 4: heart at Harvard they didn't teach calculus when Harvard was
Speaker 4: founded because Isaac Newton hadn't actually invented it yet, which
Speaker 4: is just crazy when you say, really, yes, apparently this
Speaker 4: is a this is a true statistic.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So it's like, that's the thing about math is it changed.
Speaker 3: It changes. I mean there's still discover for.
Speaker 7: New ways to to find patterns and calculat I that's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean, calculus is basically the way to do It's
Speaker 7: like you get to do infinitely many, infinitely small things.
Speaker 7: It's kind of how I would describe calculus is it's
Speaker 7: a better way to calculate things, Like you can you
Speaker 7: can estimate the area under a curve, but if you
Speaker 7: have the form find the exact area, which is useful
Speaker 7: for things like if you're going to paint an area,
Speaker 7: right you need to know how much paint you need
Speaker 7: or whatever. And it's got a nice creamy line to it.
Speaker 7: There's there's that calculus kind of a rudimentary explanation. That's
Speaker 7: integral calculus. Derivative calculus is finding the slope of like
Speaker 7: if you have a curve, like you know the silp
Speaker 7: of the line is you know, run over ris or
Speaker 7: run or whatever. But a curve. How do you define
Speaker 7: this slope of a point on a curve, Well, it's
Speaker 7: defined as the slope of the tangent line that touches
Speaker 7: that point. Only think about only one line will touch
Speaker 7: the curb at that point. If you try to like
Speaker 7: touch a different point, well, now it's a different point,
Speaker 7: different different slope.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: So that's that's that's the first calculus that you learn
Speaker 7: is derivative calculus. Then the integral one that teaches the
Speaker 7: area under a crib. I mean, I could talk about
Speaker 7: this more than my brain. You brought me on to
Speaker 7: talk about I've not written a Caculus book. Maybe someday.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Now you're written up through high school geometry.
Speaker 5: So okay, Well you've got plenty of time, so you can.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 5: Maybe the next one will be calculus. You can.
Speaker 1: You have your whole life ahead ahead of you to
Speaker 1: write as many books as you want.
Speaker 5: So going back to Winnie.
Speaker 1: Cooper just for a second, I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: if you we have another thing in common that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a negative thing, but I do wonder your thoughts
Speaker 1: on it that our characters were written by men to
Speaker 1: be kind of these perfect, dreamlike characters meant for the
Speaker 1: main characters. Looking back, now, what are your thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings on Winnie Cooper.
Speaker 7: Well, she I don't actually see her as perfect because
Speaker 7: she had a lot going on, like her parents separated
Speaker 7: in one of the episodes.
Speaker 4: And oh really, yeah, I'm just look.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And she and Winnie Cooper had that one episode
Speaker 7: called the Accident where she starts dating somebody who's not
Speaker 7: necessarily from the right side of the tracks, and he's
Speaker 7: a little reckless and they get in a car accident,
Speaker 7: and uh, and and and that was kind of played
Speaker 7: as when he is trying to deal with her parents,
Speaker 7: you know, separating and doesn't really know how. But I
Speaker 7: think Winnie Cooper was mostly I think whether she was
Speaker 7: perfect or not seen from afar definitely put on a
Speaker 7: pedestal and not and not understood. But I think Kevin
Speaker 7: not understanding when he is. Part of what people can
Speaker 7: relate to is it's difficult to understand the opposite sex
Speaker 7: at any age, especially when you're just first entering into
Speaker 7: relationships with the opposite sex. It's like, what, who is this?
Speaker 7: Why do they not respond the way I do to things?
Speaker 7: And hack when I said this, it was misinterpreted and
Speaker 7: I don't understand. And it's like remember that book men
Speaker 7: are from Mars, women are from Venus, that that whole
Speaker 7: thing of weight. We're speaking different languages. It seems like
Speaker 7: we're speaking the same language, but we're not. That whole
Speaker 7: revelation starts, I guess in middle school, and that I
Speaker 7: think is part of why when he was put on
Speaker 7: a pedestal. And and yeah, like to your point, Daniel,
Speaker 7: it's it's the guy's point of view in both our shows,
Speaker 7: how like, how how do I deal with this alien?
Speaker 8: Female race, Yes exactly, but I think importantly, like you know,
Speaker 8: the Cory tapang of storyline, pretty quickly became that they
Speaker 8: were meant for each other.
Speaker 2: And so in a lot of ways, that's a completely
Speaker 2: different art. Because Kevin and Winnie did not get enough together,
Speaker 2: which were great, I mean, that was just yeah, but
Speaker 2: I was that always the plan.
Speaker 7: I mean, in my fans, fans still upset on me,
Speaker 7: I'm like.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, like it's your fault, yeah, like how come.
Speaker 7: You didn't you and Kevin didn't have together? Like oh
Speaker 7: my gosh, oh my god, we're still talking about this. Well,
Speaker 7: you know, it was it was the wonder years was
Speaker 7: I think also because it wasn't like a three camera
Speaker 7: show and it wasn't as like everything didn't all work
Speaker 7: out on the end. It often didn't work out. I
Speaker 7: think it was trying to show something that more people
Speaker 7: can realistically, I guess relate to, because most of our
Speaker 7: lives don't out the way we wanted them too or
Speaker 7: thought they were going to. And so in that same way,
Speaker 7: Kevin and when he did not end up together, I
Speaker 7: like to say, though, look, all we know is what happened.
Speaker 7: That what the narrator said happened, which is that when
Speaker 7: he went off to the Savonne and got her degree
Speaker 7: in art or whatever, and he had a baby with
Speaker 7: his wife, and I was the first to you know,
Speaker 7: they were the first to greet me off the plane
Speaker 7: and all the rest of it. Yeah, well that's only
Speaker 7: the beginning of this story. Personally, I am divorced and remarried,
Speaker 7: and a lot of people are. And maybe Kevin and
Speaker 7: Winnie ended up together after all.
Speaker 3: You never know, Yeah, you never know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was the thing that I mean that struck
Speaker 4: me about that show and still does so. Television is
Speaker 4: hugely important to me, and this was one of the
Speaker 4: first shows I can remember my mom and I every
Speaker 4: week hopping on the couch getting under a blanket because
Speaker 4: the show was one thing to her and something else
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 3: It seemed to.
Speaker 4: Straddle that line of it had something for everybody. And
Speaker 4: I'm curious when you were doing it, was there a
Speaker 4: sense on the set that it was a kid show?
Speaker 4: It was an adult show? Was I mean, was there
Speaker 4: a vibe that you guys were feeling or was it
Speaker 4: just the show?
Speaker 7: I mean, from my point of view, it was a
Speaker 7: kid's show. I didn't get how important. The nostalgia aspect
Speaker 7: was for adults until later. And also people would recognize
Speaker 7: me on the street and say, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 7: grew up in that era and they're nailing it. That's
Speaker 7: exactly the music I should listen to. And this the
Speaker 7: car we had. My dad had the same car, and
Speaker 7: we had that same TV or like so. So I
Speaker 7: did have a sense that they were doing a good
Speaker 7: job of being accurate, but I didn't realize how much
Speaker 7: it meant to people who grew up in that time.
Speaker 1: So we are currently very deep into a Boy Meets
Speaker 1: World rewatch for mostly the first time. Will and I
Speaker 1: watched the show when it was on in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Writer never watched it, so that he's seeing it for
Speaker 1: the first the first time. When is the last time
Speaker 1: you watched the Wonder years?
Speaker 7: You know? I tried to show it to Drake. I
Speaker 7: showed him one episode, but it was probably like four
Speaker 7: or five years ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, not interested.
Speaker 7: That was me, Like, I'm like, no, that's that's me.
Speaker 7: It's like really, I'm like, yeah, how come everybody else
Speaker 7: thinks I look the same? You don't even recognize me?
Speaker 7: Oh wait? Because we all got older and so we
Speaker 7: all like understand the translation of what we look like now.
Speaker 7: But yeah, he wasn't that interested. And then I did
Speaker 7: during COVID. I remember, like when the first lockdown happened,
Speaker 7: I did this thing where I had this old de
Speaker 7: I was like desperate to help entertain people I don't know,
Speaker 7: and I had this old DVD player, like a little
Speaker 7: portable DVD players. So I showed the Wonders on that
Speaker 7: and like, I think it was just the first episode
Speaker 7: or the first few episodes, and I would like talk
Speaker 7: about it behind the like pause it and talk about it.
Speaker 7: I'm sure that was not like I wasn't licensed to,
Speaker 7: but it was a tiny little screen. It was sort
Speaker 7: of not necessarily in focus. And so yeah, but I haven't.
Speaker 7: I haven't. Really. It's funny because some there there are
Speaker 7: shows that that that mean a lot to us growing up,
Speaker 7: and like that I would probably watch if I had time,
Speaker 7: But I don't ever feel I don't ever crave going
Speaker 7: back and watching that show. I don't know, but I
Speaker 7: like Dan Laurie and I are good friends, and he
Speaker 7: played the dad on the Wonder Years and I so
Speaker 7: we keep in touch. I try to keep touch with
Speaker 7: everyone's it's tough though, but I went out in June
Speaker 7: to see him in a play, an off Broadway play
Speaker 7: that he wrote, and it was in And so we
Speaker 7: try to keep in touch in terms of watching the shows.
Speaker 7: I should. I mean, Drake was fourteen. Now maybe he
Speaker 7: would like it now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe he didn't.
Speaker 7: Try.
Speaker 4: Dan was actually on our show. Dan was on our show,
Speaker 4: and Fred was on our show. We had had a
Speaker 4: lot of the cast of Wonder Years came on board.
Speaker 4: It was cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we pretty much only existed because of Wonder Years.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, but that's what I'm wondering.
Speaker 2: See you finished Wonder Years and they were like, get
Speaker 2: us another Savage, let's do another show.
Speaker 4: But that's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering how much Tipango
Speaker 4: was actually kind of modeled on Winnie. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: the similarities are so kind of glaring that you wonder
Speaker 4: it's like, Okay, let's just this worked. This is going
Speaker 4: to be the new Kevin and Winnie. Let's go from there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, who knows.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just coming of age, like the story.
Speaker 2: I mean, like you're always going to have a crush er,
Speaker 2: you know, you're a character. But yeah, to keep it
Speaker 2: going for the whole series is pretty I.
Speaker 7: Was jealous of Danielle like a View and like Milano
Speaker 7: and all those people who got to a Candice Camera Brick,
Speaker 7: who got to like wear cool, fashionable things and putanaclips
Speaker 7: in your hair and stuff, because I was like, I'm
Speaker 7: stuck in these nineteen sixties wower hands. I was. I
Speaker 7: always felt so uncool. I'm like, look at them, they
Speaker 7: are feathered bangs, and I don't have any of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh I bet looking back now, it's it's pretty enjoyable
Speaker 1: to see that fashion. And you have a new Christmas movie,
Speaker 1: a Cinderella Christmas Ball, premiering on Great American Family this month,
Speaker 1: So tell us about that movie.
Speaker 7: So my new movie, my new Christmas movie, comes out
Speaker 7: really soon. It comes out November twenty ninth. It's the
Speaker 7: day after Thanksgiving, which for some people is the first
Speaker 7: acceptable day to start celebrating. And it's called a Cinderella
Speaker 7: Christmas Ball. And it's just as Christmas being magical as
Speaker 7: you would think. I play a dance teacher from Chicago
Speaker 7: who doesn't who never knew her birth father. My birth
Speaker 7: mother like literally didn't put his name on the birth certificate.
Speaker 7: And then she died when I was young. So at
Speaker 7: the beginning of the movie, I find a picture that
Speaker 7: has it's my mom that I've never seen, my birth mother.
Speaker 7: She's wearing a wedding dress, she's holding a hand of
Speaker 7: a man that we can't see in the picture, and
Speaker 7: on the back it says our place, haven Shire and
Speaker 7: the date is nine months before I was born. So
Speaker 7: I'm like, oh my god. So it's like solving a mystery,
Speaker 7: and I go to having Shire to try to find
Speaker 7: my family, and I end up as a dance teacher.
Speaker 7: I end up getting a job teaching the Prince of
Speaker 7: having Shire a very important waltz for an upcoming event
Speaker 7: that is called the Cinderella Christmas Ball, because at that
Speaker 7: event he is to dance with different royal ladies and
Speaker 7: then choose a bride, which is what happened in Cinderella.
Speaker 7: So that's how I got the name. So he's helping
Speaker 7: me with my emotional search for my family. I'm helping
Speaker 7: him learn this waltz, which I used all my Dancing
Speaker 7: with Stars knowledge to do, and so I was on
Speaker 7: that show ten years ago. And then it's a beautiful,
Speaker 7: happy ending that's cathartic and amazing and people are gonna
Speaker 7: love it. And again the day after Thanksgiving November twenty
Speaker 7: ninth on Great American Family Channel. And if people find
Speaker 7: me on Instagram, You'll be getting ulters of updates and
Speaker 7: I'll be posting on x during the premiere live posting
Speaker 7: so people can join in. Just on the commercial break,
Speaker 7: so someone should have watch the movie. I'll be like
Speaker 7: giving bts and stuff.
Speaker 3: Is he is he British? Or is this a fake
Speaker 3: land that he's the prince.
Speaker 7: Of well Hanshire is a made up city, made up
Speaker 7: country in Europe. But he actually there is a country
Speaker 7: where everyone speaks English with British accents of chess and
Speaker 7: he is so Oliver Rice, my co star, he's actually British. Usually,
Speaker 7: you know, we shoot all these movies in Canada mostly,
Speaker 7: and so we usually get some great Canadian actor who
Speaker 7: does a pretty darn good British accent. This is an
Speaker 7: actual he grew up in London, he moved to Canada
Speaker 7: ten years ago. Who was super legit. If you're in
Speaker 7: the New York area at all, you have to check
Speaker 7: out the Great American Family Christmas Festival. It's like an
Speaker 7: immersive Christmas experience, like dropping into a Christmas movie. There's
Speaker 7: ice skating, there's Santa, there's gourmet food and beverage, and
Speaker 7: then we have special screamings with Q and AS and
Speaker 7: you can meet the stars of Great American Family. And
Speaker 7: that goes from November twenty second through December twenty ninth,
Speaker 7: different celebrities going each weekend.
Speaker 5: So so fun.
Speaker 1: Do you have any other holiday movies or holiday themed
Speaker 1: episodes from TV that you love to watch around the holidays?
Speaker 1: Not that I was in, but just that just generally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like anything that I mean, Elf is so great.
Speaker 5: Oh, yes, my mom's favorite.
Speaker 7: And a Christmas Story. Yeah, Actually, I remember when we
Speaker 7: were shooting, right before we shot the pilot, they had
Speaker 7: Fred watch a Christmas Story because the whole narration thing.
Speaker 7: They wanted him to understand kind of what it was,
Speaker 7: and so that I remember that that was the first
Speaker 7: time I ever heard of a Christmas Story.
Speaker 4: It's such a good movie.
Speaker 5: Every year, those are the.
Speaker 7: Two movies that we always make sure to watch it
Speaker 7: at least once usually a few times during the holiday season.
Speaker 7: And then Wet and then we have Great American Family
Speaker 7: on all the time because I've got so many friends
Speaker 7: doing movies on the channel, so watched.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you too about Swinging to Romance.
Speaker 1: What can you tell us about that movie?
Speaker 7: Swinging a Romance is a movie that was came out
Speaker 7: last year on Great American Family but now just dropped
Speaker 7: on pure Flix. So this is another dance movie. So
Speaker 7: like my new the upcoming Christmas movie, it's into really
Speaker 7: Christmas ball. I do a wall A couple waltz is
Speaker 7: in it, and that was choreographed by globs of Schenko,
Speaker 7: who's a pro and Dancing with the Stars, but he
Speaker 7: was actually in a Swing into Romance last year. He
Speaker 7: also choreographed the swing dances or the jives in Swinging
Speaker 7: to Romance. But then he played my ex fiancee and
Speaker 7: my ex dance partner in that movie, and that was
Speaker 7: a blast because I got to dance on screen with him,
Speaker 7: which is amazing because he's like so good. It was
Speaker 7: like doing Dancing with the Stars, but without the eliminations
Speaker 7: and without a live pressure so you could do it
Speaker 7: a few times. And then also without the broken rib
Speaker 7: because I did break a rib on Dancing with the Stars. Anyway,
Speaker 7: Swinging to Romance per fun movie, and yes, it's like
Speaker 7: reliving and Dancing with the Stars. It's on pure Flix
Speaker 7: and you can stream it anytime.
Speaker 5: Wait, how did you break your rib?
Speaker 7: Repeated trauma Week three actions when the trauma started because
Speaker 7: of there was this move so Val Traumakowsky was my partner,
Speaker 7: and there's this move where it was a contemporary dance.
Speaker 7: He throws me in the air and I do a
Speaker 7: three sixty spin and it catches me.
Speaker 5: Oh god.
Speaker 7: Eventually we had to change it into a one eighties
Speaker 7: spin because six I was never quite getting around all
Speaker 7: the way and so I kept landing in his on
Speaker 7: his hand on this one rib, and and I was
Speaker 7: so determined. I was like, yeah, it hurts, but you
Speaker 7: know what, I'm a dancer. Dancers, you know, you work
Speaker 7: through the pain. You just dance through the pain. Just
Speaker 7: be tough. At the end of week three contemporary dance,
Speaker 7: my rib hurts so much. I went to the doctors, like,
Speaker 7: get way, did I break it? Like's, let's no, but
Speaker 7: it's weekend sore. Wear a brace. Wear a brace for
Speaker 7: the next couple weeks. So I did so from then on,
Speaker 7: you see, you don't see my stomach and any of
Speaker 7: those dances because I need to wear those braids. Well,
Speaker 7: for week six. After week six, for week seven, that
Speaker 7: was like, okay, do you think you know it's feeling
Speaker 7: better yet feeling better, Let's go ahead and do a lift.
Speaker 7: And there was this one lift thing we tried to
Speaker 7: rehearsal and it snapped. Oh god to hear it snap,
Speaker 7: and then flooded. So when I danced for two more weeks,
Speaker 7: I danced week seven in week eight, and so I
Speaker 7: danced eight out of ten weeks two which I danced
Speaker 7: on a broken rib. And that's because because that's what
Speaker 7: you do do. Yeah, that show really taught me resilience.
Speaker 7: Have any of you guys done it?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 7: No, it's it's a ride of passage.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, we have not done it, but I will
Speaker 5: say you have.
Speaker 1: If there's anything we learned about you in this episode,
Speaker 1: it's really that you can commit to a bit, just
Speaker 1: more than just about anybody you were like math, Yeah,
Speaker 1: watch this, oh acting, child acting? Yeah, watch this, Oh dancing,
Speaker 1: Watch this. It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 7: It's called stubborn.
Speaker 5: Stubborn and.
Speaker 7: We'll see it's a guy you know, good in bed,
Speaker 7: but it's it's.
Speaker 3: Who I am.
Speaker 7: And I try to try to live life to the
Speaker 7: fullest and help people along the way. You know, my
Speaker 7: math books. I mean, that's something I'm super proud of
Speaker 7: because you know, I want other kids to learn resilience.
Speaker 7: I want kids to learn that, Like when math gets challenging,
Speaker 7: that's you don't give up because that that's when you go, oh,
Speaker 7: this is when I'm getting stronger. Yeah, this is when
Speaker 7: things are challenging, that's when you're getting stronger. It's like
Speaker 7: lifting a heavyweight at the gym. If you lifted easy weights,
Speaker 7: like who cares. Yeah, but when you're struggling, when you're
Speaker 7: struggling with anything, that's when you're getting stronger. Like embrace
Speaker 7: those moments, go oh wait, this is actually good. I
Speaker 7: still her the first time that math professor told me
Speaker 7: because I was like, I'm just I'm confused. I'm trying
Speaker 7: to figure out. He goes, that's good, Am I what?
Speaker 7: Because you're in it, yeah, working it out, and you're
Speaker 7: going to remember what you learn right now much more
Speaker 7: than you remember something that it was easy that came
Speaker 7: to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so resilience.
Speaker 1: Well, Danica, thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending your time with us. It's always
Speaker 1: such a joy to see you. Hopefully we will see
Speaker 1: you at another nineties con or somewhere eventually, but it
Speaker 1: was always it's always so good to see you.
Speaker 7: You see you, Danielle. Thanks guys, Bye bye.
Speaker 5: Hy Wow. I mean she's a smarty, she's as smart.
Speaker 3: She's definitely a smart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's definitely a super smarty. We my kids love
Speaker 1: bathtime math time. It's very sweet. Every time she writes
Speaker 1: a new little kid math book, she sends it to
Speaker 1: me and she autographs it. And so I've read it
Speaker 1: a few times to Adler and he's like, what is
Speaker 1: this here? I'm like, that's the author's autograph. That's her
Speaker 1: sign that she cares whatever.
Speaker 5: Two plus three fast job, that was so fast.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Wow, you don't even need Danica's math book.
Speaker 3: I sure don't.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Speaker 1: Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
Speaker 1: emails Pod meets World Show at gmail dot com.
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Speaker 5: We love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 4: Podmets World is niheart podcast producer and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Speaker 4: Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy
Speaker 4: Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Speaker 4: Tara Sudbaksch, producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
Speaker 4: superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton
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Speaker 4: Podmeats World Show or email us at Podmets Worldshow at
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