Speaker 1: Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney Thorne Smith.
Speaker 2: And daphnews Aniga and iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 3: Hey everyone, welcome to the Melrose Minute.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always too much to talk about, Like
Speaker 1: while we're doing a recab, it just feels like there's
Speaker 1: all the stuff that we needed to put into a
Speaker 1: Melrose Minute. So we've let's be honest, we could talk
Speaker 1: all day every basis.
Speaker 2: So I mean an hour is a not pretty soon
Speaker 2: it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: A Melrose half hour, especially because our.
Speaker 3: Husbands don't want to hear us at home.
Speaker 4: So we have to come here and get it all out.
Speaker 5: So my dogs are getting so annoyed, they're like, already
Speaker 5: talk to the.
Speaker 4: Girls, to the girl. So here we are. Put it
Speaker 4: on the pod.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about before we got on about Sydney.
Speaker 2: We just watched her second and last episode for this season,
Speaker 2: but how her outfits were getting crazy and you had
Speaker 2: some thoughts about what you were wearing.
Speaker 1: No, it's just like it occurred to me like the
Speaker 1: character was so open to whatever, and the wardrobe department
Speaker 1: was so amazing that they would put whatever on her,
Speaker 1: and I just got this opportunity to try. But I
Speaker 1: just remember feeling like while I was I've mentioned this before.
Speaker 1: I was a brand new actress, right, I'm a midwestern
Speaker 1: I'm a girl from Iowa.
Speaker 3: Right, not the.
Speaker 1: Most like edgy, you know place, And I just remembered,
Speaker 1: like the idea that Sydney could wear all these colorful
Speaker 1: things and try them on and whatever was just so
Speaker 1: different than my own experience.
Speaker 4: Was it crazy for you? Was it exciting?
Speaker 3: And I loved it?
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 1: And there was a moment in my own like youth
Speaker 1: and childhood where I was interested in like trying on
Speaker 1: you know, eighties fashion.
Speaker 3: I mean, who wouldn't write.
Speaker 1: Day glow or like, like I was a junior high
Speaker 1: and like I remember remember the movie Flash Dance, right,
Speaker 1: and so I was And I was a dancer too,
Speaker 1: So like I was so interested, Oh, I'll wear leg
Speaker 1: warmers to school or whatever, like you know as part
Speaker 1: of my outfit leg warmers, which I got mercilessly mocked for, right,
Speaker 1: and so like not really a risk taking place fashion
Speaker 1: wise Iowa. So it was such an interesting thing to
Speaker 1: be given this character that could do anything and should
Speaker 1: be you know.
Speaker 3: Trying anything and whatever.
Speaker 1: But I just remember feeling also the actual voice inside
Speaker 1: my head going, oh, what are people back home going
Speaker 1: to think?
Speaker 6: Did you get reaction?
Speaker 4: I did get?
Speaker 6: I mean, in fact, do you remember there?
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 1: It's sort of hard to remember, but I just remember
Speaker 1: feeling super insecure about it, like what is everyone going
Speaker 1: to think? Not only that the scene that I had
Speaker 1: to be in bed with my sister's husband, even though
Speaker 1: it was a dream, was a nightmare sequence or whatever,
Speaker 1: but like to have to have done that, I was
Speaker 1: so insecure, like what are people going to think? And
Speaker 1: I'm going to be judged for this? It was like
Speaker 1: such a weird thing that I just watching it again,
Speaker 1: I was reminded of that feeling just starting out in
Speaker 1: my career, going what are people going so funny?
Speaker 2: My background is the absolute opposite of yours. I grew
Speaker 2: up in the sixties in Berkeley, California, where there were
Speaker 2: like free boxes on every corner for free clothes whatever
Speaker 2: whoever wanted anything, and we shopped at thrift stores and
Speaker 2: we had our dress up box at home.
Speaker 3: My sister and I didn't have a TV, but we
Speaker 3: would go home and put.
Speaker 2: On things feather boas or whatever just to play after school.
Speaker 2: So when I was doing this show with Denise. I
Speaker 2: got so excited because because it like went with that,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It wasn't crazy, she wasn't
Speaker 2: crazy out of the top, but in Joe's own way,
Speaker 2: we'd try things that kind of push the edge. And
Speaker 2: I just loved going to work because it felt like
Speaker 2: I was being paid to try stuff out of the
Speaker 2: dress up.
Speaker 4: Box, you know what I mean. Yeah, I just loved her.
Speaker 2: She had really cool, kind of ethnic, kind of esoteric stuff, really.
Speaker 3: Chic, upscale, cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I thought Allison was more conservative because she was a
Speaker 5: Midwest girl, so I didn't have that sort of super
Speaker 5: playing dress up. But that's a really fun thing about
Speaker 5: being an actor, which is getting to play different characters.
Speaker 5: I did a TV movie once where I played a
Speaker 5: murdering dairy princess, and that was super fun because that
Speaker 5: was like costumes, and I had work costume murdering. Yeah,
Speaker 5: she was like a dairy princess, and that was super fun.
Speaker 5: But I've often played to quote normal people, so my
Speaker 5: clothes weren't that exciting.
Speaker 4: So it's fun to.
Speaker 5: Get play super fun dress up, like you were playing
Speaker 5: super dress up and wearing these extreme things and getting
Speaker 5: to it was also it was the time on the
Speaker 5: show you could tell that they were experimenting with you.
Speaker 5: They were letting it get fun and funny and a
Speaker 5: little more unexpected. Like every time we walked into a scene,
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, this is going to be fun.
Speaker 5: I had that feeling about it. And part of it
Speaker 5: was the costume. Like you'd walk in, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 5: what's going to happen here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it didn't seem at all like you were.
Speaker 3: You seemed very open to wearing whatever they wanted to
Speaker 3: try you in.
Speaker 1: I loved it, but they just couldn't shake that little
Speaker 1: voice in my head that was like.
Speaker 3: What are they going to think?
Speaker 2: Didn't you think?
Speaker 5: Like we came of age in a time when most
Speaker 5: people had no nudity in their contracts, right, Like, I
Speaker 5: don't know about you, but since I turned fifty, people
Speaker 5: say nudity required. I'm like, did you think I waited
Speaker 5: till I was fifty to do nud Like what do
Speaker 5: you think it's writing? But it used to be on
Speaker 5: TV you were pretty well covered. Now it's so different.
Speaker 5: But I always from the time I was seventeen, I
Speaker 5: started professionally thought about my kid is going to see
Speaker 5: this one day, right, I always had that thought. I
Speaker 5: didn't want anything out there that would embarrass my kid.
Speaker 5: I'm so grateful now that I have a seventeen year
Speaker 5: old and he did that, like there are things that
Speaker 5: would be embarrassing me, kind of an eye rolling thing,
Speaker 5: like nothing that would be horrifying for him to watch. Right,
Speaker 5: friends would try to show him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I knew.
Speaker 4: I knew I'd never have.
Speaker 6: Kids, so I didn't.
Speaker 4: Have that proble. You had to do whatever you wanted
Speaker 4: to very compromising positions.
Speaker 3: I suppose it's free. It was like, but you have siblings, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a sister. We're very close.
Speaker 2: We're only seventeen months apart. I have a half brother
Speaker 2: who's twenty years younger than I am, so that's different.
Speaker 2: We didn't grow up together. But you know, watching your
Speaker 2: story with and us talking about the Jane and Sydney
Speaker 2: of it all has brought up, you know, my own
Speaker 2: thoughts with this sister.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: Of course, you don't really compare your real life to
Speaker 2: Melrose situations. That would be I hope, although.
Speaker 1: You're still it was fast when you said what you
Speaker 1: told us last episode, that your sister was actually.
Speaker 2: Showed up and which is c started living with me, Yes,
Speaker 2: and then ended up on Norral's plays as an extra.
Speaker 3: I love that and two other jobs I remembered too,
Speaker 3: I got her.
Speaker 2: But at any rate that aside confusing, Yeah, No, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to talk about like that kind of dynamic
Speaker 2: and your relationship with siblings.
Speaker 4: Why are they tough? Why are they so tough? Why
Speaker 4: what would cause and.
Speaker 2: Get to the point of not talking you know, or
Speaker 2: I mean it has to do a set. I look
Speaker 2: at you, and I think automatically, Courtney.
Speaker 6: I look at you and I think of boundaries.
Speaker 3: Set boundaries.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's part of your answer, and it should be,
Speaker 2: But I don't know what do you think about?
Speaker 1: You know, like siblings are the longest relationship you have
Speaker 1: in your life, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't get to choose them, right, that's.
Speaker 1: Interesting, But they really are the longest relationship you have
Speaker 1: because you know your parents won't always be there, as
Speaker 1: you know, and but your siblings are more aligned with
Speaker 1: you know, how you'd move through the world and age
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: The kind of the roles you were given as a child,
Speaker 2: you know, like one was given maybe like I was
Speaker 2: the older one. I was I totally assumed I had
Speaker 2: to protect my younger sister that you know, and she,
Speaker 2: I'm sure felt in my shadow and resisted. I never
Speaker 2: wanted her to copy me or follow me or go
Speaker 2: get your own friends and that kind of thing.
Speaker 6: And I've you know, I.
Speaker 2: Don't have that so much now, but it does kind
Speaker 2: of rear its head in different ways, you know, even
Speaker 2: as adults.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you do hear people saying like those things,
Speaker 1: those birth order things are really classic.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The oldest child often feels like they had to lead
Speaker 1: the way and be good and whatever. The next or
Speaker 1: youngest she's just kind of a different path and plays
Speaker 1: a different role, not that they're assigned necessarily, but that
Speaker 1: it just is natural. It's a natural birth order of relationship.
Speaker 1: And I just hear it all the time that there's
Speaker 1: these sort of classic relationships. And I have an older
Speaker 1: sister as well, and so like for the Sydney and
Speaker 1: Jane relationship, it was easy to imagine being the younger
Speaker 1: sister because I am the younger sister and I always
Speaker 1: looked up to my older sister. And I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever did anything psycho, but you.
Speaker 4: Could use that.
Speaker 1: We definitely is easy to draw from really real emotions
Speaker 1: about feeling not as smart or not as good or
Speaker 1: not as you know anything, and wanting to be like
Speaker 1: your older sister either.
Speaker 2: Have you ever had to deal with, like really having
Speaker 2: a er where you've had to take time off or
Speaker 2: really deal with difficult subjects with each other.
Speaker 3: I think it's hard not to.
Speaker 5: And what I was thinking is, you guys are talking,
Speaker 5: is is you live your life in reference to this person? Right?
Speaker 5: Like my son is an only child, so he's kind
Speaker 5: of like he's he's forging his own path. But we
Speaker 5: were in reference, and I was thinking about my parents
Speaker 5: telling me that one of the teachers in kindergarten, my
Speaker 5: sister is a beautiful visual artist, extraordinary. So's my dad
Speaker 5: saying that in kindergarten, I wouldn't draw because I couldn't
Speaker 5: draw as well as my sister. It's probably why I'm
Speaker 5: an actor, right Like I'm an actor and a writer.
Speaker 5: And she said I still can't draw, and I think
Speaker 5: it's just I just said, well, she's got that, that's hers,
Speaker 5: So I could there have been something there. I don't know,
Speaker 5: but I ended up like acting from a very young
Speaker 5: age because that was mine. She sort of claimed it,
Speaker 5: and that happens with siblings, right, they claim this. So
Speaker 5: you look over here.
Speaker 3: And it's fascinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, she's older.
Speaker 5: She's older too and half, so she got it first,
Speaker 5: like she Yeah, And I may not, honestly, I may
Speaker 5: not have that talent, right but I don't. I will
Speaker 5: never know because I'm so early lane And of course
Speaker 5: I couldn't do it as well as her, she was
Speaker 5: two and a half years older. But also maybe I
Speaker 5: don't have that gift. She's gifted, as is her daughter,
Speaker 5: and as was my dad.
Speaker 2: You know, my sister and I when I was in
Speaker 2: seventh grade, so she was a couple of years younger.
Speaker 2: We both auditioned for a play, my first play at
Speaker 2: the school, and I got a part.
Speaker 4: I was cast as a part.
Speaker 2: It was HMS Pinafore again another it was a musical
Speaker 2: that I shouldn't have done.
Speaker 3: I got because I was a good young actress.
Speaker 4: And my sister was up.
Speaker 2: For the lead, another lead in it, but they had
Speaker 2: to draw straws and the other blonde girl got it,
Speaker 2: and so Jennifer didn't, and she got the rule of
Speaker 2: Dick dead Eye.
Speaker 5: My boss name is Jennifer too, is your name Jennifer.
Speaker 1: Sister's name is Lisa.
Speaker 6: So I've always.
Speaker 2: Wondered, like, oh, that poor thing, that poor my poor sister,
Speaker 2: Like she drew the wrong straw.
Speaker 3: Did that change her destiny by the trajectory?
Speaker 2: But you know, the thing is like, even if you
Speaker 2: have a talent, let's say my sister had a talent,
Speaker 2: she doesn't have the obsession or tenacity because as we
Speaker 2: all know, she came out and she took acting classes
Speaker 2: and I gave her jobs and she after a couple
Speaker 2: of years, was like, I don't like sitting around waiting,
Speaker 2: So it takes more than the talent.
Speaker 3: Like your sister does something with her drawing?
Speaker 6: Does she do something with her drawing?
Speaker 5: She's still an extraordinary artist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not her business though.
Speaker 4: No, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I like that I can remember both of your sister's
Speaker 1: names now from now on, I won't forget Yours is Lisa, Lisa.
Speaker 5: My sister told me once that artists people have a
Speaker 5: visual talent for visual arts shadows, and I asked my
Speaker 5: niece about it too, like I see things kind of
Speaker 5: in two dimensions. If I draw flower, it's a two
Speaker 5: dimensional flower. I'm not doing shadows. And she was trying
Speaker 5: to explain it to me, and I was like, I
Speaker 5: don't see what you see or doesn't translate in my
Speaker 5: brain the same way now writing does, right, Like I
Speaker 5: write scenes, so it's all tied up together. I don't know,
Speaker 5: but I don't think of drawing it. I think of
Speaker 5: writing it, right, Yeah, right.
Speaker 6: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: I do things very I think it's called kinetically or
Speaker 2: viscerally emotionally, like this is my language, this is how
Speaker 2: I process things. This is how and that's very useful
Speaker 2: for acting. My sister doesn't. She's very logical. Well, so
Speaker 2: we'll have these conversations and they're a little bit like
Speaker 2: we kind of miss kind of miscommunicate a little. I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of how my sister and I have had
Speaker 2: dealt with some difficult We're very different in some big ways,
Speaker 2: and we literally just choose to not talk about things
Speaker 2: that we shouldn't that we know will cause friction because
Speaker 2: we value our love, We value the connection. Because of
Speaker 2: what you said, it's the longest relationship, it's my earliest relationship,
Speaker 2: she's my earliest ally where your little little babies trying
Speaker 2: to figure out this world together, and I don't want
Speaker 2: that to be destroyed by opinions that exist.
Speaker 6: Now, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 4: So I think it's.
Speaker 3: Very important for if you can skillfully kind of navigate that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sisters, I can't wait till you come back
Speaker 5: on the show. I'm very sad we have to take
Speaker 5: these episodes off, but.
Speaker 1: We have so many fun Sydney soon. Yeah, there's lots.
Speaker 2: There's lots of times coming on soon, guys, which is soaking.
Speaker 3: Her entry, such fun coming, so excited.
Speaker 6: All right, So here's our fan question.
Speaker 2: Watching a nineteen ninety two episode of The Young and
Speaker 2: the Restless, there was a depth styling gel commercial and
Speaker 2: the woman.
Speaker 6: Looked like Laura Layton. Does she remember this?
Speaker 1: There's a reason she may have looked like me. It
Speaker 1: was me actually in nineteen ninety two, so I have said,
Speaker 1: you know, Melrose was my first job. It was like
Speaker 1: my first acting job, but this depth commercial was my
Speaker 1: first actual job on camera. And I was hired for
Speaker 1: this hair gel and I got to the set for
Speaker 1: my very first job, my very first commercial, and and
Speaker 1: I remember like I showed up and like there was
Speaker 1: all this like conversation around me, and everybody's just sort
Speaker 1: of looking at me, and they're like kind of like
Speaker 1: getting me set up, like maybe go to wardrobe, or
Speaker 1: maybe you go to the hair trailer and maybe you
Speaker 1: get started whatever.
Speaker 3: But there was this conversation and.
Speaker 1: I realized that they were discussing my hair color and
Speaker 1: that it didn't look the color that they were expecting
Speaker 1: as it had in my audition. And apparently they had
Speaker 1: hired a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette for all
Speaker 1: different like parts of this commercial or maybe different versions
Speaker 1: of the commercial, and I'd been hired as the redhead,
Speaker 1: but showing up on the set that morning, they didn't
Speaker 1: think my hair looked red and it had in the commercial.
Speaker 1: They'd hired me as the redhead.
Speaker 6: And changed your hair at all.
Speaker 1: I had not changed my hair, And so there's all
Speaker 1: this like sort of conversation, you know, behind whatever was
Speaker 1: going on, and then they finally just decided to proceed.
Speaker 1: And once they put me on the set with the
Speaker 1: lights and everything, I was like, oh, looks red. So
Speaker 1: it was lightly like a lighting thing or whatever. But
Speaker 1: after that commercial, I was like, I didn't lose the job,
Speaker 1: you know, like for not being redhead enough, but I
Speaker 1: did right after that decide Okay, I actually need to
Speaker 1: commit to being a redhead.
Speaker 3: I'd never really identified as a redhead.
Speaker 1: And I kind of I just yeah, I just kind
Speaker 1: of had like I felt maybe sort of like eh hair,
Speaker 1: Like I have a lot of red head in my family,
Speaker 1: but my own hair I just felt was kind of
Speaker 1: like eh, like kind of a little bit of this,
Speaker 1: a little bit of that, and kind of nothing or whatever.
Speaker 1: But after that commercial experience where I almost lost a
Speaker 1: job for not being red enough, I was like, well
Speaker 1: that's it. I'm going to be a redhead. And I
Speaker 1: like started, you know, coloring my hair And wait.
Speaker 2: A second, were you as red as you were when
Speaker 2: you showed up on Melrose?
Speaker 1: So Melrose was after the depth commercial, So by then
Speaker 1: I was like fully redhead person admitted more, I'm going
Speaker 1: to make sure like that's you know, clear, Like I
Speaker 1: don't want to be like you were something or other
Speaker 1: and not really one thing or another.
Speaker 5: It's so perfect with your skin tone. I can't imagine
Speaker 5: you with another color.
Speaker 1: Well, and kind of neither can I. Like, it's not
Speaker 1: like it was definitely in my family, like my sister
Speaker 1: had beautiful auburn hair, and my grandfather's nickname honestly was red.
Speaker 1: Like you know, he was the guy that, oh, hey
Speaker 1: red you know. So it was like yeah, so it wasn't.
Speaker 3: Like not a thing.
Speaker 1: I just felt like mine was very meh, you know great.
Speaker 5: Remember deep like the they probably still have it. Remember
Speaker 5: how heavy it was.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they still have it.
Speaker 2: Used to be so heavy, didn't they like the like
Speaker 2: just all the products, the sprays, AquaNet, everything.
Speaker 4: Was so hilly around.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that's still around.
Speaker 5: I remember when I really committed when my hairstar when
Speaker 5: I was young, it was super blonde and then it
Speaker 5: started to get darker. And when I was first working,
Speaker 5: I would just use sun in and I would just
Speaker 5: put the sun down and then blowed dryer. And that
Speaker 5: was my fancy hair coloring technique. I that.
Speaker 1: Orange yeah, or like mammone juice, just sitting on the summer, never.
Speaker 5: Knew what you were going to get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of apricot color.
Speaker 6: You know. It reminds me of.
Speaker 2: Like Junior high is sun in banda so let and
Speaker 2: Baby Johnson's baby oil.
Speaker 3: Yes, we'd lie.
Speaker 6: Out all summer and get.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, just trying to fry ourselves in oil. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so god so dumb.
Speaker 6: All right, we'll do more questions on our next Melrose.
Speaker 3: Minute and at some point.
Speaker 5: We don't have time now, but I want to know
Speaker 5: if you guys remember when the cast did a Pantine commercial.
Speaker 6: Laurie Real, Yeah, I remember, Lauria. We all did it.
Speaker 5: That was when they could hire the whole cast an
Speaker 5: a campaign.
Speaker 3: I remember you and Billy, you and Andrew doing a campaign.
Speaker 6: I don't know if Grant and I did one. I
Speaker 6: think we all did it. Did we?
Speaker 1: I didn't do the real because I first season, I
Speaker 1: did it Tito's commercial later with the Dorito's I think.
Speaker 6: As a part of Melrose Place, like a cross brand, like.
Speaker 1: A tie in, Yeah, for a super Bowl, I think
Speaker 1: a super Bowl like.
Speaker 6: Oh oh that's cool. I don't know, it's yeah.
Speaker 2: Remember that was kind of the I think the beginning
Speaker 2: of like product placement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, they give the show the product and they
Speaker 1: put it in the actor's hand to promote it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll keep sending in the questions.
Speaker 6: We'll do more than one next time. How's that?
Speaker 1: Well, we're really super in there, and yeah, we'll have
Speaker 1: time for more next week time.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, we I think we were pretty
Speaker 1: good at maybe keeping this to a Melrose Minute instead
Speaker 1: of the Melrose half hour today, which I think.
Speaker 3: I think that's will more than a minute.
Speaker 1: Look at us trying to follow the rule rule, but
Speaker 1: you know we'll figure it out. But as always, thanks
Speaker 1: for tuning in to Still the Place. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe so you don't ever miss a Melrose Minute. We
Speaker 1: love you all and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 4: Bye everyone, Bye bye bye