Speaker 1: So I was having this conversation with my wife the
Speaker 1: other day and I don't know why this pops up,
Speaker 1: but Susan, Susan, my wife, we were talking about, what's
Speaker 1: your favorite word.
Speaker 2: Oh, melifluous. I don't get to say it often, but
Speaker 2: I love the word melifluous.
Speaker 3: I love the word transcendent.
Speaker 4: I like usurp. Oh really, yeah, I'm a bit like.
Speaker 5: I love them.
Speaker 4: But the sound itself, I love it all.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's it's and it's so on
Speaker 1: a monopoetically incorrect for what it is it's meant for,
Speaker 1: but it's so great.
Speaker 3: So one of my one of my favorite words for
Speaker 3: the meaning is synesthesia.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't know what that means.
Speaker 3: It's when you experience one sense with another. So in
Speaker 3: other words, see music like the idea of like see like,
Speaker 3: and some people have it actually as a brand and
Speaker 3: then they close their eyes and they can actually see
Speaker 3: color or hear colors or you know whatever.
Speaker 4: I think you can take color.
Speaker 3: I love the way it sounds like. And then also
Speaker 3: just you know, the meaning of the word is so cool.
Speaker 2: So that's a great run. I feel like I got
Speaker 2: my love of words because I do love words. I
Speaker 2: just started following Merriam Webster the Dictionary. I just started
Speaker 2: following the Dictionary on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not really the Dictionary that's instagramming their stuff.
Speaker 1: There's somebody that's the Dictionary.
Speaker 2: No, guys, it's the book. It's the book. I've seen it. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's very it's I love words, and I will I
Speaker 2: will again. Credit to David Combs. David, David, he had
Speaker 2: such a vocabulary and and I mean involving calls froom
Speaker 2: as we've discussed all it's such a vocabulary and and
Speaker 2: just finding like great words to describe things. It was
Speaker 2: so important. And you learn it too, if you enjoy
Speaker 2: if you enjoy school and you work hard on your papers,
Speaker 2: and you find you have to come up with, you know,
Speaker 2: good words, and there's so many out there. And yet
Speaker 2: you also want to find the fine line between like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to sound pompous. I don't want to
Speaker 2: sound like.
Speaker 3: Sound about the pretentious person in the world.
Speaker 5: Yes, you have to.
Speaker 3: Like no, I love good vocabularies, and it's so fortunate
Speaker 3: that people don't use it enough. Like I feel like
Speaker 3: we all use so many simple words when we could
Speaker 3: have better ones. I love experience. And what's cool is
Speaker 3: that it's one of those things that does get better
Speaker 3: with age, Like yeah, your vocabulary, just like my vocabulary
Speaker 3: just keeps getting bigger. And I love that, like you know,
Speaker 3: and and yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I was I was listening to a podcast this weekend
Speaker 1: about William shap It's it's all the things in history
Speaker 1: that are myths that you know, are kind of debunked.
Speaker 1: And one of them, you know, the little famous one
Speaker 1: is did Shakespeare write his own plays? But one of
Speaker 1: the things they talk about is William Shakespeare apparently invented
Speaker 1: over twelve hundred words.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh something like of his vocabulary, of his
Speaker 3: his words were made up.
Speaker 1: Made come up and have become just part of the lexicon.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's amazing, amazing. So that's why I think
Speaker 1: all the time we keep I keep trying to invent
Speaker 1: words on this podcast, hoping just one of them will stick.
Speaker 2: We could still try to get strafty bright Man.
Speaker 4: We just drafty bright could work.
Speaker 1: We could using tage now instead of montage, but that's
Speaker 1: just like delish, we know it, that's all.
Speaker 4: Where we use Jackting, I can't no jacket and I
Speaker 4: think do.
Speaker 2: You use facting when you were talking about face acting?
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the other one. I'm a good factor, so you're.
Speaker 2: A good factor, and I can't. I'm a I'm an
Speaker 2: I cannot jactor.
Speaker 4: Abelia Shakespeare, William Fredell, similar.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm rather strong,
Speaker 2: and I'm Wilfredell or William Shakespeare Fordell or William Shakespeare.
Speaker 4: I wrote all of my own plays.
Speaker 2: So we have commonly referred to this show as more
Speaker 2: than just a podcast, because it also sometimes doubles as
Speaker 2: a therapy session, and not just when we had a
Speaker 2: real therapist on. Many of the things we've remembered or
Speaker 2: the memories we've unlocked have led us into our own journeys,
Speaker 2: both on the air and off, unpacking a childhood that
Speaker 2: may have been seen on TV, but also had its
Speaker 2: own set of private issues and puberty laced confusion. And
Speaker 2: nothing from Pod Meats World has displayed this therapeutic side
Speaker 2: effect more than recalling the day I was cast as
Speaker 2: to Panga Lawrence, a moment that would change my life forever.
Speaker 2: I have told that story for thirty years. I had
Speaker 2: previously only focused on the aspirational angle, the unbelievable tale
Speaker 2: of going from a character in the background to center
Speaker 2: stage within just minutes the long night my mom and
Speaker 2: I put into nailing Michael's notes, and it was my
Speaker 2: story of success and the origin of my Hollywood career,
Speaker 2: something that I am still lucky enough to have now
Speaker 2: as a director. But it was my adulthood and now
Speaker 2: also having children of my own, that allowed me to
Speaker 2: realize recently it wasn't just my story. There was somebody
Speaker 2: else in that story who shaped the rest of their life.
Speaker 2: There was the original topanga. Her name, Bonnie Morgan, went
Speaker 2: in and out of my memory for the past thirty years,
Speaker 2: either consciously or subconsciously, I don't know. She was part
Speaker 2: of this story I retold on TV and on the radio,
Speaker 2: and in my book and really anywhere that asked me,
Speaker 2: But I never thought about what it must have meant
Speaker 2: to her, and if I was forcing her to relive
Speaker 2: a hard time in her young career. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: So when writer recently recognized her sister during a rewatch,
Speaker 2: also a child actress who appeared on Boy Meets World,
Speaker 2: you heard me in real time announce that I wanted
Speaker 2: to speak to Bonnie because our lives have been so
Speaker 2: connected and yet we have never spoken. So I was
Speaker 2: able to get in touch with her and we had
Speaker 2: a meaningful and beautiful conversation that lasted well over an hour,
Speaker 2: and she very graciously agreed to come on the podcast.
Speaker 2: And so today I am genuinely honored to introduce to
Speaker 2: our audience for this week's Pod Meets World someone I
Speaker 2: know you're going to love, actress and contortionist Bonnie Morgan. Welcome, Bonnie.
Speaker 5: Good gosh, this is a room I never thought I'd
Speaker 5: be sitting in.
Speaker 2: Right. Bonnie, we recently spoke on the phone in a
Speaker 2: conversation that I truly chair and have thought of many
Speaker 2: many times since we spoke. And before we get into
Speaker 2: what you remember about your time on Boy Meets World,
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about your family and how you
Speaker 2: started in the industry.
Speaker 5: I am third generation vaudeville. My grandma opened for Frank
Speaker 5: Sinatra in nineteen forty two in his Bobby Socks tour.
Speaker 5: She was regularly requested by Jimmy Duranty. My grandparents were
Speaker 5: swing and sway with Morgan and May, and they were
Speaker 5: wow a soft shoe, jitterbug acro duo. My gosh, did
Speaker 5: us so very cool people. They had my father, the
Speaker 5: little scamp Gary Morgan, and had to come off the
Speaker 5: road like many do, to seek a normal life. Their
Speaker 5: version of a normal life was to open a dancing
Speaker 5: school in Pasac, New Jersey. Hmm. And my dad became
Speaker 5: a Broadway brat. He was a child star on Broadway.
Speaker 5: He worked with Olivia de Haviland, oh Man, Henry Fonda,
Speaker 5: Lillian Gish, I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah ah.
Speaker 5: The man knows his history.
Speaker 4: Of course, of course.
Speaker 5: And like many, sought his fame and fortune in California.
Speaker 5: So he picked his jew fro, put on a top hat,
Speaker 5: got in his Volkswagon bus with a surfboard on the roof,
Speaker 5: and drove to California. Now we're more or less circus spolk.
Speaker 5: Our idea of a straight job is a center ring,
Speaker 5: still walking, trampoline, rolling globe, tight wire, high wire, low wire,
Speaker 5: anything acrobatic that's like, that's your day job. Really so
Speaker 5: my dad, My gosh, my dad is also a horror icon.
Speaker 5: He doubled the dog in Kujo.
Speaker 2: I mean that is coraz.
Speaker 5: My dad did all the attack scenes with Dee Wallace,
Speaker 5: and any So anytime you see the dog attacking, some
Speaker 5: of the dog's attacking trainer, whenever you see an actor
Speaker 5: being attacked, it's my father in a suit, going, that's
Speaker 5: my dad. So great. My aunt Robbie was Jason's first
Speaker 5: victim in Friday the thirteenth. You know, the little hitchhiker, Hi,
Speaker 5: can we go to Camp Cristal Lake, the one that
Speaker 5: gets her throat foot on the tree. My aunt Robbie. Wow,
Speaker 5: my dad was Billy and Logan's Run No Way. He
Speaker 5: screen tested for Luke Skywalker because of that. Oh, my
Speaker 5: dad had two screen tests with George Lucas.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5: But my dad was didn't quite have that fresh faced
Speaker 5: you know country boy. Look, he's a little more han
Speaker 5: solo mischievous.
Speaker 4: So wow.
Speaker 5: It was also the first Frangie that you saw in
Speaker 5: Star Trek.
Speaker 4: Really really, we're we're speaking my language.
Speaker 5: Wow. Oh, talk nerdy to me, man.
Speaker 4: Exactly, that's how I am. That's how I am. Oh man, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's awesome.
Speaker 2: So I mean, as you guys, as you can tell,
Speaker 2: like truly, it never ends. She has story like this
Speaker 2: after story like this, after story like this. It's incredible
Speaker 2: and so I think it's probably when you started acting.
Speaker 2: Did you basically walk out of the womb as an actress.
Speaker 5: I always say I came to an age of reason
Speaker 5: with a sad card and a pension, right, like right?
Speaker 5: Like really? On Facebook you're like, you know, oh, my
Speaker 5: first head shot, I'm like, hmm yep, nope, like.
Speaker 2: Herber stuff, right, that's called a baby picture literally gerber sheets.
Speaker 5: And again it was the family business. We always joke
Speaker 5: whenever one of our cousins has a baby nine months old,
Speaker 5: not that much job.
Speaker 2: Yet, like.
Speaker 5: This is normal for us. I think the only way
Speaker 5: to disappoint my father is if one of us had
Speaker 5: become a CPA. Right, that's not a joke. So if
Speaker 5: you're ever looking for a fun read, La Weekly did
Speaker 5: a piece called the Fabulous Flying Morgans. It's a fun read.
Speaker 5: Star Forman did all the artwork. It's it's photos of
Speaker 5: are the blue pastel in Laurel Canyon. So literally, I
Speaker 5: was raised by hippies and Laurel Canyon. My parents met
Speaker 5: at a Hollywood party. Before she met my dad, my
Speaker 5: mom was living with hal Ashby, whoa. She was Ruth
Speaker 5: Gordon's like stand in stunt double for Harold and Maude,
Speaker 5: a few other movies. So like literally Hip be Chick,
Speaker 5: Hip Bee guy hurtying in the canyon. This is my life.
Speaker 2: Well that's a perfect segue.
Speaker 3: Into that's exactly why.
Speaker 2: What do you remember about auditioning for Boy Meets World?
Speaker 5: So crazy thing that my parents got married into Panga Canyon.
Speaker 5: I got a call from my agent. I was working
Speaker 5: a lot as a kid at this point. I was
Speaker 5: an Oscar Mayer Wiener kid. I was. I did a
Speaker 5: lot of commercials. I was on The Nanny, I was
Speaker 5: on Life Goes On. I had just done Blossom. Yeah,
Speaker 5: as like a tech nerd in jail, and I had
Speaker 5: a lot of auditions for a show called The Torkul Sins. Okay, yes,
Speaker 5: playing Ruthan.
Speaker 2: So I'm Michael Jacobs.
Speaker 5: I've been seen for that many times in many incarnations
Speaker 5: of the show, it seemed. So I get a call
Speaker 5: from my agent that was like this is weird, Like
Speaker 5: she's like I would normally say, you could get this,
Speaker 5: but it's it's like it was written for you. Like
Speaker 5: you don't hear that a lot. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 5: look at me. You don't hear that a lot, especially
Speaker 5: as a kid and the thing is as an actor, kid,
Speaker 5: The Brass Ring is a series. You know, when can
Speaker 5: I get a pony? When you get a series? What
Speaker 5: everything in your life is going to happen when you
Speaker 5: get a series? Yeah, long running syndication, all words that
Speaker 5: you know, So I get the sides and and it's weird.
Speaker 5: It's it's stuff that I I know, it's stuff in
Speaker 5: my life. I'm reading this going this is easy. First
Speaker 5: call really, casting directors look at me like, wow, I
Speaker 5: you know what, Let's just try it this way just
Speaker 5: for fun. Wow, okay, we thank you for coming in.
Speaker 5: Now here's where it gets a little weird. I had
Speaker 5: three callbacks. They kept bringing me back, and I have
Speaker 5: I have a hyper thymusic memory. I remember what I
Speaker 5: wore to the audition. I remember the French doors in
Speaker 5: the office for one of the meetings on the lot
Speaker 5: so and it was rooms full of people every time.
Speaker 5: And weirdly, every time i'd audition, we'd talk a lot.
Speaker 5: I'm a luquacious felure and every time I'd come back,
Speaker 5: the script would change slightly. It seemed to that we
Speaker 5: had talked about And I have a lot of strange
Speaker 5: side abilities from contortion to animal calls. By the time
Speaker 5: I had this audition, I'd already done two full productions
Speaker 5: of Midsummer Night's Dream, one of which I went on
Speaker 5: for Puck at eleven.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: So the whole humpback whales so pale with the I had,
Speaker 5: like I knew how to do the makeup for that.
Speaker 5: I was like describing the geometric patterns that would be
Speaker 5: exciting for that scene. They kept bringing me back, though,
Speaker 5: which was strange, and one time I even left the
Speaker 5: building and someone chased me down in the party lite. Hey,
Speaker 5: could you come back? We want to try something else.
Speaker 5: We want to give you a different script. You want
Speaker 5: to the what do you call it? A The Men
Speaker 5: Underground scene made it into the audition.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, like.
Speaker 5: All of it so, and it was even my parents
Speaker 5: were going, what's up, something's up? And I got a
Speaker 5: call from my agent that said there's a power struggle
Speaker 5: and Bonnie stuck in the middle of it. The creator
Speaker 5: loves her. And every time someone tees like it's like
Speaker 5: it was written for you. Yeah, it's like it was
Speaker 5: written for you. My mom grew kombucha mushrooms in our
Speaker 5: kitchen right literally, So finally it came down. You got it,
Speaker 5: Michael Won, I didn't know that you could get fired.
Speaker 3: What seems like in some ways Michael was writing the
Speaker 3: part for you. Yeah you know, I mean if you
Speaker 3: had auditioned for Toko since because I mean, I know
Speaker 3: he kept track of Like the reason I auditioned for
Speaker 3: Boy Meets World is because my brother had audition had
Speaker 3: come close on another. So he like kept track of
Speaker 3: actors and he remembered people that he would read with
Speaker 3: and work with. So it seems like the character of
Speaker 3: Topanga was essentially written for you. Around you.
Speaker 5: It would make sense because we did talk a lot,
Speaker 5: I mean more so than now. Anytime you had like
Speaker 5: a significant audition, you talk to people. They want to
Speaker 5: know who you are, what you are, what does your
Speaker 5: mom do? What does your dad do?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you get this call, there's a power struggle.
Speaker 2: The creator loves you, and then you get the call.
Speaker 2: You've got the part.
Speaker 5: You are to Panga. Even the name, even the name
Speaker 5: was out of my parents' love story history. It was.
Speaker 5: It was the coolest thing ever. And what's more, I mean,
Speaker 5: you were all kid actors. You would audition for things
Speaker 5: that you were like, I don't know what to do
Speaker 5: with this. I mean, I'll go in. I'll sometimes it
Speaker 5: was so off, you'd get coaching because you had to
Speaker 5: make something out. Even as a kid, this.
Speaker 2: Was just easy, and you think that's it. I got
Speaker 2: it that you don't know that you could be fired.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that was even possible. So I come
Speaker 5: to set and it was the weirdest day of my life,
Speaker 5: even as a kid. I was like, what's going on here? Weird?
Speaker 5: I remember what I was wearing too. I know you
Speaker 5: can't imagine this. I was a bit of an odd kid. Now.
Speaker 5: Tapanga was originally written as a quirky girl, an outlandish
Speaker 5: hippie flower child. Yes, and quirky was the main word.
Speaker 5: So I came in and all the adults were very
Speaker 5: short with me. I went to wardrobe and I had
Speaker 5: a duffel bag of all of my stuff, all of
Speaker 5: my mom's batiqued clothing from the Renaissance there and all
Speaker 5: of that. And she looked at the bag and looked
Speaker 5: at me like just I couldn't describe it at the time.
Speaker 5: I know what it was now, but at the time,
Speaker 5: I like, I went to open the bag, She's like,
Speaker 5: leave that in the corner. All right, okay. So she
Speaker 5: fitted me in this strange what I could only describe
Speaker 5: as a sweatshirt dress aka sweatshirt dress. Like, well, that's
Speaker 5: not very hippie, like it doesn't matter. H humhm. Like
Speaker 5: they put me in very frumpy, strange wardrobe and wouldn't
Speaker 5: look at my stuff. They're like, you know what, just go,
Speaker 5: we'll do this later. Okay. Weird. So the table read
Speaker 5: was great, fun, it was all there. It was couldn't
Speaker 5: have gone better with everyone around. The minute I was
Speaker 5: separated out, it was another story. So now we're blocking
Speaker 5: and Ben started kind of poking at me a little bit.
Speaker 5: He would make faces and try to break me, and
Speaker 5: it worked. At this point, I was becoming a nervous wreck.
Speaker 5: I couldn't get his name. The opening line, Corey, I
Speaker 5: would like, beffaw Corey. And David was just like, get
Speaker 5: it tag together, and I'm trying to pull it together.
Speaker 5: And I pulled it together in sheer fear, and Ben
Speaker 5: just kept kept doing this thing to.
Speaker 2: Crack and you were breaking. You were giggling and breaking
Speaker 2: and giggling.
Speaker 5: Another strange fact is that my dad was not on
Speaker 5: set with me that day. My dad was almost always
Speaker 5: on set with me. Actually on big days it was
Speaker 5: my mom, and my mom was much more. You know.
Speaker 5: I would stay to the side. And I know that
Speaker 5: Michael wasn't there that day, right, Michael wasn't there, My
Speaker 5: dad wasn't there. Strange. And at one point I had
Speaker 5: a line. It was a sweet line, and David went,
Speaker 5: I want you to say it's sweeter peace.
Speaker 2: I was like, I said peace, okay.
Speaker 5: Okay, and uh he said, say it's sweeter. So I
Speaker 5: said its sweeter. He went, no, I want you to
Speaker 5: say it, and he got really close to me, like
Speaker 5: you're saying up birthday. And I was. I was so
Speaker 5: tiny at that moment, and I just said, Okay, I
Speaker 5: really goes do it. I said. I thought he meant
Speaker 5: during the take, he goes do it now, wish me
Speaker 5: a happy birthday. And I took every bit of sacharin
Speaker 5: in my body and just said happy birthday. Good, that's better.
Speaker 5: I was. I was amazed and knew not what to say.
Speaker 5: So and again, benk I would say that your hair
Speaker 5: looks different, so upline. He would mock me. While I
Speaker 5: was saying that. I would say a line and he'd
Speaker 5: mock it back to me. And I think I went, mmmm,
Speaker 5: what are you whoa hey, like, that's not cool. It
Speaker 5: every step of the day, and we were gonna do
Speaker 5: the kissing scene on the locker, but at that point
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm just gonna stay away from him
Speaker 5: till Wednesday, right, geez right, thinking I was, you know,
Speaker 5: stand on my ground, making a good went back to wardrobe.
Speaker 5: They were like, you just take your stuff home. It's like, oh, okay.
Speaker 5: The people that were nice to me were nice. Everyone
Speaker 5: who was lovely was lovely. But it was the strangest
Speaker 5: day on set I had ever had. I went home
Speaker 5: and knew nothing. I did not know what was happening
Speaker 5: that day.
Speaker 2: Of course, so this is this is our Friday. You're
Speaker 2: very the very first day. You probably arrived to set
Speaker 2: around seven or eight. For school, we would have had
Speaker 2: our table read at nine. Rehearsal would have started pretty
Speaker 2: much immediately after, and then the day is usually wrapped.
Speaker 2: Like you, we were done for the day by four
Speaker 2: or five o'clock. And so you're having this awkward, uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: super strange day on set and you're probably thinking, well,
Speaker 2: thank god, there's a weekend after this. I just get
Speaker 2: to go home. Recoop, have a nice weekend, and I'll
Speaker 2: be back on Monday to start fresh.
Speaker 5: Well. And what's even funnier is even with that crazy day,
Speaker 5: I was like, and Monday'll be even better, right, Monday
Speaker 5: will be even better? Uh you know, I'll pull out
Speaker 5: all my my btique tie dyed boardroom that I have.
Speaker 5: I had a whole thing, the humpback Whale. I was
Speaker 5: gonna go full contortion on that scene in my audition.
Speaker 5: I sat down, put both legs behind my head and
Speaker 5: began doing pushups like my gosh, like a dolphin going
Speaker 5: through a wave shape. Like I had a whole choreograph plan,
Speaker 5: yoga centric bit to go with that. I was like,
Speaker 5: when we all get it on our feet, it's gonna
Speaker 5: be great, right, Jes. I had no clue.
Speaker 2: And how old are you? Are you eleven or twelve?
Speaker 2: We're about the same age, right, eighty one?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Eighty one roughly? Okay, yeah, so you're twelve ish twelve?
Speaker 5: I was twelvesh Now, what's I remember it so very clearly?
Speaker 5: I had no idea. I woke up the next morning
Speaker 5: to celebrate. I made myself blueberry pancakes because I was
Speaker 5: so grown up with the job now, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I made blueberry pancakes and brought them up to my parents'
Speaker 5: bedroom to sit and eat them. When the phone rang.
Speaker 5: My dad picked up the phone. They're like, we're a
Speaker 5: we're the kind of like hanging out, hanging out in
Speaker 5: bed all day sort of it's Saturday. Yeah, the mom
Speaker 5: and dad are totally just you know, chilling. Dad picks
Speaker 5: up the phone and and he didn't wait to get
Speaker 5: off the phone. He just said, what you're kidding? They
Speaker 5: fired you? You're fired? What what? I left my pancakes,
Speaker 5: ran into my room, took a blue blueberry smelling Markron
Speaker 5: wrote the worst day of my life on my Hummingbird calendar.
Speaker 5: What came out? Fortunately, I had been with my agent
Speaker 5: a very long time. I'd been working with her a
Speaker 5: very long time. The director said I couldn't take direction,
Speaker 5: which is one thing I had never been accused of.
Speaker 5: I was working a lot, and my agent immediately fought
Speaker 5: back on that one. It's like, she can't take direction,
Speaker 5: we have to fire or her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, she's worked on this show and that show,
Speaker 2: and this show and that show, and none of them
Speaker 2: have ever said she can't take direction.
Speaker 5: And actually every director been like she takes she too
Speaker 5: wonderfully like that. She even said that's a lie. What's
Speaker 5: going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And because I always say corpse's float. There are no secrets,
Speaker 5: especially in this industry. It came out very quickly to
Speaker 5: my agent that the director didn't think I was pretty enough,
Speaker 5: literally did not think I was pretty enough. So that
Speaker 5: meant that a grown up, a man, a boss, would
Speaker 5: could lie about me and tell me I was untalented
Speaker 5: because the fact was he didn't think I was pretty. Wow.
Speaker 5: Live with that, I'm taking away the thing you want
Speaker 5: most in the world that was all but written for you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's because you're not talented. Sorry, eyelied, It's just because
Speaker 5: you're not pretty, right right?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: And so when you hear this, we all know because
Speaker 2: we've all been those twelve year olds who also operate
Speaker 2: like adults. Do you take this with twelve year old
Speaker 2: emotion or like, how does this affect you when you
Speaker 2: hear it? Do you just like this this this professional
Speaker 2: adult side kick in and you kind of muster up
Speaker 2: the courage, or do you just emotionally break?
Speaker 5: I was shattered. I was shattered there. I don't know
Speaker 5: a lot of adults that could handle that one.
Speaker 4: No way, no way, let.
Speaker 5: Let alone a quirky kid.
Speaker 4: Emotional people.
Speaker 5: Quirky in the nineties was also kind of code for nerdy, like.
Speaker 3: Just weird, abnormal and different. Quirky was the positive spin
Speaker 3: on the correct characteristics that were not considered great.
Speaker 5: I never knew who got the job until it aired.
Speaker 2: Wow, And did you watch it then? When it aired?
Speaker 5: I watched the show exactly once in my life, and
Speaker 5: it was that episode.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: There is a lot that goes on throughout that time.
Speaker 5: But I had found out that that you and Marla
Speaker 5: had auditioned over the weekend, which.
Speaker 2: Was Friday night. To be exactly what you did.
Speaker 5: No, such a slap in the face to find out
Speaker 5: that I was dead man walking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by that time you left on Friday, you were
Speaker 2: already gone. I bet you.
Speaker 3: My theory is that they made the decision at the
Speaker 3: table read. I bet you it was. The reason you
Speaker 3: felt so awkward. Is that whoever was pushing against you,
Speaker 3: whether that was David Traynor alone or someone at the
Speaker 3: network or whatever, who decided they made that decision after
Speaker 3: the table read, and then you were dead man walking
Speaker 3: the entire day.
Speaker 5: That's my feeling. And that's why I haven't even a
Speaker 5: bigger feeling than that I was dead before I ever
Speaker 5: walked on that set. I truly believe that David Traynor
Speaker 5: decided the minute the phone call was made that he
Speaker 5: was going to get rid of that kid, come hell
Speaker 5: or high water. And what a hell of a thing
Speaker 5: to do to somebody. Yeah, I'm sure you all had
Speaker 5: amazing experiences with him. He went on to do a
Speaker 5: lot of great shows. Yeah, it makes me wonder why
Speaker 5: didn't my second choice, Why wasn't there a backup?
Speaker 2: Well, because I think, really, when when we take our
Speaker 2: if we can get to a place where we can
Speaker 2: completely take ourselves out of it. There was a power
Speaker 2: struggle that had nothing to do with characters or topanga
Speaker 2: or actors at all. It was a power struggle between
Speaker 2: two adults who wanted power, period and the the we
Speaker 2: were all just you know, yeah, I want to get
Speaker 2: back to Bonnie. You and you're where you were at
Speaker 2: that day. So you're just absolutely shattered. Your job has
Speaker 2: been taken from you. This dream you thought you had
Speaker 2: finally fulfilled. You were going to be this character on
Speaker 2: the show that was going to be amazing. What's the
Speaker 2: first thing you do. Your dad hangs up the phone,
Speaker 2: and what's the first thing you do to like pick
Speaker 2: up and move on from this situation.
Speaker 5: Well, that's where it gets a little more interesting. At
Speaker 5: the time, I had booked two series.
Speaker 2: When you got the role of Tapanga and I got
Speaker 2: something else ya.
Speaker 5: When I got the role of Tapanga, I had also
Speaker 5: booked a pilot and they both shot at the same time.
Speaker 4: Oh no oh.
Speaker 5: I had to make a decision, a very hard decision
Speaker 5: between a series regular role that was the exact character
Speaker 5: I wanted to play, or the little sister on a
Speaker 5: Nickelodeon pilot who was written like Doogie howser tough Call
Speaker 5: pilot and it was really, you know, like bird in
Speaker 5: the Hand is worth two in the Bush pilot might
Speaker 5: not ago, and I was. I was gung ho for Tipanga,
Speaker 5: but the grown ups were talking, the parents and the
Speaker 5: agents were like wow, decision was made for that. So
Speaker 5: while I'm know hugging Gone by Bed now, my parents
Speaker 5: are trying to find the silver line, like, well, maybe
Speaker 5: you can do the other show, which was such a
Speaker 5: consolation prize because this was Nerd Glass of knee Socks
Speaker 5: and Peter.
Speaker 2: Pan collars because everything.
Speaker 5: So immediately my scheme goes in damage control to get
Speaker 5: that back, and miraculously they did. They got it back,
Speaker 5: so I didn't have a chance to wallow, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to waller. Oh my pity party was going to
Speaker 5: be amazing. There were going to be tea cakes and everything.
Speaker 5: How you have a job to do, and you're going
Speaker 5: to do that job because that's what we do. If
Speaker 5: you hear strange screeching, it's because I have a cockatoo
Speaker 5: in the other room.
Speaker 2: Who was going to say, do you have a food? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yes, I have a small menagerie at my house. And
Speaker 5: the kind of it is a let me know if
Speaker 5: it's a too invasive in the sound process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe your cockatoo is something he'd like to say
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 5: He will, he will make sweet Casanova bird love too, Sweetie.
Speaker 5: I'll go get him in a minute.
Speaker 2: Okay, great.
Speaker 5: So this show was about a girl who gets doused
Speaker 5: with a nuclear waste or something and she gets superpowers,
Speaker 5: and like that was really the cool rule that once
Speaker 5: again went to the pretty girl. Now I hate to
Speaker 5: use that term so much because I'm in no way
Speaker 5: disparaging myself, but every generation has their ideal of beauty,
Speaker 5: if you will. Sure in the nineties it was Alyssa Milano.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, it was that type.
Speaker 5: Right now it's Anya Taylor Joy or Ananta Sea Freed. Like.
Speaker 5: That's not to say that others aren't beautiful, but when
Speaker 5: you have Charlie's their own as your measure of beauty,
Speaker 5: I am not a common looking that, especially for the nineties.
Speaker 5: So there's the girl covered in nuclear waste who's suddenly
Speaker 5: moving things with her mind, and I'm the nerdy doogie
Speaker 5: howser MD type genius who has already graduated college and
Speaker 5: is sort of her sidekick, almost little sister, but helping
Speaker 5: her navigate her powers. A lot of big words, yeah right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: a lot of big words in that script. So I
Speaker 5: went from one to the next, and I am just
Speaker 5: trying to keep it together and not talk about it, right,
Speaker 5: because you're not supposed to talk about.
Speaker 2: It, right. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Really, I do have to go back just a little bit, though,
Speaker 5: because you definitely had something to add because as viciously
Speaker 5: as I was treated by David, who was championing a
Speaker 5: different look which he cast, he cast that look, he
Speaker 5: had a type. You and Marla were definitely on the
Speaker 5: same call sheet looking wise. Yes, So he had his
Speaker 5: ideal replacements on deck in lesser roles. So the minute
Speaker 5: I walked off that set, those two were ushered into network.
Speaker 5: And I understand that you had an equally terrible experience
Speaker 5: with my champion, Michael.
Speaker 2: Yeah on that Yeah. So Friday was your brutal day
Speaker 2: and David was hard on you. And I thought it
Speaker 2: was very interesting that you really remembered that cafeteria scene
Speaker 2: where you had to say peace, because I remember that
Speaker 2: scene and watching David work with you, and I remember
Speaker 2: hearing David say, no, Sweeter, it's peace. It's not peace,
Speaker 2: it's peace, and I remained in my voice. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: Michael loves your voice. Michael is my whole life. Michael
Speaker 2: told me, lower your voice, lower your voice the register
Speaker 2: I needed your Michael wanted me to have your voice,
Speaker 2: and David wanted you to say peace. And so you
Speaker 2: had that day Friday, Hary Willow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I believe, and.
Speaker 2: You know, and I then went to work on Monday
Speaker 2: as the new to pay and had a perfectly fine
Speaker 2: day with David. Went all day rehearsal. Think it's great,
Speaker 2: I've got it. This feels good, and then I did
Speaker 2: the run through, and at the end of that run through,
Speaker 2: Michael did in front of everybody what David had done
Speaker 2: to you in front of everybody on Friday.
Speaker 4: Can I ask, was a male actor ever treated like that?
Speaker 1: I can't think of a single time when a male
Speaker 1: actor on our show was treated like that?
Speaker 4: Can anybody else?
Speaker 3: No? I mean kids were fired, right, We had multiple
Speaker 3: sh but they weren't fired.
Speaker 4: They weren't called out in front of everybody and then fired.
Speaker 4: They just weren't there again.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it seemed like this was for some reason.
Speaker 1: If you were a girl, I'm going to wreck you
Speaker 1: in front of everybody.
Speaker 5: Whoever. I've weirdly been on other sets observing when one,
Speaker 5: let's just say one mogul champions one person and another
Speaker 5: logal champions and other so they'll like take turns, and
Speaker 5: this happens when time's up. Happened it was time. They'll
Speaker 5: take turns, like abusing the other one's favorite if you will, like, well,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna yell at yours and like beat them down.
Speaker 5: It's like, oh, you want to yell at mine, I'll
Speaker 5: yell at yours. And I've watched it obvious when it
Speaker 5: happens and it's like, wow, it's alive and well, isn't it.
Speaker 5: But even in my episode, the hair straightening serum was
Speaker 5: from another actor, a young actor, and I remember the doves.
Speaker 5: Rochelle says, it was.
Speaker 3: All about I will and yeah, I had a tiny
Speaker 3: part that week until.
Speaker 5: When finally came to Fruition, he was gone too. It
Speaker 5: was like they cleaned house and all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: Stacey said said, geez, so.
Speaker 2: But I want I mean, I don't. Maybe it didn't
Speaker 2: bring you the same comfort it brought me, But it
Speaker 2: was so interesting when Bonnie and I were on the
Speaker 2: phone and first of all, just for her and I
Speaker 2: to connect as just woman to woman, but then also
Speaker 2: actor to actor, and all this time between the two
Speaker 2: of us, and yet our lives have we have in
Speaker 2: my mind, I mean, Bonnie and I are like this,
Speaker 2: and yet we've had all this time, but are are
Speaker 2: no Our stories are inextricably flinked, and yet we have
Speaker 2: had all the space. And to hear what she what
Speaker 2: from her POV and her perspective and what she went through,
Speaker 2: and then to have it go all the light bulbs
Speaker 2: went off for me that, oh that that that note
Speaker 2: session had nothing to do with me. It had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with my performance. And guess what, everything Bonnie
Speaker 2: had happened, everything that went through there had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with Bonnie, had nothing to do with her looks,
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with her performance, had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with her. It was another storyline that was playing
Speaker 2: out behind the scenes, and we were just characters in
Speaker 2: the play. And we never would have known that had
Speaker 2: we not talked.
Speaker 5: But what I told you too, which got even a
Speaker 5: little weirder, was this is really, this is the thing
Speaker 5: that doesn't go away in my life. Very weirdly, it
Speaker 5: keeps rearing its head no matter how much I get
Speaker 5: past it, Like really, it just keeps showing up. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I have to back up one more time too. When
Speaker 5: I saw the show, I realized because I had found
Speaker 5: out all of that, and I saw the Barbie Mettell
Speaker 5: Girl a literal doll as Topanga, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 5: it was the only time I would ever watch the
Speaker 5: show because I was not about torturing myself, which is
Speaker 5: probably healthy, and it was a hard show to avoid really,
Speaker 5: so the one time I did see it was very
Speaker 5: hard and I had to just and it's hard not
Speaker 5: to become a bitter twelve year old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, z, you don't want to be that.
Speaker 5: So in the meantime, the show The Secret World of
Speaker 5: Alex Mack gets picked up by Nickelodeon. Yes, and I
Speaker 5: get a letter in the mail how wonderful you were
Speaker 5: in the pilot and how much energy you brought. However,
Speaker 5: that network has decided it would serve the show better
Speaker 5: to have an older sister as Dianer sixteen. So better
Speaker 5: luck next time.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 5: So I have now lost both series, which was again
Speaker 5: the hits came so hard and so fast, and again
Speaker 5: they had nothing to do with me. And finally someone
Speaker 5: from Alex Matt Colden said it was a conflict. We
Speaker 5: couldn't have Doogie Howser on the show with So now
Speaker 5: time March is on. My sister and I are both actors.
Speaker 5: Molly was on Full House actually for several episodes as Mickey,
Speaker 5: the girl that gets Stephanie to smoke. All of them
Speaker 5: had bad noir, Big Sister. So now I get word
Speaker 5: from the and everyone knows this is a touchy subject.
Speaker 5: Molly has an audition for Boyet's World.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's about a year later, because it's season two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's about a year later. And Mollie actually did
Speaker 5: two episodes and it was a very small part. And
Speaker 5: I was like, no, absolutely not but professional small role.
Speaker 5: This is not how we do things. So Molly auditioned.
Speaker 5: Of course, she booked it. Mollie was a wonderful actress,
Speaker 5: all of those things. She books it, and then the
Speaker 5: character recurs, and then the character recurs, and it was
Speaker 5: very happy for her, very hard. This is still really fresh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And what's more is we didn't think they knew she
Speaker 5: was my sister. We didn't know how much of a
Speaker 5: scourge I was on set, so we really didn't want
Speaker 5: anyone to know right that we were related, that she
Speaker 5: had anything to do with me, because we didn't want
Speaker 5: her to get fired too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So there she is on set. And what's strange is
Speaker 5: I was always the contortionist, all of that, and Molly
Speaker 5: had also figured out how to pop hers. Not quite
Speaker 5: the same, but apparently everyone on set had been talking
Speaker 5: about party tricks or strange things, and Molly, without thinking,
Speaker 5: pulled it out. And she.
Speaker 4: Even said the.
Speaker 5: Minute she did it, and I was like, hey, you
Speaker 5: know who you look like? And she went, oh, no,
Speaker 5: oh no. So Molly pulled you aside and confided it
Speaker 5: to you. And that was kind of a big deal
Speaker 5: for her to do, because, look, she trusted you to
Speaker 5: tell you that. At that point, she was probably a
Speaker 5: little scared she might get found out or fired. So
Speaker 5: insult to injury comes. It's tape day and the family's like,
Speaker 5: you should go and support your sister.
Speaker 2: Wow, so do you.
Speaker 5: I had to put on my big girl panties this
Speaker 5: show that day.
Speaker 2: Good four there.
Speaker 5: And showed up and I sat in that audience and
Speaker 5: when the warm up, guys like, does anyone have any
Speaker 5: special talents that they want to show off to our
Speaker 5: studio audience. I had so many T shirts from all
Speaker 5: my friends shows Growing Pains. I had a T shirt
Speaker 5: from every show that I got up and entertained on.
Speaker 5: I didn't get up. I sat there and watched and
Speaker 5: at the end of the show, Cast takes a bow
Speaker 5: and Molly weaves the family down setting foot on that set.
Speaker 5: Really like my toes curled when I walked like past
Speaker 5: audience land onto that set. It was just like yeah
Speaker 5: and cast, yeah, and everyone was really nice to me.
Speaker 5: Everyone was really nice, and it was kind of awkward.
Speaker 5: And I didn't know this. My dad said that David
Speaker 5: came in from the corner and clocked me and saw me,
Speaker 5: and he said the look on his face was just
Speaker 5: he said, he just gave a look to you. And
Speaker 5: Dad looked at him like, hey, man, gave him a
Speaker 5: total hay Man look. And he said that it was
Speaker 5: a look of I don't know if it was Contricia Gilt,
Speaker 5: but it was like right, it was a definite look.
Speaker 5: And weirdly, weirdly, I ran into the rider. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you remember this where when I was doing
Speaker 5: Shakespeare in northern California. I think I may have been
Speaker 5: doing Midsummer again. This time I was playing Puck and
Speaker 5: Molly was there, and we were at the Burbank Airport.
Speaker 2: Writer's favorite face Home away from Home.
Speaker 5: You were walking through and again you're walking through. I
Speaker 5: was sitting with a man named David Springhorn who was
Speaker 5: playing bottom genius actor, and I just he goes, well,
Speaker 5: you look like you just saw a ghost and you
Speaker 5: saw my sister and you were like me and you
Speaker 5: two sat down and Molly like pointed me like you
Speaker 5: got like hey, hi, and you do. I think our
Speaker 5: was delayed because we had a lot of time, and
Speaker 5: I sat and told bottom David Springhorn the story of
Speaker 5: what happened, and he looked at it was like, well,
Speaker 5: aren't you just the little survivor? Yeah, because because I
Speaker 5: didn't leave, I stayed in this business. This destroyed me
Speaker 5: at the time. Make no mistake, this was probably one
Speaker 5: of the more defining experiences of my life. But it's
Speaker 5: one of severe perseverance. I did not let it take
Speaker 5: me out of of my life.
Speaker 2: And so over the years, have you ever shared this
Speaker 2: story publicly with as many times as you've been interviewed
Speaker 2: with as an illustrious this is a of a career
Speaker 2: as you have had. Have you ever when somebody asks you,
Speaker 2: what's a little tidbit about you that nobody knows? Have
Speaker 2: you ever shared this story publicly?
Speaker 5: Never? Once? Never? Once? And I'm asked a lot tell
Speaker 5: me something that nobody knows about you, and this is
Speaker 5: always that thing. It's like a dirty little industry secret.
Speaker 5: And I haven't said it for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 5: Number One, I don't want to disrespect you, Danielle. Really,
Speaker 5: you were on that show a long time. You are
Speaker 5: an icon of that day, and who am I to
Speaker 5: take anything away? From you. Really, even if as a
Speaker 5: child I felt something had been taken away from me,
Speaker 5: I didn't think it would do me any good to
Speaker 5: stand up and say even come across as that was
Speaker 5: not like right, Really it didn't matter by then. And
Speaker 5: what's more, I didn't know if that was ever public.
Speaker 5: I know I read once, because unfortunately, when something happens
Speaker 5: to you, even if you break up with someone, people
Speaker 5: feel the need to keep tabs for you. Exactly broken
Speaker 5: up with so they're like, hey, so she's dating someone new,
Speaker 5: and you're.
Speaker 2: Exactly, that's nice. I didn't want to know her.
Speaker 5: So people would send me articles even as a kid, Oh,
Speaker 5: this was the worst. As a kid, people go, hey,
Speaker 5: so there's this new character on this show. Did you
Speaker 5: audition for that? I mean, it's like it was written
Speaker 5: for you. I got that for the first three seasons
Speaker 5: of Brains, like oh my gosh, and don't you live
Speaker 5: into Panga Canyon. I'm like yeah, So, like a very
Speaker 5: few people knew about it, and those who did would
Speaker 5: like send me articles like hey, she said she wasn't
Speaker 5: the first choice. Why don't you get up? And I'm
Speaker 5: like no, thank you, yeah, thank you. And then years
Speaker 5: past and then Girl Meets World came up. I was like, Oh, holy, how.
Speaker 4: Did this show die with the nineties?
Speaker 5: Come on, maybe it'll work on it. I was like,
Speaker 5: Oh good, let's just reignite that old flame. Wow.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: I also wasn't sure if I would be disavowed if
Speaker 5: I said so. You never know. I can't imagine how
Speaker 5: Eric Stoltz felt Back to the Future. He filmed for
Speaker 5: like two or three weeks and they went it's just
Speaker 5: not working. I don't know if he ever broke it
Speaker 5: or if that's just something that's come out in recent decades. Yeah,
Speaker 5: because make no misp, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 5: Everyone has been fired anyone who has lasted in this
Speaker 5: town for any amount of time, director, producer, writer, is
Speaker 5: specially actors. Everyone has been fired or replaced for one
Speaker 5: reason or another.
Speaker 4: Yes, yep, absolutely true.
Speaker 5: So this is not a unique story. But again, I
Speaker 5: would hate to say something to Fangoria or to one
Speaker 5: of those and have it be fact checked and have
Speaker 5: Disney disavow right or have you called out of the blue, hey,
Speaker 5: so this person is saying that they are and put
Speaker 5: you in that position.
Speaker 2: Well, and again, because we hadn't spoken, you didn't know
Speaker 2: how I what I knew about you or how I
Speaker 2: felt about you, and I've never known how you felt
Speaker 2: about me, And so I do I have to ask,
Speaker 2: was there at twelve when this whole thing happened and
Speaker 2: you then watched the episode and find out it was me?
Speaker 2: Did you ever hate me? Did you ever think like
Speaker 2: that girl?
Speaker 5: Oh? Of course, yeah, I am not going to lie,
Speaker 5: and I was the bigger man about this, right. Well,
Speaker 5: what's more is what you don't know as a kid
Speaker 5: is that you had nothing to do with it, is
Speaker 5: that someone else was going to have that role because
Speaker 5: at that point it was going to be anyone but
Speaker 5: me because there were too many egos involved in it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: my victory was to be short lived because someone didn't
Speaker 5: want that guy to win. So absolutely, when I turned
Speaker 5: on the TV and saw literally Barbie the prettiest girl,
Speaker 5: a literal model you were. You were literally on Barbie
Speaker 5: commercials like you and Barbie next to each other, it
Speaker 5: was like, oh my.
Speaker 2: Gosh, that was the live action skipper.
Speaker 5: That's who they got and it was not me. So yes,
Speaker 5: of course, for a long time it was like she
Speaker 5: took it from me, but you were not in the
Speaker 5: corner conniving and conspiring. No, the seat was open and
Speaker 5: you were ushered into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and to touch on, like you said, the
Speaker 2: story of perseverance, I mean the career you have had
Speaker 2: after Boy Meets World. It was like a Boy Meets
Speaker 2: World was a blip on your radar. I mean, you
Speaker 2: are Samara in the Ring mov franchise, You come out
Speaker 2: of the TV. You have been in tons of things,
Speaker 2: Minority Report, Criminal Minds, you did three episodes of a
Speaker 2: Series of Unfortunate Events, three episodes of Ant Farm, Shamelets,
Speaker 2: the Muppets, stunt performances, and over thirty projects. Your career
Speaker 2: has You have an incredible career anybody would die for.
Speaker 2: And I just our phone conversation was so I don't
Speaker 2: know if I could ever put to words how it
Speaker 2: felt for the two of us on that phone call
Speaker 2: to have connected after all this time and to have
Speaker 2: shared the things that we shared. And looking back now
Speaker 2: a full thirty years later, how do you feel about
Speaker 2: your experience on Boy Meets World and how it has
Speaker 2: shaped your life over this time and the fact that
Speaker 2: now here we are sitting here together.
Speaker 5: Goodness, it was not a good experience. I'm not going
Speaker 5: to sugarcoat it and say that it was. It was
Speaker 5: a hard lesson in the real world of the business
Speaker 5: be chosen. But as they said in The Godfather, we've
Speaker 5: chosen this business. No one put a gun to our head,
Speaker 5: and you choose to stay in it as far as
Speaker 5: it goes. I do get to say in my own head,
Speaker 5: in my own world that I did get that role.
Speaker 5: The ways and the reasons it was taken well, that
Speaker 5: was outside of my control. But really one thing that
Speaker 5: kind of cracks me up that we joke about is
Speaker 5: I became the monster that the pretty girls are scared of.
Speaker 5: I'm the thing in the dark that will scare your
Speaker 5: children and your boyfriends wherever. Though I have lived on
Speaker 5: I've lived a life that I don't know that I
Speaker 5: would have lived had I been to Pangolorence on boy
Speaker 5: Meet's World. In my life, I opened for Paul McCartney.
Speaker 5: I toured with Sir Paul McCartney for ten weeks and
Speaker 5: stood on stage with him and took a bow every night.
Speaker 5: I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Yeah, I've
Speaker 5: seen attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. In my life,
Speaker 5: I have ridden horses with my dad to the foot
Speaker 5: of the Pyramids at sunset and sipped tea in a
Speaker 5: Bedouin outpost. Cool. I have lived a crazy, adventurous life.
Speaker 5: I have ridden wire rigs that frankly, only a handful
Speaker 5: of people and mostly from the Matrix movies, have ever ridden.
Speaker 5: I have safeguarded other children on sets. Yeah, that couldn't
Speaker 5: speak up for themselves, or stand for themselves, or fall
Speaker 5: down for themselves. I am one of five women who
Speaker 5: can say they were a Terminator.
Speaker 1: Hm.
Speaker 5: I'm actually in the legacy of the Terminators series. I
Speaker 5: was one of the female Terminators. Really, I would love
Speaker 5: to have met the girl that went on that show.
Speaker 5: I really would. But I had had adventures that I
Speaker 5: think my life took me so far beyond that, beyond
Speaker 5: being a kid on a series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in that sense, you know, that's exactly right. I
Speaker 2: just thank you so much for being willing, for the
Speaker 2: first time ever to come out here and share your
Speaker 2: story with us and share your experience with our listeners.
Speaker 2: I also would like to make it clear I did
Speaker 2: not coerce you in any way into doing this. I
Speaker 2: said to you when I first called you, I said,
Speaker 2: if nothing else, all I care about, truthfully, was that
Speaker 2: you and I got to have a conversation and with that,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to share your story publicly and to
Speaker 2: share your life and to share your story with the public,
Speaker 2: then I wanted to give you that platform. However, if
Speaker 2: you're if you were, if you never wanted that, I
Speaker 2: was never going to force you to do it. What
Speaker 2: was most important to me was that we got to
Speaker 2: have the conversation that we had, and the very first
Speaker 2: when I said, do you have any desire in coming
Speaker 2: on and sharing your story and you said I will,
Speaker 2: I will do it. I would like to do it.
Speaker 2: And I know that it took courage and I know
Speaker 2: it took bravery. And I am so eternally grateful for
Speaker 2: you and to you for not only coming on here
Speaker 2: and sharing your story with everyone, but just for accepting
Speaker 2: that phone call on that random Tuesday and for talking
Speaker 2: to me. And you know, just.
Speaker 5: Daniel, you're lovely, You are lovely. It couldn't have happened
Speaker 5: to a nicer person, really, So thank you for being
Speaker 5: kind and open and really being just so lovely about
Speaker 5: the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bonnie. It really means a lot to us.
Speaker 2: So ah, thank you. This has been a nice one.
Speaker 2: It's it's just a really beautiful full circle moment for me.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 5: And are you thank thank you for talking about it,
Speaker 5: because my gosh, this has been like the dark industry
Speaker 5: secret in my life. Wow. And I have gone on
Speaker 5: to other strange and wonderful things, but this is not
Speaker 5: something that's ever come out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: I was so good to see you everybody.
Speaker 2: Bye bye. Oh wow. What a life, what a career,
Speaker 2: what a story.
Speaker 1: Is just a total class act, just so classy about
Speaker 1: the entire thing, the situation back then. I'm coming to
Speaker 1: the show with her sister to support her sister after.
Speaker 4: What she went through.
Speaker 2: That is so intense at thirteen years old. She would
Speaker 2: have been there a thirteen years old ago, a year ago.
Speaker 2: My entire life feels ripped out from under me.
Speaker 1: Yep, crushed, and I'm now going I'm going to go
Speaker 1: set back back to that set, same directors, same people there,
Speaker 1: see those people sister she.
Speaker 3: Was describing the secret world of alex Mack was like,
Speaker 3: is she talking about secret world of Alexis's show? And
Speaker 3: then it was like right, which was also Nitania's show, right,
Speaker 3: like ended up being the sidekick. So what in a
Speaker 3: yeah world of Yeah, like she's man, she's super classy,
Speaker 3: so classy, can't you know? Yeah, I mean in a
Speaker 3: weird way.
Speaker 5: It couldn't have happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's she was lucky that she had
Speaker 3: to show biz family, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 3: could help her be resilient about this, because if you didn't,
Speaker 3: you know, like I don't know about the other kids
Speaker 3: who were fired off of our show, what their experiences
Speaker 3: were like moving forward, you know, if any of them continued,
Speaker 3: and and you know the fact that she was able
Speaker 3: to stick it out, yeah, god, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, and even the fact that her parents made her
Speaker 2: do the hard thing and were like, you should go
Speaker 2: support your sister. You know, they probably knew better than
Speaker 2: she did that staying away from the set was only
Speaker 2: building it up to be this big, horrible, scary monster. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that once she actually went there, it would give her,
Speaker 2: you know, probably a sense of comfort.
Speaker 1: This is our family, this is our business, this is
Speaker 1: what we do. There's good times, there's bad times, and
Speaker 1: the bad times can be really bad, and the good times.
Speaker 4: Can be amazing.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: And that's the same. There's the highs and lows in
Speaker 4: this business are insane.
Speaker 2: And we have we have both of them to talk
Speaker 2: about all of us. You know, we all have those
Speaker 2: horrible lows and we have those extreme highs, and yet
Speaker 2: you know, thankfully for most of us, we go, you
Speaker 2: know what, it's all worth it, and we and we
Speaker 2: love what we do, and you know, it's just yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just amazing. So anyway, I I just my conversation
Speaker 2: with her was just even you know this it was
Speaker 2: it was better than this was because it was intimate.
Speaker 2: It was just the two of us learning of these
Speaker 2: things about each other and sharing our experiences, and it
Speaker 2: felt like there were just men's like men, little little
Speaker 2: patches to spots on our heart and in our soul
Speaker 2: that needed patching. And so I'm so glad that she
Speaker 2: agreed to come on and share just share her life
Speaker 2: with all of you, because she's so special and so
Speaker 2: classy and so yeah, thank you, as always everyone for
Speaker 2: following along with this episode of Pod Meets World. As always,
Speaker 2: you can follow us on Instagram pod meets World Show.
Speaker 2: You can email us pod meets Worldshow at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: And we have merch.
Speaker 4: Merchandise I try to do it classy.
Speaker 2: I like its Bonnie classy great.
Speaker 4: Thank you for Bonnie, Thank you.
Speaker 2: I will send us out this time. We love you all,
Speaker 2: pod dismissed. Pod Meets World is an iHeart podcast produced
Speaker 2: and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfredell and Wright Strong Executive producers,
Speaker 2: Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman Executive in charge of production,
Speaker 2: Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara sudbachsch producer, Jackie Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: engineer and Boy Meets World super fan Easton Allen. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by Kyle Mooreton of Typhoon. You can
Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at Podmeets World Show or email
Speaker 2: us at podmeetsworldshowat gmail dot com.