Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright Side, everyone's favorite teenage witch, Melissa
Speaker 2: Joan Hart joins us on the show. We're digging into
Speaker 2: her decades long career as an actress and director, her
Speaker 2: new foray into stand up comedy, and why she stayed
Speaker 2: down to Earth through it all.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, May fourteenth.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Simone Boyce, and this is the
Speaker 3: bright Side from Hello Sunshine, Simone.
Speaker 2: We have one of our nineties teenage heart throb idols
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 3: Melissa Joan Hart preteen. Simone is just screaming, literally shaking
Speaker 3: right now. I mean, this is a this is a
Speaker 3: dream come true.
Speaker 2: You love all the nineties nostalgia. I know this is
Speaker 2: a moment for you. I can't help but think of
Speaker 2: her not as Melissa joan Hart, but as her iconic characters,
Speaker 2: like I want to call her Sabrina, I want to
Speaker 2: call her Clarissa.
Speaker 1: It's hard to just say Melissa joan Hart.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a testament to the longevity that
Speaker 3: she had. I mean, she in Clarsa explains it all.
Speaker 3: She did sixty five episodes from nineteen ninety one to
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was just an
Speaker 3: institution as well. She was one of the hardest working
Speaker 3: stars of that time.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you one of my biggest takeaways from
Speaker 2: our conversation that I want everybody to keep an eye
Speaker 2: out for as they listen. She was an actress. She
Speaker 2: was a teen actress, but she and her mom were
Speaker 2: such bosses. They took such control of her career and
Speaker 2: their lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a story I haven't heard from many teen actors.
Speaker 1: It was really impressive.
Speaker 3: She was an ever present force through a lot of
Speaker 3: the defining moments of the nineties of pop culture back then.
Speaker 3: I mean I forgot she was in the Drive Me
Speaker 3: Crazy video with Britney spears.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Talking with Melissa Joanhart got me thinking about all the
Speaker 2: nineties rama behind the scenes all the other actors' TV shows.
Speaker 2: We may be able to get the inside scoop on
Speaker 2: who she hung out with, who she dated, like, what
Speaker 2: really happened behind the scenes in the nineties.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we're gonna put our best investigative journalism to
Speaker 3: the test right here with Melissa. You know what's been
Speaker 3: fun for me recently Danielle. I discovered that the entire
Speaker 3: Nickelodeon Nineties library is available for you to stream on
Speaker 3: Paramount Plus. So I have sat my two boys in
Speaker 3: front of the television and I'm now forcing them to
Speaker 3: watch the shows that I grew up with, and surprise, surprise,
Speaker 3: they love the slime.
Speaker 4: They just want to watch more slime.
Speaker 1: I remember, Simone.
Speaker 2: One of my first red carpets was the Kid's Choice Awards,
Speaker 2: and all I could think was like, please let me
Speaker 2: get slimed.
Speaker 1: Please let me get slimed. It was so iconic for us.
Speaker 4: It was such a thing back then.
Speaker 3: And I actually have wait, hold on, I have to
Speaker 3: show you something. So I in Florida at this time,
Speaker 3: like peak nineties pop culture, right, and so we were
Speaker 3: only a road trip away from Disney and Universal Studios,
Speaker 3: so we would go there quite a bit and I
Speaker 3: made my parents take me there. And I still have
Speaker 3: this relic. This is my original super sloppy doubledare souvenir
Speaker 3: shirt that's a.
Speaker 1: Size like it's a cute baby.
Speaker 3: It's a baby te now, but it's red and it
Speaker 3: has like the slime on it. I love that and
Speaker 3: I wanted to get slimed so bad, and it was
Speaker 3: the demand to get slimed was out of control. You
Speaker 3: had to you had to like probably get tickets ahead
Speaker 3: of time, wait in line. And now my kids are
Speaker 3: asking me, did you ever get slimed? And I'm like, no, sweetie, mom,
Speaker 3: we didn't get slimmed, but I did get this cool
Speaker 3: T shirt.
Speaker 2: What's it like watching all of the nineties shows back
Speaker 2: with your kids now?
Speaker 3: It's honestly so fulfilling. I can barely describe it. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've been watching Guts and Salute your Shorts and Family
Speaker 3: Double there, and it's this really surreal, full circle moment
Speaker 3: where it brings back all these core memories that you
Speaker 3: can actually like feel in your body, like I can
Speaker 3: really remember what it was like watching these shows as
Speaker 3: a kid, and then to share it with your kids.
Speaker 4: It's honestly one of the most fun parts of parenting.
Speaker 2: What do you think are the nineties shows that stick
Speaker 2: out for you? Like I was a full house fiend,
Speaker 2: even Doug, Like I would wake up on Saturday mornings
Speaker 2: and watch all those cartoons from like eight am to
Speaker 2: eleven am, and my brother and I would fight over
Speaker 2: the remote.
Speaker 3: Yes, did you have any characters or actors that you
Speaker 3: really idolized at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I loved watching Tapega on Boy Meets Worlds.
Speaker 2: I thought she was the prettiest, coolest girl I had
Speaker 2: ever seen. Yeah, and she was kind of a badass
Speaker 2: on the show. She never let anyone push her around.
Speaker 2: I mean Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Geller.
Speaker 4: Yes, was just it for me. Did you watch with
Speaker 4: your brother? Did you watch alone? Who'd you watch with?
Speaker 1: I made my brother Blake watch with me.
Speaker 2: And so it's actually so funny you asked that because
Speaker 2: to this day he knows all the characters of Charmed
Speaker 2: and his guy friends are like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: But he knows all the shows that all the girls
Speaker 2: wanted to watch.
Speaker 4: He had an older sister. That's how it happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're taking a quick break, but we are continuing
Speaker 2: to go down millennial memory Lane with Melissa Jonehart.
Speaker 1: Don't miss it.
Speaker 3: We're back and today Danielle and I are leaning into
Speaker 3: our witchiness a bit with actor, comedian, director, and America's
Speaker 3: favorite teenage witch.
Speaker 4: It's Melissa Joonhart.
Speaker 1: Melissa was the Queen of the tgif lineup?
Speaker 4: How could I forget?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: Since then, she's appeared in dozens of films and TV shows.
Speaker 2: She has an upcoming project for Lifetime called The Bad Guardian,
Speaker 2: and get this, she's taking the stage as a stand
Speaker 2: up comedian with our other favorite witch, Caroline Ray.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the bright Side, Melissa.
Speaker 6: Thank you so excited to be here on the bright
Speaker 6: side with you guys talk about all bright side.
Speaker 3: Things, Melissa. I hope it's okay if we fan girl
Speaker 3: a little bit here. Do you ever get sick of
Speaker 3: talking about the iconic roles that you've played?
Speaker 4: Do you ever get sick of it? Or do you
Speaker 4: still have fun?
Speaker 5: Meta now?
Speaker 6: So, like, I appreciate that everyone well first of all,
Speaker 6: has like a different project of mine that they like.
Speaker 6: And I've been doing a little stand up recently, and
Speaker 6: I've been saying that, like the greatest thing you can
Speaker 6: hear is I love your work. Because who gets to
Speaker 6: hear that, you know, the toll booth operator doesn't get
Speaker 6: to hear that. You know, teachers don't really get to
Speaker 6: hear that. You know, it's very rare that like the
Speaker 6: garbage man gets to hear like love you work, ause
Speaker 6: you know, they go dump in the garbage down the street.
Speaker 2: That's such a nice way of looking at it. I
Speaker 2: actually really want to get into your stand up because
Speaker 2: you and at Hilda aka Caroline Ray are doing stand
Speaker 2: up together and this show is called I Identify as
Speaker 2: a Witch, which I love because back in the day,
Speaker 2: I feel like it was just women with amazing opinions
Speaker 2: that were called a witch.
Speaker 1: But so now I lean into the word. How did
Speaker 1: this come about?
Speaker 6: Back in like October, we did a show ord around Halloween,
Speaker 6: we did a show together in Huntsville, Alabeba. And I
Speaker 6: was freaking out. I was only supposed to do like
Speaker 6: ten or fifteen minutes. I ended up doing twenty and
Speaker 6: I loved it, and I was like, let's do that again.
Speaker 5: So she and I decided we do a little tour.
Speaker 6: So we're getting a few in just to see, just
Speaker 6: to try my hand at it and see how it goes.
Speaker 5: It's really fun. I feel really natural on stage. It's funny.
Speaker 6: It's like standing up on stage for like twenty minutes
Speaker 6: and telling some stories and then like for me to
Speaker 6: get to entertain and like bring a smile, which is
Speaker 6: always my goal.
Speaker 5: Is like literally we.
Speaker 6: Say a prayer before you a free show when we
Speaker 6: do live shows and say, you know, bring someone a
Speaker 6: laugh today who needs it. And so getting to go
Speaker 6: up on stage and do that for twenty minutes in
Speaker 6: different cities feels so much more authentic to who I
Speaker 6: am as like an entertainer and like wanting to bring
Speaker 6: a smile. And so it's been really, really fun and
Speaker 6: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 5: Like the first thing I said when I got stations,
Speaker 5: like I can do something at charity shows.
Speaker 6: Now I can go on a USO tour and do something,
Speaker 6: because I always felt like I can't go on a
Speaker 6: us SO tour and entertain the troops.
Speaker 5: I have nothing to entertain with. I can't sing. I
Speaker 5: can do this. So it's so exciting. It's like feels
Speaker 5: like this whole world has been open to me.
Speaker 2: When I look back at all your roles across networks
Speaker 2: and film and TV, so many of them are rooted
Speaker 2: in humor. Why was being funny always important to you?
Speaker 6: I can't say where it exactly came from. I think
Speaker 6: what's weird is like I was always in Goofball.
Speaker 5: I guess you know.
Speaker 6: My family, we were all actors, but some weren't as
Speaker 6: like Rizal Dazzle as I was. I was very much
Speaker 6: like I'll say that these Lifesavers are the best thing
Speaker 6: I've ever had. I don't care, you know, like, but
Speaker 6: it's funny because, like, you know, everything I did, even
Speaker 6: this one play that turned out to be super dramatic,
Speaker 6: my part wasn't. My part was silly. The play was
Speaker 6: called Beside Herself. I did a half hour monologue before
Speaker 6: Beside Herself started, called The Valerie of Now, and it
Speaker 6: was written by Peter Hedges, who's written like Dan in
Speaker 6: real life and like huge movies. Joe Mantello directed it.
Speaker 6: So Joe Mantello and Peter Hedges and I are all
Speaker 6: in a room together workshopping this monologue I'm supposed to
Speaker 6: do at the age of it just before Clarissa, So
Speaker 6: eleven or twelve, and it was supposed to be half
Speaker 6: an hour, but I talked so fast it ended up
Speaker 6: being twenty minutes. And it's it's a girl who just
Speaker 6: got her period for the first time, and she's all alone.
Speaker 6: Her mom went out to get her birthday decorations, and
Speaker 6: it's her like getting on the phone and talking to
Speaker 6: the pillow, and you know, singing songs and jumping up
Speaker 6: and down on the couch and trying to figure out,
Speaker 6: like I shoved a bunch of tissues up there, is
Speaker 6: that good enough? And like, you know, not really knowing
Speaker 6: what to do. And it's sort of silly in nature.
Speaker 6: But then the next portion of the play you find
Speaker 6: out what happened to that girl on that day and
Speaker 6: how her life changed from sexual abuse, and so it's
Speaker 6: you know, it's a very dark play, but my part
Speaker 6: was really silly and light, and that job sort of
Speaker 6: led me to Clarissa, which obviously then it just kind
Speaker 6: of snowballed from there.
Speaker 5: So it's weird. It was like I was a commercial girl.
Speaker 6: I was known as the Rice Crispies girl in the
Speaker 6: second grade because I was on the Risk Crispies commercial.
Speaker 4: And I do remember that.
Speaker 6: I kind of ran the gamut between like soap operas, commercials.
Speaker 6: In nineteen eighty six, I was on seraout Live three
Speaker 6: times and some skits, you know, just sort of being
Speaker 6: around funny people, being around talented people, exploring all these
Speaker 6: different worlds.
Speaker 5: And then with Clarissa, I became a sitcom girl. And
Speaker 5: my family will still to this day.
Speaker 6: Say why did they pay you to be funny?
Speaker 5: You're not funny.
Speaker 6: So it's interesting that I have made this career for
Speaker 6: my My kids say the same thing.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: My family always said it. My dad always said it
Speaker 6: to me, like, you're not funny. I don't get it.
Speaker 6: I actually stopped telling him when I was on talk
Speaker 6: shows because he would just bash me after Oh.
Speaker 1: My god, you are so funny, Melissa.
Speaker 3: I could find, like millions of other millennials who would
Speaker 3: debate that you brought so much joy to so many
Speaker 3: children in the nineties, in the early aughts. I mean,
Speaker 3: I was raised on Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon was like my religion.
Speaker 3: It was so empowering to watch. But I'm curious, like,
Speaker 3: did you feel pressure to look a certain way or
Speaker 3: adhere to a certain aesthetic?
Speaker 6: Back then, I was told a few times I could
Speaker 6: be a big movie if I would lose some weight,
Speaker 6: which I thought was insane because I was like one
Speaker 6: hundred and three pounds and like had a flat stomach,
Speaker 6: so I couldn't. I don't know what else I could
Speaker 6: have done except grow five inches. But I would get
Speaker 6: all like pissy about it and then be like, screw it.
Speaker 6: I don't I'm not going to, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so glad that you
Speaker 3: had such wisdom at such a young age. It's not
Speaker 3: worth it. Like my goal is to be a working actress.
Speaker 3: My goal is to keep working and providing for my family.
Speaker 3: And you know, even when I was younger, before I
Speaker 3: had a family or a husband or anyone, I would
Speaker 3: always use my younger siblings as a barometer for what
Speaker 3: I should be doing. But then also like thinking forward,
Speaker 3: I always thought forward to what am I going to
Speaker 3: do when I have a family, and how am I
Speaker 3: going to sustain and get my kids to college and
Speaker 3: make it to retirement and all those things.
Speaker 5: So I was always sort of thinking ahead in that way.
Speaker 6: And I was always saving, and I was always a
Speaker 6: vesting and I think I was one of the few.
Speaker 6: But Ello cool J gave me some great advice on
Speaker 6: the set of probably some Nickelodeon thing we were doing
Speaker 6: in like ninety seven. Maybe he hit all these gold
Speaker 6: chains and I was like, wow, look at all these diamonds,
Speaker 6: and he goes, don't do this, don't do this. He
Speaker 6: said something to the effect of, don't waste your money
Speaker 6: on something like this buy a house, or like he
Speaker 6: gave me like solid investment advice, where I was like,
Speaker 6: save my money, got it, you know. So the first
Speaker 6: thing I did when I knew that I had a
Speaker 6: little longevity on Sabrina, when I was picked up for
Speaker 6: a second season, I bought a house. I was like,
Speaker 6: I don't want to throw money into rent anymore. I
Speaker 6: want to buy a house that I can afford, that
Speaker 6: I can someday pay off. And that was my whole goal,
Speaker 6: was like get a house I can pay off so
Speaker 6: that I always have a place to live no matter
Speaker 6: what happens.
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned Sabrina because it was my
Speaker 2: favorite show as a kid. I used to fake sick
Speaker 2: from school to watch that show. And there were three
Speaker 2: female main characters, which was kind of an anomaly on
Speaker 2: TV in the nineties.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they were.
Speaker 2: Smart and witty and totally unapologetic about their opinions. And
Speaker 2: Sabrina was not really sexualized the way I'd seen other
Speaker 2: female leads of that time, not really at all.
Speaker 6: I feel like, you know, I definitely wore my share
Speaker 6: of crop tops and low cut, but I didn't even
Speaker 6: go that low. Like, I didn't the Brittany and Christina
Speaker 6: Aguilera thing like, I didn't get that much stomach in there.
Speaker 2: Did it feel unique when you were making it or
Speaker 2: just in hindsight, No, it.
Speaker 5: Didn't at all.
Speaker 6: Actually, because I was a big fan of watching when
Speaker 6: I was growing up in like the eighties, when Cable
Speaker 6: started Nickelodeon after like eight pm became nick at Night,
Speaker 6: and it was all my mom's generation shows, So it
Speaker 6: was Brady Bunch and all this stuff. So watching Bewitched
Speaker 6: and I dream a Janie. When I was doing Sabrina,
Speaker 6: I was like, this is very much like one of
Speaker 6: these shows. It's just it hasn't been done in a while,
Speaker 6: you know, so I felt a little bit copycat in
Speaker 6: a way.
Speaker 3: Melissa, I just learned that your mom is the one
Speaker 3: who pitched Sabrina the Teenage Witch to network execs and
Speaker 3: you became an executive producer alongside her at such a
Speaker 3: young age. You even directed episodes back then too. What
Speaker 3: did you gain from that experience.
Speaker 6: I'm so thankful to her for doing that. I mean,
Speaker 6: she was my manager all through my childhood. And then
Speaker 6: you know, when Clarissa ended, she was like, you have
Speaker 6: a fan base that likes you. Let's not do let's
Speaker 6: not put you in all these sexy, sexy roles. Let's
Speaker 6: find something for that fan base that you've built that
Speaker 6: trusts you. And so my mom found the comic book
Speaker 6: some well someone handed to her on a playground, So
Speaker 6: this'd be a great role for Melissa. We made it
Speaker 6: a Showtime movie that a lot of people know what
Speaker 6: because Ryan Reynolds was in it. So we made this
Speaker 6: Showtime movie. And the whole time we're making this movie
Speaker 6: and my mom's producing it, she's like, this would be
Speaker 6: a great series, and everyone's like okay. Whenever, when she
Speaker 6: sat down in the editing bay, she cut together a
Speaker 6: trailer for a TV show based on the movie, and
Speaker 6: she brought it out to LA. She goes, I'm going
Speaker 6: to LA, I'm going to pitch this to five different networks.
Speaker 6: I was like, good luck, like kind of like this
Speaker 6: is ever gonna happen. Sure enough, she got three offers
Speaker 6: in the room, and ABC gave her the offer for
Speaker 6: a TGIF timeslot, and.
Speaker 5: She was like, that's the one I'm going with. We're
Speaker 5: gonna be on ABC. She's like, pack your bags. I'm like, yeah, right,
Speaker 5: I'm still gonna go to college.
Speaker 4: Good luck.
Speaker 6: I don't think this is going to happen. So I
Speaker 6: go to college and she's like, Nope, you got to leave.
Speaker 6: We got to go to LA.
Speaker 5: And that's the first time we actually worked to move
Speaker 5: to LA. When I was twenty, so I was never
Speaker 5: a teenager playing the teenage witch.
Speaker 6: I moved to LA and she was the producer, so
Speaker 6: she was executive producing this thing. I mean, she's hiring
Speaker 6: the writers, and she's hiring the cast, and she's in
Speaker 6: the ending bay and she's part of the music choices,
Speaker 6: and I mean that show is her design.
Speaker 5: And everyone was so sick of me being bossy.
Speaker 6: I've been bossy since forever, Like especially like Clarissa.
Speaker 1: I would always.
Speaker 6: Mess around with the lighting board and the cameras and
Speaker 6: like want to learn everything and be in everybody's business
Speaker 6: and tell everybody how to do it. And I learned
Speaker 6: a lot from the directors on that show too. We
Speaker 6: were doing it as if it was a live show.
Speaker 6: They would have a switcher and they'd switch cameras depending
Speaker 6: on what shot they wanted, and they'd edit it in camera,
Speaker 6: and so I learned to direct that way. And then
Speaker 6: it came about that. I think it was first or
Speaker 6: second season a Sabrina. My mom said, here's your DGA card.
Speaker 6: You're directing the next episode. And I was like what,
Speaker 6: and they God she did that because it's it became
Speaker 6: like second nature to me. I love directing.
Speaker 1: Your mom was such a boss, I.
Speaker 4: Know, thank God, a truly audacious woman.
Speaker 3: It sounds like, Okay, we're going to take a quick
Speaker 3: break and we'll be right back with Melissa Joan Hart.
Speaker 2: We're back, and this is the bright side with Melissa
Speaker 2: Joan Hart.
Speaker 3: Melissa, you had such an incredible work ethic from such
Speaker 3: a young age. But I have also learned that you
Speaker 3: were quite the responsible partier, that you liked to go
Speaker 3: out dancing, and I'm dying to hear some stories just
Speaker 3: about like what it was like going out during that time.
Speaker 3: Was there camaraderie between you and the other TV stars
Speaker 3: of the nineties.
Speaker 4: Did you guys go out together?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a big group of us.
Speaker 6: Mainly the cast that we would hang out with was
Speaker 6: the that seventies show cast.
Speaker 5: We would hang out a lot.
Speaker 6: So there was this restaurant that I think is still
Speaker 6: there called La Poo Bell, and so you know, that
Speaker 6: would be the place to go if you had nothing
Speaker 6: else to do. But on different nights there were different
Speaker 6: promoters at different clubs. And my mom was a huge
Speaker 6: club queen. My mom starting to take me to clubs
Speaker 6: when I was sixteen. Wait what yeah, Oh, she was
Speaker 6: a huge.
Speaker 4: Piece stories about your mom just keep getting better.
Speaker 6: She was getting divorced for my dad, and she wanted
Speaker 6: to be like only around gay men, really, and so
Speaker 6: we would go to the gay clubs and have a
Speaker 6: blast and like just dance all night. And so she
Speaker 6: started taking me out just to dance. So when I
Speaker 6: got to LA, and I'm old enough now and I
Speaker 6: can go out anytime and get into a club. And
Speaker 6: it was only about for about two years, I was
Speaker 6: going out probably four or five days a week. And
Speaker 6: I mean we get started at ten, but in La,
Speaker 6: the club's close at one thirty. I would have to
Speaker 6: be up at five to be at work. I would
Speaker 6: allow myself one gin and tonic early on in the night,
Speaker 6: you know, be fine to drive by the time it
Speaker 6: was last call and head home get some sleep. But
Speaker 6: then I would sleep a lot on the set. We
Speaker 6: had a lot of downtime. There are numerous photo albums
Speaker 6: of me asleep on the set.
Speaker 3: Sleepy girl like you, Danielle. Danielle always talks about how
Speaker 3: she's doing.
Speaker 5: It's a talent. It's a talent.
Speaker 6: You guys like I slept leaning against a horse before
Speaker 6: on set, but or in a wedding dress, were like
Speaker 6: across four chairs at the back of a sofa and
Speaker 6: they were taking pictures of me all the time and
Speaker 6: documenting it all. That's how I kind of survived the
Speaker 6: club scene a little bit. I think was sleeping where
Speaker 6: I could.
Speaker 3: You had a sweet friendship with Britney Spears for a
Speaker 3: period of time, and then you were also in the
Speaker 3: Crazy music video.
Speaker 4: I mean, do you stay in touch with.
Speaker 3: Her at all?
Speaker 6: No? No, we we had to do a lot of
Speaker 6: press around driving Crazy. We did the video together, and
Speaker 6: then we did a ton of like TRL hosting this.
Speaker 6: We did something in Utah together, if things in New York.
Speaker 6: She came to the premiere and she was on Sabrina.
Speaker 6: It was very rare that we got private moments to
Speaker 6: hang out and get to know each other well.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: It was more of that superficial relationship that everybody saw
Speaker 6: on camera, and I mean we'd be whispering to each other,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 5: But the cameras are there, or the bodyguards are there,
Speaker 5: or that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: We're on a red carpet at the American Music Awards
Speaker 6: and I'm hosting and she's performing, and we're having numerous
Speaker 6: costume changes, and it's like, Hi, Hi, Hi.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: She was seventeen, I was twenty three, and I was
Speaker 6: looking at her, going wow, like she was on Sabrina
Speaker 6: and I wanted to take her to lunch.
Speaker 5: I wanted her to join us. So I was like,
Speaker 5: a bunch of us are walking down the street to lunch.
Speaker 5: She's like can I can.
Speaker 6: I to her whole team, and they like listed off
Speaker 6: all these things she had to do, and.
Speaker 5: Her face just deflated.
Speaker 6: She's like okay, and I don't remember what happened, but
Speaker 6: I think she started chasing us down the street.
Speaker 5: One point. I was like, they let me come, They
Speaker 5: let me come, you know. So she went to lunch
Speaker 5: with us.
Speaker 6: We had to have her back at this time and
Speaker 6: all that, And then I did sneak her out of
Speaker 6: her hotel one night because I wanted to take her
Speaker 6: out with some people her age. I was like, told
Speaker 6: her bodyguard we were going to my mom's house for lasagna.
Speaker 6: So I think that's the only time I've ever lied
Speaker 6: in my life. But it was too Big Rob. I
Speaker 6: llowed to Big Rob, and then you know, I'd take
Speaker 6: her to a club and everyone kind of clamped onto
Speaker 6: her and held on to her, and I was like,
Speaker 6: I got to go. I got to work in the morning,
Speaker 6: and everyone there was like, we'll keep her, We'll take
Speaker 6: care of her.
Speaker 5: And I left her there and I still feel guilty
Speaker 5: about it to this day.
Speaker 6: Oh there's all sorts of things that happened that and
Speaker 6: especially for someone seventeen going through when she was going
Speaker 6: and I didn't have it like she did. First of all,
Speaker 6: I never reached that level of stardom, and second of all,
Speaker 6: mine was so snowball. Hers was so oh, kick you
Speaker 6: in the face, like quick, you're famous. Now everybody knows
Speaker 6: you and you can't be private anymore. Learn to live
Speaker 6: with it right now, you know, whereas mine was sort
Speaker 6: of like a trickle effect of like you're the Rice
Speaker 6: Krispies girl, it's second grade. Then you're doing theater and
Speaker 6: adults know who you are in the industry, and then
Speaker 6: Frank Rich is reporting on you, but your friends don't know.
Speaker 6: And then you're doing Clarissa, and one or two people
Speaker 6: recognize you on the street over the course of a year,
Speaker 6: and then you're twenty and you moved to LA and
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, now people start to know who
Speaker 6: you are. When hers was literally like, damn.
Speaker 4: You did a video.
Speaker 5: We know who you are.
Speaker 6: You're ours now, you know? And I couldn't understand her experience.
Speaker 2: You know, you got famous more gradually, but you were
Speaker 2: only fifteen when you started playing Clarissa. Did you have
Speaker 2: any challenges transitioning into adulthood.
Speaker 6: Well, I understand when some of these kids want to
Speaker 6: rebel and be seen as sexy and taken seriously, and
Speaker 6: I'm an adult that rebellious, like I'm not a kid,
Speaker 6: look at me.
Speaker 5: You know, that kind of thing. It did happen with
Speaker 5: some of my peers and contemporaries, But for me, it
Speaker 5: was like, do I like what I'm doing? Am I
Speaker 5: getting paid fairly? We're good. It wasn't about being rich
Speaker 5: or famous.
Speaker 6: It was about having the lifestyle I wanted to have,
Speaker 6: which was basically, I want to travel and I want
Speaker 6: to throw parties and I want some security. And I
Speaker 6: know that sounds like extremely like bullshit, level headed, but
Speaker 6: like that literally was my focus and everything else was bonus.
Speaker 6: Like I definitely went through rebellious phases. I mean, but
Speaker 6: I didn't need to show it necessarily. But it's so
Speaker 6: funny because I just remember this the other day that
Speaker 6: like I was getting this big bonus on Sabrina, which
Speaker 6: was just for wardrobe. It was just so that I
Speaker 6: could look good on a red carpet. However, nobody guided
Speaker 6: me through what that looked like, and I didn't trust it.
Speaker 6: I thought that money was actually coming out of my paycheck,
Speaker 6: so I didn't spend it. And I mean, you guys,
Speaker 6: it was a lot of money, but like I had
Speaker 6: this money to go shopping, but I never trusted it.
Speaker 5: I was like, nah, And at the end of the year, the.
Speaker 6: Warder people will be like, you should probably go spend
Speaker 6: some of this money, and I'd be like, all right,
Speaker 6: Jimmy choos, which I still have like a collection of here.
Speaker 6: But I show up on the red carpet and like
Speaker 6: you can find me and a lot of pictures in
Speaker 6: these ugly brown quarter roy pants and like some weird
Speaker 6: little bra tops or backlists tops, which was a big
Speaker 6: thing at the time, like like almost like handkerchief tops.
Speaker 6: And like, I don't know where I was shopping or
Speaker 6: whose closet I was kind of raiding, but wearing some weird,
Speaker 6: weird stuff that I'm like that might have been my
Speaker 6: rebellious face was like I'm gonna look slubby and half naked,
Speaker 6: you know. That was like, I'm not gonna put it together. Well,
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna ask for help. I'm just gonna here.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 5: It's good enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like we all had our limited
Speaker 1: two moments.
Speaker 2: But now that you're a parent to high schoolers and
Speaker 2: all of the nineties trends are back, what if you
Speaker 2: love seeing coming back?
Speaker 1: And also what do you never want to see again?
Speaker 1: Because I have a whole list.
Speaker 5: I really wish I had kept my combat boots.
Speaker 6: I had such a collection of combat boots, and who
Speaker 6: knew those were gonna like it seemed like those were
Speaker 6: never going to come back. But I have to say
Speaker 6: I've been wearing some butterfly clips recently because I had
Speaker 6: them for a nineties party I went to, and they're
Speaker 6: so convenient when you need to like pull your hair
Speaker 6: back and just clip it. They're so strong. So I
Speaker 6: will rock the butterfly clips for sure. But like the
Speaker 6: crop tops I can't do. I don't have the body
Speaker 6: for that anymore. So you know, I could thank the kids,
Speaker 6: but really it's it's Fried Chicken. It's Fried Chicken's fault
Speaker 6: that I can't wear the crop tops anymore.
Speaker 4: Worth it?
Speaker 6: But I'm in the life too short category. I'm gonna
Speaker 6: have an ice cream. Come with my son if he
Speaker 6: wants to go get ice cream, because what if I
Speaker 6: get hit by a bus tomorrow.
Speaker 5: I didn't have that ice cream. I feel like an idiot.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we talked about your stand up, but you
Speaker 3: also have a new movie coming out next week. It's
Speaker 3: a drama called Bad Guardian. What trew you to that role?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I thought it was a really interesting story. When I
Speaker 6: started reading the script, It's like, if a script can
Speaker 6: catch me past twenty pages, I'm in And this one
Speaker 6: was great, Like this guardianship business is, and of course
Speaker 6: we know it from like the Britney Spears Conservatorship, or
Speaker 6: we know it from the recent whe New Williams story
Speaker 6: of some guardianship's gone wrong in a celebrity younger person
Speaker 6: sort of way. But it tends to be a big
Speaker 6: senior citizen scam that happens. It's a two point nine
Speaker 6: billion dollar business. And don't get me wrong, most of
Speaker 6: that is necessary for people to be safe when they
Speaker 6: don't have family members to take care of them. However,
Speaker 6: I mean, anytime there's money that much, right, there's gonna
Speaker 6: be a huge corruption. And so in this story, there's
Speaker 6: like this story of this family that just doesn't have
Speaker 6: the money. When her father ends up having an accident
Speaker 6: and put in the hospital and she can't find him
Speaker 6: and he's taken into a guardianship, it quickly turns into
Speaker 6: a situation they can't get themselves out of. And it's
Speaker 6: very much like small town family with a lack of
Speaker 6: means and the lack of knowledge trying to fight a
Speaker 6: big system.
Speaker 5: So I just felt like it was a great story
Speaker 5: to tell.
Speaker 6: It was well written, and the director did a fantastic job,
Speaker 6: and I wasn't sure how my performance. I usually cringe
Speaker 6: when I watched my own stuff, but I watched this
Speaker 6: back and I was really really proud of it.
Speaker 5: So I hope people will.
Speaker 6: Love it, maybe learn a little something from it, just
Speaker 6: to protect yourself in the future. But if you've experienced this,
Speaker 6: it could be a little bit of a trigger warning.
Speaker 6: You know, like, it's a tough business and it's an
Speaker 6: interesting story to tell.
Speaker 4: I love that you're so proud of it. Melissa, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: We're gonna let you go, but before we do, how
Speaker 3: do you seek out the bright side of life?
Speaker 5: It's a choice, I think every day.
Speaker 6: It's a choice to wake up and thank God for
Speaker 6: the things we have. Like I literally only started praying
Speaker 6: in the morning. When I open my eyes, when my
Speaker 6: alarm goes off, the first thing I do is, like,
Speaker 6: the sun is up, my family is home safe, there's
Speaker 6: food in my stomach, there's a roof over my head,
Speaker 6: there's clothes on my back, the little things. You know,
Speaker 6: you don't have as many problems when you're thankful for
Speaker 6: the things that you actually have. So sometimes I try
Speaker 6: to start my day that way, and then other times
Speaker 6: you can turn it around with service to others or
Speaker 6: even a good Louis Armstrong song like.
Speaker 5: You just never know.
Speaker 1: Melissa, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 6: This has been fun. Thank you for having me. Keep
Speaker 6: up the colorful life.
Speaker 3: Melissa Jonhart is an actor, comedian, director, and so much more.
Speaker 3: Her new movie Bad Guardian is out on May eighteenth.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: For today's show and tomorrow, Jessica Biel is joining us
Speaker 2: to talk about periods, parenting, and so many more peas.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 3: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: That was another pie.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro O
Speaker 2: b a y.
Speaker 4: I'm Simone Voice.
Speaker 3: You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow.