Speaker 1: That's all.
Speaker 2: That's okay because.
Speaker 1: No one here is.
Speaker 3: Hello beat NIX slowly getting there. I can feel it.
Speaker 3: We are inching closer to a name. It's time for
Speaker 3: another installment of teen Beat with me. Danielle Fischel, the
Speaker 3: host of the nineteen ninety eight ABC TGIF premiere party
Speaker 3: featuring the musical stylings of in Sync and an appearance
Speaker 3: from the Olsen Twins. But now decades later, I sit
Speaker 3: down with interesting people to chat about their awkward and
Speaker 3: embarrassing memories from childhood, all in an attempt to learn
Speaker 3: more about their present selves. And I am the perfect
Speaker 3: host because, like I say, I gave you my childhood.
Speaker 2: It's time we hear yours.
Speaker 3: And this week I'm joined by someone else who experienced
Speaker 3: the joy of puberty under the watchful eye of an
Speaker 3: international viewing audience.
Speaker 2: She began her.
Speaker 3: Time in the spotlight at just seven years old in
Speaker 3: a PSA for foster care, though not this one. A
Speaker 3: public service announcement would later become quite a big deal
Speaker 3: in her origin story. But first she'd transition into print
Speaker 3: modeling at age ten, all from the comfy confines of
Speaker 3: her hometown Minneapolis, Minnesota, and when she left behind those
Speaker 3: cold winters and juicy Lucy's for Hollywood. That was the
Speaker 3: moment she became a nineties it girl. She made her
Speaker 3: screen debut in nineteen ninety five's Babysitters Club, a who's
Speaker 3: who of cool girls from the era who bout me
Speaker 3: for the part, But it was nineteen ninety nine's She's
Speaker 3: All That that forever cemented her as a first crush
Speaker 3: for an entire Jar generation, and her starring role in
Speaker 3: two thousand and ones Josie and the Pussycats has outlived
Speaker 3: Us All, a film that has grown from box office
Speaker 3: failure to cult classic, now correctly repositioned as a feminist manifesto.
Speaker 3: But now she's employed her ten thousand hours of experience
Speaker 3: in the industry and lovable personality to move from just
Speaker 3: starring in a dizzying amount of Hallmark movies like Autumn
Speaker 3: and the Vineyard, Sisterhood, Inc. And the recently released Caught
Speaker 3: by Love to also producing her own like minded content
Speaker 3: like Love Guaranteed on Netflix and an upcoming cinematic reunion
Speaker 3: with Freddie Prince Junior that I am currently sat for.
Speaker 3: I can tell you, as someone who has now been
Speaker 3: in rooms with her for four different decades in counting,
Speaker 3: she is always the coolest girl in the room. But
Speaker 3: is it possible that underneath that cool is somehow some
Speaker 3: embarrassment from her formative years. Well it's time to find out.
Speaker 3: Welcome to teen Beat, the one, the only Rachel Lee.
Speaker 1: Cook Danielle Fischel. That was the nicest intro I've ever
Speaker 1: gotten in my life. I don't even care that it's
Speaker 1: not true most of it. I'm not cool, You're You're
Speaker 1: so oh my.
Speaker 2: God, You've always been cool, truly.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm trying to be like Hallmark cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I am like I never felt cool. I was such
Speaker 1: a little try hard too, Like am embarrassing really.
Speaker 2: In one way, and you never came across that way.
Speaker 3: Just so you know, we apparently cannot understand how we
Speaker 3: are perceived by others because you did not seem like
Speaker 3: a try hard at all.
Speaker 2: To me.
Speaker 3: You actually were the definition of effortlessly cool. So, I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine you had one awkward moment as
Speaker 3: a teenager. But we are going to search, and I
Speaker 3: hope to find something. Let's start in Minnesota. Okay, you
Speaker 3: were in no way a Nepo baby. You was a
Speaker 3: cooking instructor and your dad was a stand up comedian
Speaker 3: turned social worker. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Much heavier on the social worker for sure.
Speaker 2: But did you ever get to see your dad on stage?
Speaker 1: I did, luckily, really shined in very clean material, you know,
Speaker 1: even before like you know, Seinfeld was a household name
Speaker 1: and things like that, there was my dad just bringing
Speaker 1: it basically with the dad jokes on stage. It was
Speaker 1: pretty adorable if I love that. Yeah, And I know
Speaker 1: that my dad is one of the most beloved humans
Speaker 1: to this day. He's doing great thing. I get messages
Speaker 1: sometimes saying like, hey, mister cook, you don't really helped
Speaker 1: me a lot when I was in junior high. And
Speaker 1: I hope your dad's doing good.
Speaker 3: As a social worker. Yes, the impact he made on people,
Speaker 3: that's so special.
Speaker 1: He was it Olson Junior High for a very long
Speaker 1: time and Mannesota. Wow. So yeah, amazing guy. What was
Speaker 1: the question? I'm just happy to see you again.
Speaker 2: It's so nice to be in the same room with you.
Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes when parents are trying to make it
Speaker 3: in the industry and then don't, they're not necessarily super encouraging.
Speaker 2: What were your parents supportive of your dream?
Speaker 1: I think literally My dad is just someone who liked
Speaker 1: to laugh and make people laugh. And there was a
Speaker 1: comedy club I think three blocks from my house. So
Speaker 1: I think it was a passion of convenience. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. I don't think he was
Speaker 1: ever going to try and take it on the road.
Speaker 2: He wasn't going to try to be famous.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no no. But he also just
Speaker 1: loved comics and you know who isn't intrigued by that world. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I think he liked hanging with the people a
Speaker 1: little bit, and I think they found my dad adorable
Speaker 1: and non threatening, which he definitely is, even though very smart.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, they sort of liked
Speaker 1: having him as a friend, and he maintained some of
Speaker 1: those friendships with you know, a couple of them.
Speaker 2: That's so cute. And you have a younger brother, Ben,
Speaker 2: who's a producer.
Speaker 1: Yes, did you ever meet Ben back in the day.
Speaker 2: I don't think I did.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't think I met your brother.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't. I don't think.
Speaker 1: So. All right, we'll get around to that. Okay.
Speaker 2: Were you guys always close growing up?
Speaker 1: Not always? Okay, it was a weird thing for my brother,
Speaker 1: who's two and a half years younger than me, to
Speaker 1: sort of all of a sudden have his sister disappear
Speaker 1: for what he's told is going to be a couple
Speaker 1: month adventure, you know, doing this thing. It's an amazing opportunity.
Speaker 1: She's going to go make this movie. And I think
Speaker 1: he was like, well, mom's going to like just leave me.
Speaker 1: I'm twelve and this doesn't feel great, but like, okay,
Speaker 1: I understand that this is a special thing. Cool. And
Speaker 1: then I think before Ben kind of knew it, like
Speaker 1: I had kind of hijacked my mom away from him,
Speaker 1: which is the coolest thing in the World's great mom
Speaker 1: and my dad's a great dad. But Ben tells me
Speaker 1: about you know, the odd day and just like a
Speaker 1: you know, sort of hot Minnesota summer afternoon where my
Speaker 1: dad just not knowing what to do or how to
Speaker 1: full time dad. We're just knock kind of store and
Speaker 1: be like do you want soup? Right? Or like what
Speaker 1: do I do?
Speaker 2: He soup? It seems like a thing I could feed you,
Speaker 2: I could hit right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So when you say like were we always friends?
Speaker 1: We were doing a normal amount of sibling fighting before
Speaker 1: I sort of fell into, you know, what became my career, right,
Speaker 1: But I think in a weird way was great for
Speaker 1: our friendship because when we were able to truly reunite
Speaker 1: and spend time together, we were almost legal adults. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, now we're incredibly close. So that's that's a blessing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my brother and I have a little similar situation
Speaker 3: because you know, I started on.
Speaker 2: Boy Meets World at twelve. He's four years younger than me.
Speaker 3: So around the time of eight, you know, my dad
Speaker 3: had a full time job, so my dad was always gone, wow,
Speaker 3: and my mom had to be on set with me,
Speaker 3: which meant we hired a live in housekeeper so that
Speaker 3: someone could be home to let my brother in after school,
Speaker 3: and then you know, he'd only be home alone for
Speaker 3: a couple hours before my mom would come back and
Speaker 3: then I'd maybe drive back with Ryder or Ben. But still, similarly,
Speaker 3: my brother'd be like, wait, what, so mom's just on
Speaker 3: set now with you? And he was really young and
Speaker 3: he's eight, and so yeah, that was that was hard.
Speaker 3: Or then you know, going out to dinner for his
Speaker 3: birthday to Ruby's Diner and then having a long line
Speaker 3: of people coming up and asking from my autograph, and.
Speaker 2: He'd be like, why do people like you so much?
Speaker 1: You know? So just I know, but but I know
Speaker 1: that that's it's hard because you're also just like you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're special, you know. And I'm sure that like
Speaker 1: did he do that thing where he was like, well
Speaker 1: maybe I should cry? Acting?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: How that he did not like it? He did not
Speaker 3: like the audition process. And you know what's funny is
Speaker 3: that I feel like my brother, My brother booked a
Speaker 3: role in a movie once where he played. I think
Speaker 3: he didn't have any lines, but he was like a
Speaker 3: kid who is like running or playing in the street
Speaker 3: and then got hit by a car.
Speaker 2: Did you do a movie? I feel like he was
Speaker 2: a movie you were in?
Speaker 1: Eleven fourteen?
Speaker 3: No, I think it had the word angel in it.
Speaker 3: My brother was an eighteenth angel. Was there a kid
Speaker 3: who gets hit by a car at the end?
Speaker 1: Probably?
Speaker 2: I think that was my brother.
Speaker 1: Get out. That's wild. But he didn't love acting. No,
Speaker 1: when did you guys? You know? Hopefully like reconnect build
Speaker 1: a Bridge.
Speaker 3: We It didn't really cause too many problems between my
Speaker 3: brother and I. It was just something that, like I
Speaker 3: realized later, he dealt with that, you know, impacted his
Speaker 3: self worth. And so those are things that now, as
Speaker 3: full grown adults who are very capable of naval gazing,
Speaker 3: we have been able to look back and be like,
Speaker 3: that must have been so painful for you and for
Speaker 3: him to talk through some of that.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 3: So it's nice because I also can take responsibility for
Speaker 3: things that were in the past, like, but it's not
Speaker 3: my fault, you know, that feeling of like I didn't
Speaker 3: do it on purpose, but it doesn't matter, Like, yeah, no.
Speaker 1: And that's that's so well said. And you have two kids.
Speaker 2: I have two kids, And.
Speaker 1: How conscious are we as parents of two, of being
Speaker 1: like fair all the time? Yes, because it's so hard
Speaker 1: when one of them really strongly feels like you're favoring
Speaker 1: or love the other one more. It's like one of
Speaker 1: the worst feelings.
Speaker 2: Yes it is.
Speaker 3: And I boy, I don't even give one of them
Speaker 3: a compliment about something without saying a compliment at the
Speaker 3: exact same time for something different can totally be different.
Speaker 3: I want to highlight their differences. I don't want them
Speaker 3: to feel like they have to be the same. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, when one of them does really great at
Speaker 3: baseball and the other one's good at watching baseball without
Speaker 3: getting in trouble.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Adler, what a game man. Your focus was
Speaker 2: on fire.
Speaker 3: And Keaton you were the best listener of any other
Speaker 3: kid I saw there. But like I so, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever you have to come up with, just make them
Speaker 3: feel like not one of them's more popular than the other.
Speaker 1: I know. I'm always like, they're gonna bust me on
Speaker 1: just balancing it out now that they're older. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean. If Charlie's like, I got a hundred
Speaker 1: on my test and I'm like, that's amazing, honey, and THEO,
Speaker 1: I know you said something funny today, but he's amazing.
Speaker 1: But it's just you know, in any given moment, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's just hard.
Speaker 3: It's very hard for sure. Now in Minnesota, you did
Speaker 3: a ton of print work. You were on the box
Speaker 3: of milk bones. I think that's so doesn't get any
Speaker 3: bigger than milk bones.
Speaker 1: Well, it does get you made fun of. I bet
Speaker 1: it did any kid comments like which one's the dog?
Speaker 1: And you know there's that. It was a classic okay,
Speaker 1: but I think people just didn't kind of know what
Speaker 1: to make of it, like it's not like that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. You know, it makes you think you are
Speaker 1: gonna transition it into something like acting. You know. It
Speaker 1: just sort of feels like like there's always a point
Speaker 1: of reference, like for me and I'm sure with you too.
Speaker 1: There was like a girl in my school shout out
Speaker 1: Stephanie Watson, ooh, may help to me knowing that bigger
Speaker 1: things were possible for me in that world. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: had done print work, and I was like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: if she could, I could, And then you know, just
Speaker 1: sort of found other revenues to keep going.
Speaker 2: Jessica Wesson is mine exactly. Yeah, so thank you, Thank
Speaker 2: you to them and Stephanie.
Speaker 1: Right. So yeah, I think it's not like I felt
Speaker 1: like I was, you know, this runaway success at print work.
Speaker 1: But it was the height of success that I could
Speaker 1: imagine was being in the target ads. I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: those glossy pages when they would come in in the Sunday.
Speaker 3: Pay beautiful and didn't you like look forward to them anyway?
Speaker 3: And now you're like, I'm in them.
Speaker 1: I think about three times. No more, don't want to
Speaker 1: like see like I have a big head about it,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, felt huge to me and I still
Speaker 1: have such a soft spot for Target because well, honestly,
Speaker 1: who doesn't.
Speaker 3: What mom's our age or not regularly thinking about the
Speaker 3: things they need to get from Target at all times.
Speaker 3: And then you start looking toward Los Angeles. How did
Speaker 3: traveling to LA come together? And how long did you
Speaker 3: live at the oak Woods?
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't we're we were fully at the oak
Speaker 1: Woods at the same time. We swam in that pool.
Speaker 1: I remember. I don't remember who was living there, but
Speaker 1: I know we were both there me too.
Speaker 2: So I must have been visiting someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you were there at least one time.
Speaker 3: I mean I've been there a few times. Writer lived there, obviously, of.
Speaker 1: Course, I'm sure that was it.
Speaker 3: Will lived there, Shane there you biquitous? Okay, So Shane
Speaker 3: was there, Yeah, Jessica Biell was there, really, Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 1: I did not live there, I was, Okay. So I still,
Speaker 1: after all of these years, Daniel, have not gotten good
Speaker 1: at telling my origin story of like how I got to,
Speaker 1: you know, like survive in the industry. But basically I
Speaker 1: was still with this print agency after it was sort
Speaker 1: of becoming a parent that I was gonna keep, not
Speaker 1: make it past five to two or going to any
Speaker 1: mild model exactly. And I was looking for opportunities in
Speaker 1: the acting world that were not like musicals, because I
Speaker 1: was really aware that singing and dancing were not going
Speaker 1: to be like my.
Speaker 2: Okay, you were not a triple threat.
Speaker 1: I barely a single stop. It was that we're not
Speaker 1: in home run territory, and so I just sort of
Speaker 1: was on the lookout for that. And I think there
Speaker 1: was both an ad in the classified section of the paper,
Speaker 1: which again we all sat around read as family for like,
Speaker 1: you know, young actors needed. My mom was like, these
Speaker 1: are a scam. Some of them were like John Casablanca's nonsense,
Speaker 1: and some of them were like legit auditions for local,
Speaker 1: you know, cool little movies that were being made. And
Speaker 1: I think it came through my agency, but it also
Speaker 1: might have been that. And I got a part in
Speaker 1: a short film that was shooting locally with an awesome
Speaker 1: team shout out Peter Siebertson, and gave me my first
Speaker 1: role despite me having no idea how to act. Really,
Speaker 1: I just remember I came into the room. He was
Speaker 1: sitting on, you know, sort of a stool, and he
Speaker 1: read his lines in a very even tone, you know,
Speaker 1: and just seemed very calm, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: should probably just do that.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to match that.
Speaker 1: And then so now I just got cast in this movie.
Speaker 1: And then before I knew it, I had tape. And
Speaker 1: back in the day, the hardest thing is you couldn't
Speaker 1: get tape if you didn't have an agent, and you
Speaker 1: couldn't get an agent if you didn't have tape. So
Speaker 1: before I knew it, I had broken through one of
Speaker 1: the hardest parts of like how to. So there was
Speaker 1: a woman who was a manager who was scouting. She
Speaker 1: was new to being manager. She had just come over
Speaker 1: from the record industry, so was establishing herself with a
Speaker 1: crop of new younger actors she already represented at that point.
Speaker 1: Some a boy, a kid who had been in Iron
Speaker 1: Will was shot in Minnesota, and funny enough, Brian Crusing
Speaker 1: was in that movie. His mom worked with my dad
Speaker 1: in the school system. Wow, I know. And so she
Speaker 1: could like marry pouch I know for this woman Beverly Strong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you Beverly who saw some kind of potential in me,
Speaker 1: as did her other young client, Vinnie karthiser of mad Men, Famine,
Speaker 1: many other things, incredible talent, love you crazy, Vinnie. And
Speaker 1: he and she were like, I think this girl might
Speaker 1: have something, you know, like we you know, see if
Speaker 1: we have some tape. He was sort of like her
Speaker 1: little confident. I almost feel like at that time, and
Speaker 1: I went out to LA and stayed with this manager
Speaker 1: with my parents blessing on my spring break from school.
Speaker 2: And how old were you?
Speaker 1: I was fifteen? Fifteen me on audition for The Babysitters Club,
Speaker 1: despite having very little experience, and many many months later
Speaker 1: I found out I got the part after auditioning for
Speaker 1: several different people in the movie.
Speaker 2: Wow, what a leap of faith that paid off.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And that just it just goes to show it's
Speaker 1: not life like a just like a long hallway of
Speaker 1: doors that you're just like, if I don't try to
Speaker 1: open this maybe right, like I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: going to open. It's like I tried a doorknob and open,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 2: We're still here to I know, we're still here.
Speaker 1: I know, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And it's and so much of it is not just
Speaker 3: the opening of the doorways, but the risk versus reward
Speaker 3: of opening each doorway. You know, It's like for your
Speaker 3: parents and for you. It was like, Okay, I do
Speaker 3: need people to vouch for these people because I am
Speaker 3: sending my fifteen year old across the country and and
Speaker 3: so you go, well, all right, other people have vouched
Speaker 3: for these people. So the risk feels less now and
Speaker 3: the reward seems great. But the amount of risk management
Speaker 3: you're doing with very little education in the industry.
Speaker 1: Imagine doing that now with your kids. Like, I know
Speaker 1: we have cell phones now, I cannot imagine. No, did
Speaker 1: you instigate your like, you know, entry to acting.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: Jessica Wesson was you know in the industry. I had
Speaker 3: an agent, was going to be a model.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: My mom was like, you can't be a model. You're
Speaker 3: very short, and was like, right, well, I mean so
Speaker 3: are you. She was not common. My mom was not
Speaker 3: trying to say I wasn't cute enough. She was just
Speaker 3: like Danielle my mom's five feet even, and she was
Speaker 3: like the hopes for you of like I don't think
Speaker 3: she even knew print was a thing. It was just like,
Speaker 3: come on, now, you're not going to walk a runway.
Speaker 3: We're not even going down. And so I went back
Speaker 3: and told Jessica I can't do that because I'm too short,
Speaker 3: and she goes, oh, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Damn it, Jessica.
Speaker 3: But she was like, you know what, you don't have
Speaker 3: to be told to be on TV. And my agent's
Speaker 3: also going to put me on TV. And that's all
Speaker 3: I needed to know. And so for a year I
Speaker 3: just kept begging and eventually my parents let me do
Speaker 3: it as.
Speaker 1: Girls girl right there. I love that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she was like, yeah, don't let that stop
Speaker 3: you try something else. So Babysitters Club, it's your first
Speaker 3: like real movie job. And if you didn't have friends
Speaker 3: in LA because you had only been there for the audition.
Speaker 1: I really did not.
Speaker 3: They basically cast you a dozen Bree Blair, Skylar Fist,
Speaker 3: Beazelda Harris, Marla Sokoloff, Larissa Olenik, Vanessa Zeema, Natanya Ross.
Speaker 3: Some of these girls had been acting in Hollywood at
Speaker 3: this point for a decade.
Speaker 1: Yes, I remember Larissa seemed very fancy. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: like she had headlined her whole own show for many years.
Speaker 1: Like that was wild to me. And Zelda, you know,
Speaker 1: being like the girl from Crooklyn. Everyone knew that movie,
Speaker 1: like everyone knew it was like this respected movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of intimidating for sure.
Speaker 2: What was it like for you as your first job.
Speaker 1: I think I told myself diminished things about my role
Speaker 1: in things now. I was familiar with the books. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us were of our generation, but
Speaker 1: I was like, well, Skyler's the lead, and nobody really
Speaker 1: wants to be Maryanne. I'm just sort of like here
Speaker 1: because probably it was just sort of like low key
Speaker 1: the easier part to get get. I was probably telling myself,
Speaker 1: you know, things to sort of like undercut the win,
Speaker 1: to not be intimidated by the moment. But it was
Speaker 1: also just so surreal that, you know, when you sort
Speaker 1: of get those first opportunities or even the ones that
Speaker 1: sort of surprise you, you sort of have to compartmentalize
Speaker 1: it over here, like I'm not really sure that this
Speaker 1: is real, so I'm not gonna take it all in
Speaker 1: at the moment. Yes, So it was kind of like
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. But yeah, I didn't have
Speaker 1: friends while I was there, and yeah, I got delivered
Speaker 1: some and I was probably at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: closest with while we were filming filming Tricia, Joe and
Speaker 1: Larissa and Brie. I feel like Skyler had to do
Speaker 1: more schools, we didn't see as much of her, so
Speaker 1: she and I became friends almost in the after. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish that we had been able to sort of
Speaker 1: like keep in touch and keep that going, because even
Speaker 1: though I got to be a part of that movie
Speaker 1: which was so much about female friendship and the power
Speaker 1: of it, and then years later to make Josie and
Speaker 1: make incredible friends out of that, it's, as you know,
Speaker 1: hard as hell, so like to keep in touch, in touch,
Speaker 1: keep people in your life. And what followed those movies
Speaker 1: about amazing friendships were really lonely times. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know experienced that as well. You have this life that
Speaker 1: people think that they want and you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: think you really know what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, for sure.
Speaker 3: And friends in the industry versus friends outside the industry.
Speaker 3: For me, I had the benefit of living I was
Speaker 3: from here, Well, I didn't.
Speaker 2: Friendships within the.
Speaker 3: Industry where you meet on a set and you love
Speaker 3: each other and you have a great time working together,
Speaker 3: those are harder to maintain, yes, because everyone goes on
Speaker 3: to the next set. Now there's new relationships they have
Speaker 3: to make, and they're preoccupied with everything else that goes on.
Speaker 3: But I always went back to my high school. I
Speaker 3: always so I had the same group of friends from
Speaker 3: junior high and high school.
Speaker 2: Well they are still and they were supportive, and they're.
Speaker 3: Still my best friends today, and so I at least
Speaker 3: had that. When your friends are all in Minnesota and
Speaker 3: now you're in LA which is not notorious for being
Speaker 3: a great place to meet people, it can be really difficult,
Speaker 3: especially as a teenager.
Speaker 1: Difficult. Yeah, I mean, like I when I started, it
Speaker 1: was at this transition from you know, eighth grade into
Speaker 1: the probably the biggest high school in Minneapolis. My graduating
Speaker 1: class was close to twelve hundred.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So it was like I was I had just sort
Speaker 1: of been plunged into this. See I was there barely
Speaker 1: a full year before everything started, okay, and so it
Speaker 1: was a time of great transition wherever it was going.
Speaker 1: But who are we going to be friends with in
Speaker 1: high school? You know what I mean? That which is normal,
Speaker 1: And I didn't feel like abandoned or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but it was hard to talk about, you know, the
Speaker 1: the luck that had come my way and the fascinating
Speaker 1: opportunities that had come my way while being myself the
Speaker 1: way I was raised, which is Minnesotan to the core,
Speaker 1: like just keep keep it down. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like be chill, be great. They don't talk
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, and people were curious, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So it's it just became confusing what was
Speaker 1: my nature to not want to talk about it and
Speaker 1: what was also just what was sort of understood.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it on Podmeats World before, that feeling
Speaker 3: of like and the very reality of friends wanting to
Speaker 3: know more, kids wanting to know more. But also if
Speaker 3: you talk about it, then you're bragging. So it's a
Speaker 3: real catch twenty two where you get it, yeah you can.
Speaker 2: There's no real win.
Speaker 3: It's like if I talk about it, oh she thinks
Speaker 3: she's so full, and if you don't talk about it,
Speaker 3: she's too cool.
Speaker 2: There's no real win.
Speaker 1: Complee bat. I'm glad that. I mean, I I storry
Speaker 1: to make you like cover ground you've covered on your
Speaker 1: numerous other projects. But I remember the when I saw you,
Speaker 1: you know, ten years ago, randomly, I think when we
Speaker 1: were out at Bobby Kim's stair so fun and I
Speaker 1: was just like Danielle, I was just like so excited
Speaker 1: to see you because again, when you're like, I didn't
Speaker 1: have the you sort of had a haphazard high school experience,
Speaker 1: but my sort of absence of one made me create
Speaker 1: like this belief that people like you did go to
Speaker 1: high school with me. You don't know this, but that's.
Speaker 2: How I was in our school experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, well, I mean what I described nineties
Speaker 3: con as being a high school reunion, it is our reunion.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, and very much forward to going later.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's such a warm and fun place to run into
Speaker 3: the people you may have only met a handful of times,
Speaker 3: or sometimes there are people you think of as being
Speaker 3: my that's my friend, I know that person for you know,
Speaker 3: and then you haven't maybe talked or seen each other
Speaker 3: in a few years. It's it's really incredible. You guys
Speaker 3: did do a babysitters reunion in twenty eighteen, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, we did. It was so wild. A lot of
Speaker 1: us had very very young kids at the time, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we met up and let's say Austin, Yeah, and watched
Speaker 1: the movie there and they made the mistake of giving
Speaker 1: us some really strong Margarita's before the movie and mistake.
Speaker 2: Or genius genius.
Speaker 1: Idea, Lareisa, I'm about to sell you out hard right now,
Speaker 1: because I've never laughed harder. Then we start watching the
Speaker 1: movie and Peter Horton comes on, who plays uh, Christie's father,
Speaker 1: and we realized now as full grown woman women that like.
Speaker 2: This guy's hot.
Speaker 1: Like we were like, what wait a minute. Larissa goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Christie's dad. Like just she was Lresa, You're not.
Speaker 3: Wrong, You've been seen for sure. And then comes Tom
Speaker 3: and Huk. I mean, you play Becky Thatcher. You are
Speaker 3: clearly only interested in huge projects, did you? Were you
Speaker 3: just Rachel Lee cook Off for only blockbusters?
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm fully auditioned for that, and I
Speaker 1: maintain that I got that movie because I had just
Speaker 1: done other movies. I feel like, I like, if I
Speaker 1: watched my early work, I'm like, oh, it looks like
Speaker 1: you plucked somewhere off the street, and we're just like
Speaker 1: can you speak English? And I was like, I can't see,
Speaker 1: and then like they just threw me out there. I
Speaker 1: barely know what the stakes of any given scene are.
Speaker 1: It's just so I feel like I don't look even
Speaker 1: look like I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: Well, But to be fair, how could you You hadn't
Speaker 3: studied the craft, not in a.
Speaker 1: Very real way. I want to what a couple actings
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You're learning it, you're in the process of learning it,
Speaker 3: and yet you were given the opportunities for a reason.
Speaker 3: Don't don't take it away from yourself. You were given
Speaker 3: opportunities because you showed up with the factor they were
Speaker 3: looking for. Factors they were looking for, and they knew
Speaker 3: that you were capable. I mean, these movies are classics
Speaker 3: for a reason, you being one of them.
Speaker 1: I so appreciate that. And yeah, I am so jealous
Speaker 1: of like all the like. Granted you had to learn
Speaker 1: on the job as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, nothing started off with.
Speaker 1: A bang, and you just like put in so many
Speaker 1: hours and you know, I feel like people who had
Speaker 1: your job, I felt like you guys are like the
Speaker 1: real actors.
Speaker 3: That's so funny, And all we felt was that you
Speaker 3: were the real act Truly, we looked at what we
Speaker 3: were doing as being like just nobody takes us seriously.
Speaker 3: It's so what we're doing is for kids.
Speaker 1: You knew what your next job was and I thought
Speaker 1: that was amazing.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, there was some version of jobs.
Speaker 3: At the very least we knew in twenty two episodes
Speaker 3: this season. We never really knew what was going to
Speaker 3: come next season, but at least we would know whether
Speaker 3: we were picked up for thirteen or twenty two.
Speaker 2: It wasn't you.
Speaker 3: Know, three months at a time and then what comes next,
Speaker 3: which is a real terrifying feeling.
Speaker 2: Even if you're a teen.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Yeah, it is as good as what's on the
Speaker 3: dock at next Yes.
Speaker 1: You guys probably were thinking like are we renewed all
Speaker 1: of the time, but to the rest of us, it
Speaker 1: was just like, oh, my god, show's going to be
Speaker 1: on forever and ever. And I remember saying to Ryde
Speaker 1: our God, such like, oh, you know, like I just
Speaker 1: want to do movies because I couldn't believe the page
Speaker 1: count and how fast everything was happening. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Oh they're doing this. I'm not capable really,
Speaker 1: And yeah, so you off.
Speaker 3: As being like I'm going to pass this off as
Speaker 3: like I don't want to do TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I definitely was intimidated by
Speaker 1: what I knew you guys were turning in all the
Speaker 1: time and fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It is fast.
Speaker 3: I mean, and now I hear like about you know
Speaker 3: what it's like to be on a soap opera? O?
Speaker 2: What now? What you do with Hallmark movies?
Speaker 1: That is? It is order line, irresponsibly fast. We always
Speaker 1: make it happen. I know.
Speaker 2: But like, have you got you've done I've never done one. No,
Speaker 2: I've never done one. But but you guys do.
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: If it's like fourteen.
Speaker 3: Days it is we get fifteen, get fifteen Okay, Okay,
Speaker 3: great that question.
Speaker 2: It's a huge difference.
Speaker 1: It's still crazy fast. They just know how to make
Speaker 1: it happen. We have a lot of multipurpose locations.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And we could do a whole separate thing about this
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll get to make one together.
Speaker 3: Oh would that be so fun? I know I would.
Speaker 3: I would truly love that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So back to Tom and Hawk. I mean, obviously this
Speaker 3: is based on Mark Twain. It stars the biggest young
Speaker 3: stars of the time, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and one of
Speaker 3: my other favorites, brad renfro. Now, a few months earlier,
Speaker 3: you were in Minnesota basically just most likely watching on
Speaker 3: Home Improvement and now you're co starring with him.
Speaker 2: What was that like for you?
Speaker 1: I'm so relieved that I hadn't seen home Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so my parents bless him. Love your mom and dad.
Speaker 1: You're snobs.
Speaker 2: They just they didn't want to watch the grunting Guy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a delightful show. Sure is.
Speaker 1: I know, I know now, So luckily I didn't have
Speaker 1: the mania. And when you're you know, I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I think he was like twelve and a half.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, which seems weird when you're fifteen.
Speaker 3: Totally, and I was going to say, how long did
Speaker 3: it take for you to develop a crush on him?
Speaker 3: But now that I hear that, you're like, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: This is a child and I am a woman.
Speaker 2: Because I remember I was. I was in my mind.
Speaker 3: I was a full blown woman at fifteen, completely, and
Speaker 3: someone twelve was like, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you might have been thirteen, and Brad was like twelve,
Speaker 1: but Brad somehow had the soul.
Speaker 2: I get into it about the sixty to seventy year
Speaker 2: old man.
Speaker 1: You're a touring jazz musicians exactly like I can't even yeah,
Speaker 1: just wild at the age of the soul on that human. Yes,
Speaker 1: in some ways when people are like, can you believe it?
Speaker 1: I'm like, in some ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, in some ways because he did live a
Speaker 3: lot longer in those years than the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Know who. What was that movie like for you in
Speaker 2: your downtime?
Speaker 3: Did you hang out with that? I mean they were
Speaker 3: younger than you, But did you What did you do?
Speaker 1: I would have welcomed a friend hip with Jonathan. He
Speaker 1: was very funny in a kind of under way and
Speaker 1: wildly smart. And you remember the connection between him and
Speaker 1: David and Wesley your centres from back in the day.
Speaker 1: We're all so connected, you guys, gets weird. Weird. So yes,
Speaker 1: that David being my set teacher on that movie is
Speaker 1: what introduced me to writer, introduced me to you. So
Speaker 1: I was not super tight with Jonathan, but we weren't
Speaker 1: as close. His mom was there and they were just
Speaker 1: sort of like doing family time when it wasn't work
Speaker 1: and it was cool. So Brad and I Brad was unsupervised,
Speaker 1: to put it mildly, He was there with his grandmother, Joanne,
Speaker 1: who was who was just kindstantly like broad broad Where
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't know where you were? Brad and he'd
Speaker 1: be like wrong, you know, you know what, Like he
Speaker 1: just did his own thing what he wanted. He was
Speaker 1: still get my head around to this day. And we
Speaker 1: would go and hang out at like the waffle house
Speaker 1: and house exactly to kick around Huntsville, Alabama, which is
Speaker 1: it's crazy to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so an experience, it really was.
Speaker 1: It was a really awesome experience. I hadn't been back
Speaker 1: there since until about two years ago, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: brought back a lot of memories. But yeah, I still
Speaker 1: don't understand how I got that opportunity, like from going
Speaker 1: from being able to be Maryann Spear who was you
Speaker 1: know that was my favorite book series when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, to Becky Thatcher who you know I had
Speaker 1: to read tons were in school. A lot of us
Speaker 1: did to be like, wait a minute, how is this?
Speaker 2: How how have I gotten this lucky?
Speaker 3: Especially when you have appreciated the work in your personal
Speaker 3: life to then be like and now that's I decide
Speaker 3: I want to be an actor.
Speaker 2: These are the roles I get to play, like, that's it.
Speaker 2: It was, that's a great feeling.
Speaker 1: Well, it was totally amazing, and I want to say
Speaker 1: that I was just utter in love with like the
Speaker 1: craft and acting, and I was because I also just
Speaker 1: wanted to find out if I was good at anything.
Speaker 1: I was one of those kids who was like not
Speaker 1: at the top of my class in school, did fine,
Speaker 1: but like not sporty, don't have me catch a ball,
Speaker 1: like like not. So when it was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can do this, it's like how we've all wondered
Speaker 1: if we're secretly good at something that could get us
Speaker 1: into the Olympics, or like, am I good at singing?
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just sing a little bit when you're young
Speaker 1: and someone will be like, you're amazing at this and
Speaker 1: nobody does and you know, so when it was like
Speaker 1: I felt like I found a superpower, it was kind
Speaker 1: of incredible. But I was also not super popular. I
Speaker 1: was like a little bit shy and awkward to all
Speaker 1: we would get there, So sometimes I wonder if I
Speaker 1: was just trying to jump being you know, I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna be school popular. What if
Speaker 1: I can just be like life popular.
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 3: What if I could be recognizable and that will feel
Speaker 3: like popularity that's not I mean, honestly really smart.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ps it didn't work okay, but in
Speaker 1: retrospect it does feel like I got what I was
Speaker 1: trying for. Yeah, which just kind of weird.
Speaker 2: When does the frying pan commercial happen?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 1: Uh my goodness, that was I think early nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 3: Okay, So for those of my listeners who are a
Speaker 3: little too young, Rachel starred in an iconic PSA, taking
Speaker 3: the classic this is Your Brain on drug commercials from
Speaker 3: the eighties and remixing.
Speaker 2: It a bit.
Speaker 3: Indeed, rather than the monotone voice used in the original,
Speaker 3: you not only showed us the egg, you violently smashed
Speaker 3: the frying pan all over the kitchen, creating an aggressive destruction,
Speaker 3: and talking about how Heroin in particular would taking through
Speaker 3: in our families and our friends forever. This ad created
Speaker 3: a frenzy around you and your hair also might be
Speaker 3: the cutest cut ever depicted on the Did Everything in
Speaker 3: Your Life change?
Speaker 2: After that?
Speaker 1: I was trying to have Netlie and Brulia's hair, so
Speaker 1: that's probably where that came from. God, I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever got there, but I tried, so that's where
Speaker 1: that was. I feel like that PSA did more for
Speaker 1: me than all the movies that I had. It just
Speaker 1: you know, shoots someone in grainy black and white and
Speaker 1: let them break some shit and you're off to the races.
Speaker 1: So you know, it gave me I think a little
Speaker 1: bit of you know, oh hey, she can do this
Speaker 1: more dramatic ish stuff, and then I got it was
Speaker 1: just black and white. You know, I don't know which
Speaker 1: I was. I try have my best, but yeah, for
Speaker 1: something that paid zero dollars. You know, that was just
Speaker 1: an initiative by Partnership for Drug Free America and the
Speaker 1: whole war on drugs thing did not work. It didn't
Speaker 1: pan out, didn't not not great, but specifically heroin, like
Speaker 1: you said, not a controversial.
Speaker 2: Take correct Heroin's Heroin's not good?
Speaker 1: I said what I said?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, did you want to take me to task?
Speaker 2: I'm just not a fan.
Speaker 3: Uh? Did you then after doing that, if you did
Speaker 3: ever try a drug, did you have extra guilt?
Speaker 2: Because I.
Speaker 1: Did? But okay weed? Who hasn't it's California? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: found out that it is not for me? No? No,
Speaker 1: why no?
Speaker 2: I was like, but I want to know why for you?
Speaker 1: Bad news. My feet are not attached to my legs anymore,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how I'm to get home because
Speaker 1: I think things. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do about it, but anywhere, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Just apparently so okay, I mean they're still, they're there,
Speaker 3: They're there, they are there.
Speaker 1: I mean like, okay, knock on what. No. I was
Speaker 1: just like, this is a I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is for me.
Speaker 3: Yeahnoxious, I'm a chatty kathy, like you know, obviously there's
Speaker 3: different types. You can have this chill type. I was
Speaker 3: not having to once.
Speaker 1: At yeah, uh Seth green Grand's house and I was
Speaker 1: watching people do a puzzle and I fell asleep and
Speaker 1: there was no judgment because they're awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we gave it to you. We can't judge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not for me. But did I feel
Speaker 1: bad because I was that this is your brand on drugs? Girl?
Speaker 1: Sorry but no, no, no, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: You did not you did not.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm just just curious that ever popped your head
Speaker 3: in takes?
Speaker 2: Did you shoot of that?
Speaker 1: Was it? Like?
Speaker 3: I feel like you must have just gone wild for
Speaker 3: like three hours. But I don't know, not a.
Speaker 1: Ton you have to be like wearing safety glasses at all.
Speaker 1: They're kinds of like not that cool stuff for you're
Speaker 1: trying to act all bad ass, so it's hard to control.
Speaker 2: Was it cast iron?
Speaker 1: It really was?
Speaker 2: I mean, why did that need to be cast iron?
Speaker 3: They could have given you a non sticks is why
Speaker 3: your director? You've the girl a colflon?
Speaker 2: Please? Okay?
Speaker 1: So yeah, not a ton. That was another like room
Speaker 1: full of models situation. Walked in there and I's just like,
Speaker 1: pardon because it was ck one era, right, I's just
Speaker 1: like I meant, I think I'm in.
Speaker 2: The should I do you want me to go?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But I remember that audition. I remember I like
Speaker 1: booted over the card table at the end. You're just
Speaker 1: supposed to like hit the plastic plates and the picture
Speaker 1: and things like that, and I like got into it.
Speaker 3: You took it an extra. That's that's what made you
Speaker 3: stand out.
Speaker 2: Those are the things. Those are the things.
Speaker 3: That people we try, right, Yeah, that's those are the
Speaker 3: things that people go, oh and then she did something
Speaker 3: no one else thought to do.
Speaker 2: And now guess what.
Speaker 3: You could be. You don't have to be first or last.
Speaker 3: You're still going to be silient right in the middle.
Speaker 3: Kicked over the cart, thank you?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: What do you remember about your Boyma's world?
Speaker 2: Edition, the first one where I didn't even get a callback.
Speaker 1: Didn't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't even get I didn't get.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to everyone who's heard this before. I needed
Speaker 1: to hear it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they I didn't have Boyme's world. They booked, they
Speaker 3: booked someone else what. But then I had another audition
Speaker 3: to play a part we have jokingly referred to as
Speaker 3: fish Girl because she pulled a fish skeleton out of
Speaker 3: a jar of something in a class. And I got
Speaker 3: that role. It only had two lines. And then I
Speaker 3: saw the girl they cast as to Panga, and we
Speaker 3: were in the same episode she did the first day,
Speaker 3: and at the end of the day they fired her.
Speaker 3: And then they were like, well, we could do a
Speaker 3: full recasting, or we could bring in these two girls
Speaker 3: that are playing the fish girls, me and Marla Sockoloff,
Speaker 3: and we both auditioned and then they called us later
Speaker 3: that night and said Danielle got the roll show up
Speaker 3: on Monday as Topanga.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 2: The rest is history.
Speaker 1: That girl's mom had to be like, they replaced you
Speaker 1: with fish Girl. Yeah, damn it.
Speaker 2: Wow, crazy, crazy, crazy story.
Speaker 1: I hope that she's like out carrying major diseases right now.
Speaker 1: Are not wasting time in our nonsense industry. She is
Speaker 1: wonderful and feeds my family.
Speaker 3: Correct and we love it. She is actually still in
Speaker 3: the industry. She is a contortionist and she is part
Speaker 3: of a very famous, a very famous family. They do
Speaker 3: like you know, she's on billboards for when the circus
Speaker 3: comes to town and yeah she she her name's Bonnie Morgan.
Speaker 3: We interviewed her on Pod Meets World and it was
Speaker 3: very healing for both of us because you know those
Speaker 3: you never usually talk to the people know you replace,
Speaker 3: and so I got to hear from her perspective what
Speaker 3: that must have been like and got to just flat
Speaker 3: out ask her if every single year for the next
Speaker 3: seven years, when Boy Meets World was popular and Corey
Speaker 3: and Topanga were a thing, if it.
Speaker 2: Was hard for her, And of course it was.
Speaker 3: But you know, those are the kinds of like healing
Speaker 3: conversations we get to have now as it's all.
Speaker 1: So true, that's so beautiful. Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: It was really nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the things that wouldn't be the way that
Speaker 1: they are. You know, who knows who her partner is now,
Speaker 1: you know, if she has kids now, the number of yeah,
Speaker 1: the butterfly effect as it.
Speaker 2: Were absolutely okay.
Speaker 3: So now a little over a year later, She's all
Speaker 3: that comes out, you play Lady Bogs and you end
Speaker 3: up in a classic still considered a tent pole for
Speaker 3: teen rom coms. Did this movie feel special.
Speaker 2: When you were making it?
Speaker 1: I felt really special to have gotten that part. I
Speaker 1: could tell that it was good material. I could just tell.
Speaker 1: Did I think any was going to see it? Now? Really?
Speaker 1: Because I had done smaller movies than I wasn't aware
Speaker 1: of the scale of it until it sort of started
Speaker 1: and it felt bigger. So there's more trucks here. That
Speaker 1: seems like it's different.
Speaker 2: But the budget on this has gone up.
Speaker 1: But you don't tak these things into account. Really when
Speaker 1: you're a kid, You're like, the immediate crew on set
Speaker 1: was about the same number as any given tiny movie
Speaker 1: I had done. Yea, I did a movie in Montana
Speaker 1: that was probably a quarter of a million dollar budget,
Speaker 1: and you know, in some ways it didn't feel that
Speaker 1: different to me. So was the craft service different in retrospect?
Speaker 2: Probably?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, you just didn't necessarily pay attention to that exactly.
Speaker 3: That's always how you can tell if there are too
Speaker 3: many bags of cheese it's at craft service and not
Speaker 3: a whole lot of I can usually tell this budget's
Speaker 3: not great, but if there's fresh food, we were talking
Speaker 3: real money here, you know your stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, been around, you've seen things.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I knew that was good. But did I
Speaker 1: know that people were going to see it? Not necessarily.
Speaker 1: I knew that I liked team, you know, like Led movies,
Speaker 1: like John Hughes movies were like My and I'll be
Speaker 1: All when I was young, like Molly Ringwald, and so
Speaker 1: I knew that it was something that I kind of
Speaker 1: would have liked. And I was very similar to character
Speaker 1: at that time in my life, which I know just
Speaker 1: sort of like helped. I think I was really busy
Speaker 1: thinking I was, you know, smarter than I was, and
Speaker 1: acting like it, and pretending to have read and liked
Speaker 1: books that I didn't. Just teenage nuns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's the description of the teenager for sure, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so I think that where that movie played it
Speaker 1: incredibly smart. Is that the wave of teen movies like
Speaker 1: Varsity Blues and this, and that they were coming, but
Speaker 1: we were just first. Yeah, so that was just smart.
Speaker 1: I remember the hearing that they were really rushing post
Speaker 1: to just like get it get it out, because yeah
Speaker 1: near Max New and like.
Speaker 3: Babysitters Club or even Tom and Hawk, you are once
Speaker 3: again you were surrounded by superstars in your age bracket.
Speaker 3: Listen to this Murderer's Row Freddie Prince Junior, Matthew Lillard,
Speaker 3: Paul Walker, Anna Paquin, Kieran Colkin, Gabrielle Union, Duel Hill,
Speaker 3: tam Ramello, Clea Duval, Alexis Arkhad and then also Usher
Speaker 3: and Lil Kim.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense.
Speaker 2: This had to be fun though, so much fun. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I I've really why.
Speaker 1: Is this now going to seem like a SOB story
Speaker 1: about me being like, but I didn't have any friends,
Speaker 1: but you didn't, so it was like a playful no.
Speaker 1: Well okay, Well while I was making She's all that,
Speaker 1: I was busy dating someone who was in retrospect too
Speaker 1: old for me.
Speaker 2: That's a rite of passage, absolutely sure.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of what I was up to, And
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I felt like all of the
Speaker 1: rest of the cast somehow knew each other a little
Speaker 1: bit already, Like Freddy and Doulay knew each other, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure already. And Tamra just was this like taclout
Speaker 1: ultimate cool girl. And I've since like I literally checked
Speaker 1: her down where I found out we had a mutual
Speaker 1: friend and I was like, I would like to be friends?
Speaker 1: Would you like to be friends? And now we are,
Speaker 1: oh cool. Yeah. But at the time, I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: like having a good rapport with everybody. But because of
Speaker 1: the fact, especially we're not on location, everybody went home.
Speaker 1: They went It was not like, what are you guys
Speaker 1: doing this weekend. So even though I walked away from
Speaker 1: that with a million fund memories and had a great experience,
Speaker 1: I didn't see a lot of everybody. I saw Gabrielle
Speaker 1: somewhat because we had the same management company. Okay, always
Speaker 1: been amazing. Yeah, And I was lucky enough to work
Speaker 1: with Delay again on psych for a while and I
Speaker 1: love him. He's so special. And Freddie and I are
Speaker 1: looking to reunite and got in touch again after Paul passed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, god, we've been alive for a minute.
Speaker 3: I know, when we talk about it all spaced out,
Speaker 3: you're like, yep, there was that era of my life.
Speaker 2: There's this yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And thank you for being a documentarian of all of this.
Speaker 1: You're kind of like our class president.
Speaker 3: Thank you, gosh, you know what. I accept that role proudly.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I do appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Looking back at that whirlwind, what memories stick out the
Speaker 3: most from that whole period, that whole she's all that
Speaker 3: period of your life, Like is it when.
Speaker 2: It comes out? Is it a premiere? Is it filming it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Is there a moment that you're like, that's the most
Speaker 3: salient for me from that time.
Speaker 1: Whenever you look back that far, it's like a couple
Speaker 1: little you know, uh, bashall peaks out of the ocean.
Speaker 1: If I just had to remember a couple I remember
Speaker 1: were shooting the prom scene. I did not know it
Speaker 1: was going to be a very full, choreographed number. No
Speaker 1: one tells you about the production plans when you're eighteen,
Speaker 1: so I was like, what are you We're sure? Yep, okay,
Speaker 1: this is wonderful. I went from like what to this
Speaker 1: is amazing, like very quickly, and then I realized all
Speaker 1: it once that they were going to try to teach
Speaker 1: me a couple of moves and that didn't go good.
Speaker 1: So I made up some nonsense about my character wouldn't
Speaker 1: know the dance and I'm not really in that sequence.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's great. You were like, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is a character choice for me. Yeah. I love
Speaker 2: that how I cried for you that you were.
Speaker 3: Like, I'm just going to take this an artistic choice.
Speaker 3: They will respect it more than me saying I can't yes,
Speaker 3: and so we're gonna go with that.
Speaker 1: There's three seconds of me like sort of like flailing
Speaker 1: doing what looks like the monkey, and that is it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty embarrassing and is also I've probably never done
Speaker 1: dancing stars because I'm also not as brave as you,
Speaker 1: but you should.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: Here's my plan for dancing with the stars. Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: ever be so kind as to invite me to guess.
Speaker 1: I gotta wait till I'm a cool sixty three sixty
Speaker 1: five and people say the phrase she's still got it.
Speaker 1: I like that because right now I feel like that
Speaker 1: would be rude to say, of my right right, that's
Speaker 1: my plan.
Speaker 2: She still got it.
Speaker 3: I will tell you though, that if you if you
Speaker 3: do it at sixty three, having doing it to become
Speaker 3: significantly harder. I already at forty four doing it, was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I can see the difference. Betweet, Yes, now that I
Speaker 3: really now under stand to be fully related to the
Speaker 3: medication that I'm on for cancer. Was not. I don't
Speaker 3: think that would happen to if I were not taking
Speaker 3: that medication. I think there I was that problem was
Speaker 3: exacerbated by that medication. But the difference between the beautiful
Speaker 3: twenty five year old alex Earl and the ease with
Speaker 3: which her body moves compared to the forty four year
Speaker 3: old it only gets harder, you know, it just becomes harder.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have dance experience I do not,
Speaker 3: which I did not either, well then good luck. So
Speaker 3: what I would say is do it in your sixties
Speaker 3: when you've still got it, but start dance. Now, spend
Speaker 3: the next twenty years having dance, having dance experience, and
Speaker 3: then when you come out it's sixty, they're going to
Speaker 3: be like, oh, you will blow everyone away, but you
Speaker 3: have to start now. So I start that rehearsal process.
Speaker 3: Now get twenty years each Ye. I'm not the person,
Speaker 3: but I think we know some people who.
Speaker 2: Can help you.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's very good advice.
Speaker 3: I have been reading some of my real teenage diary
Speaker 3: entries on podmeats World, and some of them are from
Speaker 3: when you were dating Writer MG, and I very clearly
Speaker 3: had a crush on him, but I also liked you
Speaker 3: so much that I couldn't be mean about you. And
Speaker 3: my diary, so I have a lot of entry things
Speaker 3: that are like hung out with Writer and Rachel today
Speaker 3: so cool.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure she really understand him though.
Speaker 3: Or things like seems like Writer and maybe didn't talk
Speaker 3: to Rachel on the phone today.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they're on the rocks.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, do you.
Speaker 3: Remember ever feeling like I was there trying to be
Speaker 3: happy for you, but also possibly seething inside.
Speaker 1: I just felt like you were so busy with your
Speaker 1: grown up job and you're just so like beautiful and effervescent,
Speaker 1: and everybody loved you and like the hair, come on,
Speaker 1: come on, thank you? No, I remember here what like
Speaker 1: you've opened up your diary to me, I will open
Speaker 1: up my memory diary to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Here's what I can Here's what I can give young
Speaker 1: Danielle Rider and I were First of all, I probably
Speaker 1: did not understand him all of the ways that you did.
Speaker 1: He's the most romantic, like beautiful, like very do you
Speaker 1: yourself so deep like just like I'm struck. I'm like
Speaker 1: the image of like the front of the Titanic, just
Speaker 1: like he's just he's such a beautiful I'm not doing
Speaker 1: good words for this, but you know.
Speaker 2: Exactly what I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: Yes, writer's most poetic soul we've ever met. Yes, And
Speaker 1: I remember this moment he had like come to visit
Speaker 1: me in Italy and there was this like field of
Speaker 1: sunflowers on the way to where we're going, and he
Speaker 1: tells the driver's staff the car and he looks at
Speaker 1: me what's out hand, and I'm like, oh no, oh no,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? We have to run into these
Speaker 1: through these flyers, like really looking for just like a movie.
Speaker 1: And I knew in that moment that I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not the person what he's like ultimately
Speaker 1: gonna need. And I tried and we got a little
Speaker 1: way into that field, but I was just like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know about this. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I can definitely give to young Danielle is that even
Speaker 1: though we were each other's first lot of things, I
Speaker 1: remember he he one time made the I feel that
Speaker 1: sharing is lightly personal business, but I feel like he
Speaker 1: would be okay He's very open and warm and accepting
Speaker 1: and loving to his younger self. Uh. I remember one
Speaker 1: time he said to me like, if you weren't with me,
Speaker 1: you know, who would you want to be with? And
Speaker 1: I realized in retrospect that he was probably thinking I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I don't know, James c if you
Speaker 1: was still alive, or something like that. But instead I
Speaker 1: say the name of my ex boyfriend and he takes
Speaker 1: it on the chin, and then I was like, I
Speaker 1: realized that I've probably answered wrong, and then I said, well,
Speaker 1: what about you, and he goes, Danielle.
Speaker 2: What I don't know the presses.
Speaker 1: I think I didn't remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So then did you not like me after that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Well not now now, I'm sure, I'm sure it's fine.
Speaker 3: But at the time, were you like.
Speaker 1: I remember directly trying to figure out if I was
Speaker 1: in trouble first, because I was just like real, real,
Speaker 1: which I was not.
Speaker 3: Respect no, no, but yeah, oh that's so funny. I
Speaker 3: don't know that he remembers that, because when I told
Speaker 3: him on Pod Meets the World that I had a
Speaker 3: crush on him, he was like what And he did
Speaker 3: not in any way, shape or to say that he
Speaker 3: had no Maybe I was just the last person whose
Speaker 3: name he had seen.
Speaker 1: And if you think writers ever not thought about something,
Speaker 1: I know that's true.
Speaker 2: Oh I can't wait to talk to him about it.
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 3: This is this is game changing for me as Yeah
Speaker 3: it happened. Did you mostly then date other actors back
Speaker 3: then because it were who else were you meeting?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: We're in the same boat on this. We talked about
Speaker 1: this at dinner Kansas City, what five years ago?
Speaker 2: Now, Yes, we sure did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. You know, you want to think that
Speaker 1: you're gonna out with other people, but especially when you're
Speaker 1: young and you're doing something that feels kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know, like just odd. You don't you don't want
Speaker 1: someone who's going to like other.
Speaker 2: You Yep, a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yep. Not that it's like not that again now that
Speaker 1: you're convinced that you're special, because you're just like, I
Speaker 1: don't have a job next week, Like I'm this is
Speaker 1: all going to fall apart. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want to feel like you're with someone who
Speaker 1: might be with you for the wrong reasons, and if
Speaker 1: someone's even too just like real life awesome You're like,
Speaker 1: but I'm not real life awesome, so you just up
Speaker 1: with other actors yep, you know. I yeah, I did
Speaker 1: a lot of fishing off the company peer.
Speaker 3: I also remember that you got to live out the
Speaker 3: dream of everyone who was on Boy Meets World and
Speaker 3: you were on Dawson's Creek.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: And with the recent loss of James Vanderbeek and everyone
Speaker 3: has been talking about what an amazing coworker and friend
Speaker 3: he was.
Speaker 2: Do you have good memories from that set?
Speaker 1: I so do, Yeah, I so do. I I get
Speaker 1: so in my own head when I that was my
Speaker 1: first time guest starring and I wanted to guess on
Speaker 1: this world. But if they did not ask me, she
Speaker 1: was crazy.
Speaker 2: I feel like they must have thought that you would
Speaker 2: not have done it.
Speaker 1: Probably if I had said that stuff to writer, right,
Speaker 1: the writer was like he was probably like, no.
Speaker 3: She would never or maybe yes, right, okay, But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: Dawson's they were such a tight knit g and it's
Speaker 3: a little bit scary.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've done much guesting, but when
Speaker 1: you go in and everybody knows you to get really
Speaker 1: well and it's just established, like how you you know,
Speaker 1: do the dance and sing the song, and they're also
Speaker 1: loose in their bodies, so they all seem amazing at
Speaker 1: acting and you just feel like you're bad at acting
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Yeah, that was, you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of initial experience. But I wasn't like out of practice.
Speaker 1: I feel like I fell into a groove with with
Speaker 1: the work, and they were all great to work with,
Speaker 1: James especially. What was weird about that experience is that
Speaker 1: first of all, I was I of course would have
Speaker 1: said yes, but I was told I was doing that
Speaker 1: by Miramax. They said, it's we've gotten you an arc
Speaker 1: on the show. Oh you're kind to come out the
Speaker 1: same weekend basically, or the weekend the weeks before. She's
Speaker 1: all that. It was all very strategic because I didn't
Speaker 1: audition for it.
Speaker 2: I don't know how muchage oy.
Speaker 1: And so that's how that went. But when I got there,
Speaker 1: I remember they made some changes to the character that
Speaker 1: was not what I had initially read, and that's how
Speaker 1: TV works, you know, I understand now. But it turned
Speaker 1: into like a kind of lightly humiliating part where my
Speaker 1: character was like obsessed with Katie Holmes's character. So I
Speaker 1: was just like being like weird and small and creepy
Speaker 1: and like taking notes on who she was because I
Speaker 1: was an actress playing the part of her in a
Speaker 1: movie that he was making, okay, and she had all
Speaker 1: these great sick burns, Like there's this one part where
Speaker 1: she says to DOZ and she's too short to me.
Speaker 2: I know, it's so good and I am fun just
Speaker 2: is what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was just like, I did not know
Speaker 1: that this was going to be happening when I got
Speaker 1: on the plane.
Speaker 3: Right right, But that's you know, that's life. But that
Speaker 3: is You're right, what a difference between movie. In movies,
Speaker 3: you usually you like fully understand the character and it's
Speaker 3: not usually completely rewritten because then the movie entirely changes,
Speaker 3: whereas TV, especially for a guest star, you could be
Speaker 3: agreed to be one thing and two days later, oh,
Speaker 3: not only is the person playing you different, the whole
Speaker 3: character is a different thing totally. So yeah, that is
Speaker 3: a little shocking to have come from the movies you've
Speaker 3: done and then be like I still have to do it.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't do I get does anybody care? I
Speaker 2: don't like it?
Speaker 1: So many ziggers? Yeah, it was still fun, Like after
Speaker 1: you sort of learned to. After I learned to embrace
Speaker 1: it a little bit more, it got more and more fun.
Speaker 3: How did you or maybe you did at some point,
Speaker 3: but having been doing this now for the amount of
Speaker 3: decades that we have, how did you avoid burnout? Or
Speaker 3: did you experience it at some point and then just
Speaker 3: get through it?
Speaker 1: Haven't we all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I feel like I have for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the burnout when I sort of let
Speaker 1: myself acknowledge it happened in my I can only say
Speaker 1: this because, you know, having started as young as we did.
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, you said your twelve, like I think
Speaker 1: it was in my It was right after I had
Speaker 1: both my kids. And it's not because I was working
Speaker 1: so so much. It was just the the idea of, Hey,
Speaker 1: I am the head of my household. I've made these
Speaker 1: two people. I've survived in the industry this long, and
Speaker 1: I'm still getting calls from my agency saying like, you
Speaker 1: need to put yourself on this on tape for this
Speaker 1: by tomorrow, and the copies like you kids come in
Speaker 1: before it's dark, right, you know, and it's just like right,
Speaker 1: it still feels like people are making you prove that
Speaker 1: you can act at all yep, and that just feels
Speaker 1: really hard on the ego, and look, I know it's
Speaker 1: what we signed up, but it just felt really hard.
Speaker 1: And so that nature of just always having to be
Speaker 1: on call, drop everything, you know, this is what you
Speaker 1: have to do if you want to survive, which you
Speaker 1: just keep being told you know that. That's when I
Speaker 1: felt the most burnt out. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 1: started working for Hallmark and they empowered me creatively that
Speaker 1: I started to feel like I had any degree of
Speaker 1: autonomy in the business.
Speaker 3: That is so great. How did that then come about?
Speaker 3: Did they just recognize you as an actor who had
Speaker 3: good suggestions for things. Did you go to them and say, listen,
Speaker 3: I have more to offer I would like to produce.
Speaker 3: Did you come with an idea? How did you make
Speaker 3: that transition?
Speaker 1: I had been offered a couple of movies by them,
Speaker 1: and I was busy, sort of like having my first
Speaker 1: child and you know, being told by my agents like,
Speaker 1: it's probably not that time yet. And the couple scripts
Speaker 1: that I had read by them weren't quite hitting. But
Speaker 1: then I read this one that they sent and I
Speaker 1: just really loved the material. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: so funny and fresh and romantic, and it just it
Speaker 1: felt like what I wanted to say, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And it felt really aligned with my kind
Speaker 1: of like peaceful, you know, feel good, loving self. I
Speaker 1: still struggle. I'm trying my hardest to watch Stranger Things
Speaker 1: with my kid right now. I am struggling. I am
Speaker 1: very scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't like to be scared. It's not
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. And so I was just like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you know, this thing that had been for
Speaker 1: no good reasons stigmatized to me, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: felt like a really good idea, and I went, I
Speaker 1: made it and I had the best time. And the
Speaker 1: amazing thing is, back then I think they were making Homework,
Speaker 1: was making something closely two hundred movies a year, right,
Speaker 1: So at that rate, when you get somewhere and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, would it be okay if I X
Speaker 1: Y Z, you know, between these lines or whatever, and
Speaker 1: they're just like, yeah, go for it. Like they they're
Speaker 1: really empowering to the people who work for them, and
Speaker 1: they're so supportive of women.
Speaker 2: Really, that's so great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so when I was able to team up
Speaker 1: with a producer and bring them a project. It just
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, kept going from there. It's been
Speaker 1: really awesome.
Speaker 2: That is so incredible. You're so inspiring.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Is there doing it all? Dad?
Speaker 2: Yell? No, I just mostly talk. I just mostly talk
Speaker 2: for a living God. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Is there a time that you wish you had a
Speaker 3: more traditional childhood, especially now where you're watching your kids
Speaker 3: approach the age where you made the big trip out
Speaker 3: to LA. Do you ever wish you could go back
Speaker 3: and do it differently?
Speaker 1: Or you there's some moments where I'll be talking to
Speaker 1: more specifically my daughter these days, about just something that
Speaker 1: might be happening with her socially this then yahther and
Speaker 1: I'll be trying to give her advice or something like that,
Speaker 1: and it will just be falling on the deafest of years,
Speaker 1: and I will realize that I am both forty six
Speaker 1: really far from you know, her age and experience growing
Speaker 1: up these days. And also I didn't do my younger
Speaker 1: years the way she's doing them, and so I wish
Speaker 1: sometimes that I felt like I was able to relate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't know if that would have been brought about by
Speaker 1: the passage of time, regardless but yeah, there's this weird
Speaker 1: moment that's always been so burned in my brain. When
Speaker 1: I was filming Tom and Hawk, I remember going to
Speaker 1: a matine movie with my mom on the weekend when
Speaker 1: we were filming, and a bunch of kids came out
Speaker 1: of whatever movie they were seeing, and they were all
Speaker 1: in the parking lot throwing the extra ice from their
Speaker 1: drinks at each other, and I just remember having this
Speaker 1: weird feeling just up the back of my spine, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of knew that no one was ever
Speaker 1: gonna like throw lies at me. Oh and like it
Speaker 1: felt in a weird way like I had graduated in
Speaker 1: some form, and in another way it felt kind of sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's funny. I did a movie let Me See
Speaker 1: a little over a year ago now with my good
Speaker 1: friend with a karsh Ambod car shout out I Love
Speaker 1: you from Ghost He's the best. Everybody loved him. That's
Speaker 1: a very meta story about an actress who goes back
Speaker 1: to her hometown and reconnects with him, her high school boyfriend.
Speaker 1: And we put in this moment where our characters go
Speaker 1: and get big LPs and then we chuck iceed each
Speaker 1: other and that was I'm not gonna say it was
Speaker 1: healing for me. That would be a real shortcut to like, ye,
Speaker 1: you know, glazing that moment. But if there's a if
Speaker 1: there was a moment that.
Speaker 3: Was it wow beautiful, you didn't understand it, I do.
Speaker 3: I do understand, And I would like to just point
Speaker 3: out that you you did not have someone to throw
Speaker 3: ice at you, but you did have right or strong
Speaker 3: to drag you through a spiky flower patch. And so.
Speaker 1: I did right. I always will, yep, I always.
Speaker 2: Will, for sure.
Speaker 3: But yeah, writer also pulled me into the rain. Loved
Speaker 3: to run in the rain, and we were in I
Speaker 3: think we were in Orlando, and it was like I
Speaker 3: think it was at the end of the day and
Speaker 3: the hair and makeup we were, you know whatever, and
Speaker 3: then it was like Danielle, let's get it's raining, and
Speaker 3: I remembering like, yeah, stay inside, no, grab took my
Speaker 3: by the hand and we ran in the rain and
Speaker 3: it was very fun. But I also remember in the
Speaker 3: moment being like, he thinks this is so romantic, like.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember, yeah, And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, And we say this from a place of love,
Speaker 1: and of course, of course, of course, and I love
Speaker 1: that that's who that boy is.
Speaker 3: I hope he still is he is he is, and
Speaker 3: his family is all the better for it's It's very
Speaker 3: well appreciated and loved in his family. I'm having such
Speaker 3: a great time catching up with Rachel Lee Cook that
Speaker 3: she is sticking around for our weekly bonus episode, where
Speaker 3: we will listen to one listener's voice memo and quietly
Speaker 3: judge their embarrassing childhood story. All you need to do
Speaker 3: is search for teen Beat wherever you get your podcasts
Speaker 3: and subscribe. That way, every new episode just ends up
Speaker 3: on your phone, no questions asked, and you can send
Speaker 3: in your own tales of teenage terror. Just email us
Speaker 3: a voice memo with all the juicy details to teenbeatpod
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com and might just end up on
Speaker 3: the next episode of teen Beat. See you Friday with
Speaker 3: more from the Coolest girl I Know, Rachel Lee Cook.
Speaker 2: Teen Beat is.
Speaker 3: An iHeart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Executive
Speaker 3: producers Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of
Speaker 3: production Danielle Romo, producer and editor Tara Sudbach. The theme
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