Welcome everyone to Amy MTJ, and we have a very special edition today. If you were a child of the eighties or the nineties or maybe even later, if you love Nicket Knight, you know and love our next guest.
She was the sassy.
Character in a sitcom favorite something I grew up watching and even my girls grew up watching because of the way reruns are these days. But we are talking about the middle sister in the Tanner's Stephanie Tanner, who her catch phrase, how rude. We all know it, We all said it, and maybe some of us still say it.
Jody, how rude.
And actually I want to let our guest say it, because clearly she can say it with a lot more sincerity and just authenticity than I can. But Jody Sweeten is joining us here on the podcast today, and I'm so excited because this is a child actor who has really gone on to become not only an incredible actress but a mom and just is a shiny example of actually making it in a world that is stacked against you.
Oftentimes when you're a child actor.
We hear all the horror stories, and she went through her stuff like the like every like so many other child actors did, but she is. Now, if you love the Hallmark Channel like we do, you know, I don't know if we've told people this, but we love horror movies. We've said this, We watched one at least today. I actually think that's a true statement, is true. I think we watch a horror movie a day. Kind of embarrassing
to admit, but it's true. And to cleanse the palette, we like to dabble in some lifetime movies, Hallmark movies.
And we're not kidding at all.
Now, but sometimes someone they do some dark ones too, like they've.
Got some yes, some detective series or some My Stepfather, My Killer, that kind of.
Weird stuff they do.
They mix it up so we can get a little bit of horror and a little bit of love all in one channel. But Hallmark Plus, I don't know if you guys have seen it, but it's kicking off here.
I think it kicked off September tenth.
Jody Sweden is joining us now, Jody, you are joining us from Hot La.
It's a little less.
Hot today, Yes, it's slightly less hot today, but we're still quite in the heat of summer and fall here.
So yeah, so let's talk about the fall season as you're sweltering there in LA But no, we're excited because I got this headline we got to print out, We get research about each person we're gonna be interviewing, and the first line was she is about to dominate Hallmark in September.
Is that an accurate statement?
I mean, I feel like I don't know if it's accurate, but if my pr put it together, great job, guys, but it's true. I am very fortunate right now because I have not only a movie coming out on Hallmark on the regular Hallmark channel, which is The Arison Handyman, which will be out this Saturday, September fourteenth, or I think this airs Sunday, so it'll have been out last
night for you guys. September fourteenth is The Aris and the Handyman on Hallmark Channel, which is a really fun, cute wrong com And then on Hallmark Plus their new streaming service, I have three new Jane Mystery movies coming out which lean a little bit more into the detective the drama, the you know, the the Hallmark murder mysteries, and so those are coming out September eighth, tenth, eighteenth, and twenty fifth, there's three more Jane De Silva mystery movies.
So yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna say, like dominate Hallmark, but but there's gonna be plenty of opportunities should you want to wanta on Hallmark, It's there.
Oh you give us the word You're Jody Sweeten is not going to dominate Hallmark the words you would you?
I don't know. That sounds so aggressive. So I'm just going to be very readily available on Hallmark. Should you institute then.
Yes, I love it. You're the Hallmark Channels fall into Love campaign. What is that? I'm interested?
Well? The Airess and the Handyman, which is the one that's coming out on Saturday, is a fall themed love story. It's got all of your it's got a fall fare, it's got it's got farm animals, it's got apple pie, it's got an heiress that loses her money, it's got fashion, it's got a lot there's it's giving a lot of things to a lot of different people. So we're very excited for that. One is actually really fun. We got to work with I had a pig as a co star and not Corey Savier. He is lovely, but you
didn't want Corey to take that the wrong way. But I had an actual farm pig who was a co star in this who was so sweet and we loved. But they are not great at reading the script and knowing, uh, kind of what they're supposed to do in a scene.
You have to be thinking the same thing, Jody. Did the pig have a name? What was the pig name?
Well, the pig's name was. It was it Hercules, No, something like that, but it was, but it was it was Hercules. But but it was playing a girl pig, so you know, it was.
A talented pig actress.
It's a it's a very fluid pig. Yeah, and it just you know, it was. It wore very cute little headbands and glasses for about fifteen seconds and then it would knock them off.
So that's the best pitch I've heard from.
You know.
Well, the best word is that it's not only about me and the post. Okay, I'll give you the actual story, which is the heiress and the handyman. I played June walt Shire, who is an heiress who is uh, you know, the scion of a hotelier family and her parents were killed when she was younger, of course, because it's sort of always a piece with no parents, and so she has all this money. Some very unfortunate things happen series
of events, she loses all of that money. But her aunt Bertie has left her a farm in upstate New York, so at least she has a roof over her head.
But apple orchard maybe too, or.
Well not there may be an orchard. But but she meets, of course, the very cute and handsome Handyman played by Corey Sevier, the neighbor bart who lives on the on the farm next door, who decides to help teach June everything that there is to know about winning a fall there.
That's so convenient.
Yeah, I become an expert at you know, some some apple pie baking, some some pig wrangling, some flower arranging.
Lot much fun, I have to say.
So. I was doing a little bit of a dive about the name of your new movie, as you mentioned the heiress and the Handyman. Were you also in a flick a year ago called Handyman from Hell?
Yes?
I thought that was so.
Interesting that even very different genres both right, we.
Can combine them into some sort of weird mishmash of something. Yeah. No, that was a lifetime movie that some friends of mine who I know from doing comedy actually had written. And it was, you know, one of those lifetime Like you said, the you know, step father to murder or whatever, you know, leans more into the woman in distress sort of vibe.
So we can watch that.
It was really fun. I got to be killed on screen. It was a first.
That's exciting. We can watch.
You just said that was fun to get killed on screen. You say, yeah, it sounds like a good time.
What is wrong with you too?
It is not you never I never had that happened before. They're not you know, they're not killing you off on Full House.
No, but we're stilling with Jodie. That was the first time you've gotten a chance to be a victim or of a murder on st Wow.
How do you die?
I took a I mean, you've got to know. Yes, I'm a true crime fan. I am. I've I'm with you. I watch her all the time, and yet I do Hallmark movies.
But no, it makes perfect sense to us.
I got shot in the chest with a nail gun while while making out with the.
Handyman while making out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, didn't see it coming.
You know, Handyman was the one that you'll do.
Yes, well that's why he's from help.
Wait he's making out with your with a handgun?
What he has a nail gun in?
Like?
How did you see?
We say to my true Crime. We're trying to piece this together.
You got to watch the movie and then you can and then you can do a full reenactment.
But but yeah, yeah, we can watch Handyman from Hell and then cleanse our palette with the Aras and the Handyman, the Aras and.
The handy Man. I think that's a really wise way to do it. I think I doing the reverse would not be as good and not to.
Be outdone by twenty twenty two Jody Swinton starring in The Handyman Hunk. Did you see that one?
Well, every Hallmark movie that I do now or any movie has to have.
A hand I feel like that's gonn have.
A Handyman in it. That's somewhere.
Yeah, your podcast is going strong.
How has that that's been for you?
I mean obviously we love you, we know you from full House, but to relive it, I mean you are you rewatching all of the episodes and then going over them again, and what's that like for you?
You know, it's been so much fun. Andrea Barber and I are so you were super close. We have always been really close, even when we were kids.
And Himmy from the series right Tommy, Yes.
Kimmy, Kimmy Gibler from the series The Irony Is Steph and Kimmy were actually very good friends. And so she and I I started doing this podcast together because we never have watched the show. Well, I've never watched the show. Really, I didn't. Yeah, why would I did it? I didn't, you know. We were like, yeah, you did it as a kid, Like you didn't care about watching it really like I didn't. It wasn't I wasn't impressed to like, oh,
I want to see myself on TV. I was like, no, it's okay, just want to go.
That's kind of way you're telling me. Until the podcast, you you've never really sat at any point and watched like a full episode.
Okay, not none of the episodes. Maybe some of the like the bigger ones and the pilot made, but not to where I remember. There's a lot of episodes that I'm like, I don't remember this at all. So it's been really fun because Andrew is the same way. She didn't really you know, watch the episode, and there were a lot of episodes she wasn't in in the first couple of seasons before she became a regular on the series.
So you know, we're watching these shows and it's like going back and having these childhood memories that you haven't thought about in thirty plus years.
Remind us what was your your your age, you were, what to what during the I was five.
When I started on the show and thirteen when it ended.
Wow, And those are formative years in front of the world. And funny enough, people are still watching you as that encapsulated version of yourself forever. Yeah, and people think of you that way, that's got to be a strange I mean, people probably come up to you and are confused because they think of you as this young little girl.
You know. Before Fuller House, I would say that happened a lot. And before Fuller House, it would be people my age would recognize me, like as an adult, but their kids were still watching, you know, the re runs, and so an adult would be like, oh my gosh, it's the girl from full House and their kids were like, no, that's just some lady in the grocery store.
Like, yeah, she's my age.
Yeah, no, she's like a mom. She's not Yeah no, she's not on TV. So I can't tell you. There were a bunch of times when parents were like, no, serious, that's and they were like, I think. So it was hilarious. But then once Fuller came and kind of everybody saw us as adults again, and you know, and then I started doing Hallmark movies and stuff, I would say I definitely get recognized more now, you know, as an adult.
But I also, you know, for for not knocking, it looked very similar to when I did when I was about twelve or thirty.
You do, I mean, you really do look remarkably the same as you did when you were younger, which is a huge compliment.
If only that could be.
The whole full House cast. I don't know, I don't know it's true what was in the air ducks in that sound stage, but we managed to do.
Okay, yeah, you start listing Lori, Lachlan, John Stamos, I mean, everybody like can the Olsen Twins.
I mean it's yeah, we all managed to We've all managed to age relatively gracefully, I shall say.
You know, I mentioned when I first started that obviously you have continued success and a beautiful family, two teenage daughters.
I have two daughters.
They're almost out of their teens now, so I'm just a little bit ahead of you on that.
But you have a full life.
But so many child actors don't have that outcome in the end, you know, and I know you went through a lot to get to where you are today. What can and I know you don't have another experience to compare it to, but maybe seeing your children grow up in a more normalized setting, how would you describe your childhood and where you ended up immediately after the show ended, Like, how do you handle that as a child?
You know, it's interesting. I think back on it now, and I would have been terribly bored as a kid just going to school. I was reading at a very early age. I skipped a grade in school. I like I needed a lot of mental simulation. I needed to be busy. I loved working, I would you know. I was very fortunate that the producers let me go to regular school in the morning and then I would come in in the afternoon for rehearsals and then two days
a week I was fully tutored on set. So I, you know, as a kid who had undiagnosed ADHD, which I didn't find out until later, I actually have this great like hybrid system of class interaction school where I constantly got in trouble for talking too much, and then I would go to work and have fun and do all of that, and then i'd get tutored individually and really get the intense work and be able to, you know, just get through all of my classes and it loved school,
and then kind of do it again the next week. So it was exactly I think the environment that I needed as a kid, and my parents were not pushy about it. They did they weren't living vicariously through me. They wanted no fame or attention or they just knew that I loved performing and I loved doing this, and they always said, you know, as long as you're having
fun and you're enjoying this, we'll keep doing it. If you hate this, we'll figure it out, and we will that you don't have to do this if you hate it. But I never hated it, and so you know, I look at it now like with my kids, just sort of living normal, relatively normal lives. I mean, you know whatever that I guess is, and I I'm really grateful. I think that I got to do what I did.
And I also think, you know, weirdly, continuing to do entertainment and acting and performing into as an adult it gave me an entirely different perspective on sort of what being fake quote unquote famous is because it was just it was something that I grew up with I never really had in a way. I think sometimes beginning, you know, getting famous, when you get a little bit older, you
realize what you're going to be missing. You realize that suddenly you don't have that anonymity and that ability to just do go to the mall or go to you know, and not have people know who you are or in your business or have you know, or have to worry about things like that. And weirdly, growing up in this business, I never had that. I don't remember really a time in my life where I didn't have a sort of
public facing persona. And oddly enough, now that I have gotten to come back as an adult, it's been a really great tool because it I'm not I don't care what people think of me. I don't care. I mean that also sort of comes with your forties as a woman. You're like, tell me something, but I but you know it, really I I know that I do this because I love it and I am who I am and I'm
free to be that. And I don't think had I not gone through all of that kind of growing up, I don't think I would have gotten to that place as soon as I did.
Did you?
And I think that's the key to really being successful, is to just follow what you love to do, what's right for you, what works for your life, and who cares what the comments are? Like? We you know what I mean. I I just it's not it's pointless. Go and make yourself happy, do good, be kind, And that's really it.
You know you said the comments keep coming? Are comments still coming? I'm just curious, like what these days? You know what what I mean? You still keep an eye on that stuff?
Oh, I mean not really on I am now with social media, I have a very distant sort of relate. I will post some things and then dip out. I've realized, Uh, it is a you know, sort of diminishing return. And I think we all did that, you know, we were during the pandemic. Everyone's like, oh, I've got time. I got time for that now, and you know, we're and then it was like, I don't have time for that anymore. And and it doesn't mean that I am not still very much who I am and vocal in my life
and all of those things. It's just that I just don't. I tune out the noise and and it's it's nice to just tune it out, you know. And yeah, people always want to make you know, crappy comments. I mean, that's just that's people, and particularly online, and when it's not to your face, and you know, people get real brave when they don't have to be confronted.
With consequences for what are they like, what what is the negativity? I'm sorry, maybe I didn't do.
Nstand you know.
My past is like with addiction issues, just that I've been married a bunch of times, I'm like, like, where do you think I get my stand up material? I gotta have something, you know. But yeah, like you know, people throw that in you know, every face, and I'm like, that doesn't I wrote a book.
I already talked about all of this.
You're not breaking any like we already all already know the information.
Yeah, and not only that, I just I'm so very secure in who I am and what guides me that I'm like, and none of that it's all kind of irrelevant.
It's funny TJ and I were talking.
I don't know if it's just by design or if it just keeps happening, but when we're talking to folks, we end up realizing because DJ and I have had quite the last two years are and so I think there's a shared experience there. It's not exactly the same.
But we were joking we should call this podcast safe space, because you know, actually, when you start to hear other people's stories and people who you look up to, people who you admire, people who you are entertained by, and you start to hear you know what they've been through. I think we put people up on a pedestal. We love to tear them down, we love to judge them,
but we're all human beings. So it's always interesting to hear and going through the tough times, battling addiction, yes, having multiple marriages, we get it, and people love to throw shots at that, but those are those are the moments when you learn who you are and what you're made of.
And it also like that's life. Life's messy, it's not. There's no then weak got an instruction manual? Why do you think you know just because you're doing it differently cool, that's you know, it's just I think.
We we're very quick to have a set idea of what we think other people should adhere to, particularly when they grow up in the public eye or when they are someone that we look up to, and you know, at the end of the day, like just can't put that kind of pressure on yourself.
You're you're a human being having a human experience and you're having to do it in front of in front of a lot of other people. And sometimes that's my choice, and sometimes it's not.
That's true, you know, and that's just it.
It is what it is. You know, Hey, I'm a human being having a human experience. I bet you are too, and let's laugh about it, you know, instead of being like no, no, no, I'm I'm great. I'm great. Everything's fine. I'm great. Yeah, no, I'm not.
It depends on the day, depends on the hour.
Right, Sometimes I'm great, sometimes I'm not, And it's okay. And I just that's always the message that I really like try and reinforce on my social media with my fans, with people I interact with, is like, just be where you are, in the space that you are. Some days it's great, some days it's not. It'll change.
You know, how long will it take you to get to that point? Though, because we're all trying to get there? I didn't get to what you're talking about. Maybe late thirties, early forties maybe, but you know what we're to get to that point? What did it take for you? And is that an ongoing battle or work that you still have to do.
It's an ongoing battle and it's work. But I will say growing up in a business where at nine years old, there's a Star magazine article written about how you're a
terrible person to work with. It's completely fabricated, and they have, you know, all of these things, and you read that about yourself, and it feels so violating at nine years old, ten years old, that they write this stuff about that's not true, and you want to defend yourself and you want to say, like, but that's that's you know, that's not right. And so I learned at an early age I either listen to who other people tell me I am, or I have to figure it out for me and
ignore the rest. And some days I'm really good at that, and some days the voices are loud. And when I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could be the person that other people wanted me to be, or be the total opposite of who people thought I should be. You know, it just all those things. But I'd say my late twenties, early thirties, really my mid thirties is kind of when I started like really settling into it. And I think
that's that's kind of what happens for most of us. So, like, you know, all of these young people that are like famous and doing all this stupid, it's like, well, like let them get to thirty, you know what I mean, let it like when you're they're gonna hit thirty and they're gonna go oh, because we all do. And so like give like give them the grace, give them the allow them the dignity of their own experience to you know, be messy sometimes and like but be able to come
back from it. You know, I think that's just always the hope is that we all no one's perfect, So like give people the opportunity to change and come back. Now if they want to keep doing the same thing and being an asshat, than by. But you know, if you want to like change your behavior and do something different and be a different person, great, that's the point of this entire experience. Just grow. You know, I've had to do a lot of that over the years.
You did, and you had to do it in a very public way, which is different from most people. And you did it at such a young age. I'm curious. You're there on set with people who are around your age a little bit older, but you are at the height of success. I mean that show was everywhere. Did you have support within the cast? I'm just curious, Like, did that experience bond you all together? I want to know what those relationships were like at the time and how they've evolved over the years.
Oh yeah, I mean we you know, we were all so close. We're such a family. I mean we really really are. We have, even the adults, we've all grown up together. I mean they were in their like early mid twenties when we started this show twenty four or twenty five, like they were babies, you know, they weren't thirty, so it was you know, we all really kind of
grew up together. And the success of the show and having it be so popular, it is it's something that kind of bonds you together because it's it's not something
that sort of everyone understands. And you know, I always say that I'm part of a really neat little sorority of other people and contemporaries of mine who are around my age or you know between like Canvases and Andrea or Candases in Ashley Mary Kate's age, like sort of this tenure window of child stars that are some of my dearest friends that I've known throughout the years since I was you know, four or five, auditioning or doing different things, and it's it's just a it's a really
wonderful experience to know that people that I joined up with when I was five years old still support me and love me, and you know, I was so close with everyone in their families. I would go with Bob Saget on weekends to visit his girls, Like I would stay at his house and we you know, he'd make us blueberry pancakes. I mean, it was it was family and that's never stopped, you know, and we absolutely love
each other like family. And you know, sometimes it's smooth sailing and sometimes it's not, but it doesn't doesn't change the fact that your family and you have thirty seven, thirty eight years of history together like that doesn't change.
You know, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool, and I was, actually I was.
But you know how we know this how some publications love to jump on any kind of even seeming like like they almost make controversy where it doesn't even exist. Like something even as simple as you all you and kandas Cameron Raid disagreeing about what you saw in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, suddenly that becomes headlines splashed everywhere. Isn't that remarkable that people still can't wait to pit people against.
Each other, Well, they can't wait to pit people against each other. They particularly can't wait to pit women against each other, as we know that's always the fun thing is like it's never you know, we don't tear them down, but let's make them fight. And we I think it have we so many times I read things. I'm like, where in anything did it say anything about it? You know, like so many articles you know that you read the
clickbait or what, and I'm totally guilty of it. I'll be like, ooh, what's going on with you know j Loo and what? And I hate it? And then I'm like, ah, I can't what am I doing? Stop? Don't look, but you know, you look at it and then you're like, wait, the headline said this, but nowhere in anything did that person get mentioned or did this actually happen or did
you know? And I know that about this business? Like fine if people you know, if people want to think that so and so said this, and you're like, I never even mentioned, never even mentioned anyone, great like I just That's what I mean, like tuning out the noise, like it, because you can drive yourself mad by going back and re engaging and being like, but that's not.
What I said, but actually I did this. Well wait, no, this okay, but you have to if you start heard with this person who no, you know, we all said what we said and and bye, that's it.
I know you guys know the feeling where you're like, that's actually, you know what, I don't have time for that.
She says that, and it's I guess maybe some wounds haven't healed completely. But hearing you say that, and you're right, you try to ignore. But us ignoring and not responding cost us jobs. It costs us step careers. That stuff is so poisonous. Sometimes it does. It can do more than just mess with your head. It can, actually it.
Can. We are unnecessarily cruel to each other again for just living human lives. You know, let's all just give each other a little bit of grace to not be perfect, and particularly those of us who were in front of the camera, like now their cameras are everywhere. You used to be like, okay, switch off. Who get to go be like a crazy person over you know, No, now it's everything and everywhere you are, someone's gonna know. And
that's a lot of pressure. And you know, I'm not making I don't think anyone should excuse terrible behavior, but I think we need to also be able to tell what really terrible behavior is and what is just people trying to make a decision that there's no great outcome, because sometimes sometimes you're just doing the best you can.
Yeah you are, I mean, why is beyond your years? And it's been hard earned, I know, and It's funny because as we were talking about all of this.
I thought, and this is why we like the Hallmark Channel.
TU like the Homer It really and I like not to bring it all back around, but it really like people love full House, Fuller House Hallmark Channel because they can watch something where they go it's everything's okay, everything's gonna be okay, this isn't messy. I know we're gonna it's gonna tie itself up back together and it's gonna be happy. And it's and that we need that, we need those bits of reassurance, you know. And then we go watch a horror movie or a Handyman from Hell
or whatever, you know. Then we go watch something and go, oh yeah, no, there's some scary stuff too. But it's the balance, right, It's all the balance.
I love it because for me, watching a horror movie or watching your character get murdered with a nail gun, I can say to myself, well, at least I'm not her, So there's that we have a horror movie. At least I'm always preserved by demons. And then you can go back and then.
Watch the Hallmark Channel and be like it's going to be.
And now I can think about it.
Yeah, exactly how low is our bar that? Hey, at least I'm not getting shot by a nail gun perspective?
I mean, do you do you want me to answer that?
No? No, no, no, Sorry it was rhetorical, But I.
Don't think it's that podcast. That's a different one.
We always talk, We always appreciate perspective, and that is what life often gives us, whether we want it in that moment or not.
But ye, Jody, we I'm not kidding.
We are going we have appointment television we cannot wait to watch, and we are going to fall in love with Jody Sweeten all over again because you're gonna dominate because she is dominating Hallmark plus dominating.
Yes, yeah, thank you, Jody. We really appreciate it absolutely.
Thank you guys so much. Great to talk to you.