Thank you once again for joining us on yet another park Opper episode. I don't know why I sound like this all of a sudden, I sound like a radio guy from like.
Yeah, the forties. There's a hey, thanks so much for joining us. But we do thank you for joining us.
We've got a very i'm gonna say it again, very special episode. Every episode of Magical Rewe is a very special episode, and I kind of like that, Sabrina.
I do this one.
We are gonna be talking to an actor that we've wanted to talk to for a while now because he was involved with Well, we want to talk to about this what is rated as the number one dcom of all time, and we certainly would like to know what he thinks about that, how he heard about the project, what drew him to it, all that good stuff he played of course, Nick Cooper, or as we like to call him, smart House Dad.
On Smart House.
So please help us welcome Kevin Kilmer, Thank you so much for joining us.
William, You're welcome. It's really nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you. Are you ready to talk all things Smart House?
Sure?
I wish I was paid a five dollars bill every time I talk about Smart House. I'd actually be very I'd be able to put a down payment on a house.
I bet. I mean, we at the beginning of starting this show really posted a lot on our on our Instagram and asking fans what are the movies you guys want us to watch and talk about? And this is top five every.
Single time, every list, every list.
It is such a huge movie.
Now, I thank you. I mean, that's always lovely to hear. I hear from so many people that I it's funny. Like I was just now going to IMDb going I wonder what they rated this, and it's like it's six point one out of ten. And I was like, all right, he's ready very stupidly idiotic, because so many people have passionately, passionately told me that it was so seminal to them growing up. I mean I've had many, many, many single parent kids who said, look, I was a latchkey kid
and you were actually like my dad. And I'm like, you know, like I the first time there were the first few times I heard that, I was like, oh, well, thanks, I mean, that's nice to hear. But they were like, no, no, really like you were my dad, like my dad wasn't around so like, and so it it sort of like hit me, like how you know it's funny. I teach acting now. I just started teaching last week actually a
couple to eighteen and nineteen and twenty year olds. And you know, I said to them in the first classs I said, you know, you really, you know, I thought this was like a Disney Channel movie that like would be here today and gone in two or three years. And you know, I'm now sixty six, you know, and that the movie's been around for she's you know, going on twenty five years, and it's unbelievable. I mean, I would never have ever said. I mean, we worked hard
on it, you know, sure ar worked. Really we had like a real handshake deal. Like I said, you know, like we got to make this script better. And he was very he said, listen, I'm going to have a killer some killer music. I've got a great idea for a line dance. You know, he created all that. So
we trusted each other. But I'll be really honest, and this is not throwing shade at Disney or anything, but it was, you know, it was a little square kind of there was no nuances in it, and we added a lot of ambiguities and you know, acknowledging things like and I don't even think the scene like between the father and son was if it was written, it was very different, and then we completely rewrote it. You know, well, they were.
Great, I mean, and that's one of the things.
First of all, I should let you know why you said IMDb might rank it at six point one. Entertainment Weekly has it ranked the number one dcom of all timecom really of.
All the time we're talking going against descendants everybody.
Number one dcom of all time.
Entertainment Weekly a smart house, and it's number three on Collider's list, So it is very highly rated. And one of the things we loved about it that we talked about is something that you had just mentioned, where it was a movie that while some most dcoms don't do,
it embraced the quiet moments. It embraced the scenes of father and son actually having real conversations, which I think is one of the reasons why A it's endured and B people have loved it so much is because it did delve more into that than it did say a world.
Of magic or something that dcoms would tend to do.
So it's interesting to hear that you and LeVar Burton really worked on that and really sat down to make the script what it was. And speaking of that, when was the first time you heard about this project? Was this just another audition that came across your desk or how can you walk us through that?
Yeah? Yeah, my my agency sent it over. And at the time, at the time, I finished Home Alone three, I'd finished Cinderella's Story, I'd finished Raising Helen, and I think I'd even done American Pie too then, and you know, I was like, you know, do I really want to do it? I mean, I'll just tell you and it's it sounds so it sounds so yiki right now that I was like, I really want to do a Disney Channel movie? Now?
Oh no, we hear this all the time. We hear this all the time from actors.
Yeah, I'm doing these feature films, you know, I'm like working for studios. Why do I want to do? And then they said, no, we really you know, like LeVar Burton actually I think you know either like you're on a very short list, and he would like, you know, would you like to take a meeting with him? Because he would love to meet with you, and I was like, okay, yeah, sure,
let's do that. And when as soon as I met LeVar, who I'd never met before, the level of thought and sophistication and complexity about the way he was approaching it, I was like, Okay, this is not gonna be a Disney Channel movie. I mean like, yeah, whatever mold they've had, he's going to break it, He's going to break it.
And I was and I was just in a phase in my life where I was like, let's bust up whatever we expect whenever we go to see a rom com, whenever we go to see an action movie, whatever, you know, like just change it up type thing. So LeVar, really I got really excited. And then I you know, and we ended the meeting with me saying, you know, look, I I'm willing to, you know, just come here on my own time and my own dime, but but can we just meet and kind of go page by page
through this? And he was like absolutely, let's do that. So we did, and I think we much improved and add those kind of because you know, and this is true, like I knew enough and I hope I still know enough to know that, you know, if you're let's say, let's say you're doing a sci fi movie and there's all these effects and all this stuff, you still you're only going to remember that sci fi movie if you
actually carry about the people. And you know, the converse is true too, in the sense that if you're doing like a low budget indie film that is really character driven, if you don't have an interesting way of shooting it, if you don't have a great DP, it can get
sort of like lost in the shuffle as well. So we drilled down on the father's son, the father daughter even And the thing that's just so spooky about the movie is that, yes, there were articles this is like the mid nineties or maybe ninety seven, but like there were articles about technology going to give us smart houses and like that, but none of that existed. So in a way it was a good twenty years ahead, maybe
twenty five years ahead of its time totally. And what that would mean to to us when everything is done for you and taken over in like how do you hang on to what it means to be a family and humanity? I mean, I don't want to get into too, but there are those like existential things sort of hanging out over it in a way that's not talked about. That that is sort of cool, you know.
To me, Well, that was one of the things that we were finding over and over and over again as we're rewatching these films, is how on the cutting edge Disney actually was, not only when it comes to things like technology, but when it comes to things like gender equality, when it comes to things like sexuality. I mean, these were they were way ahead of the curve when it
came to this stuff. And I'm just curious when you're on the set and you're reading these quote unquote inventions that have now become in everybody's house.
I mean, this movie introduced essentially.
Alexa, chat, GPT, golf, simula, the ring.
Doorbell, doorbell. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on.
Did you remember reading any of these things just kind of going like, well, this is this is ridiculous, this is never gonna happen.
I mean, I actually, I know I didn't do that. I think what I did was I had a lot of said envy in the sense that, like you, I would say, geez, I wish I had this in my house. You like, cool if I had this, But I mean, you know, credit is and I'm forgetting who this script writer is, but credit him her for being ahead of it, you know what I mean. And credit Disney who you know, let's I have to say Disney's Disney for a reason,
you know what I mean. They're tough. There's you know, in terms of like whether how you get paid and things like that. Salary is always a bit of a of a street fight with Disney. And you know, there's other things about Disney that are really tough. But on the other hand, they really run a really terrific company. They are ahead of the curve usually they they're bold. They're bold, so you got to, you know, you got
to give them their flowers. Many they do it. Man, there's a reason it's been Disney for what what are we going on here? One hundred years now?
Pretty close to it?
Yeah, And I mean they know their target audience. They know how to do it so well and like put across their messaging in such a way that young kids absorb it and actually want to hear it and learn those lessons. And I mean they're just incredible and we're getting to see so much of it, and they just seem to be ahead and they're willing to talk about certain things that a lot of people get nervous to.
I guess too, you know. I mean, this was the first one that talked about losing a parent and what it's like to go through and how to move forward as griefs.
It's addressing grief in a way that Disney Channel. I don't think it'd.
Ever done before, and not a lot of movies unless you're getting into the big you know, we're doing a Sophie's Voice kind of movie.
Right.
There wasn't a movie ever targeted at children that dealt with grief in a way that was natural. So they really were kind of on the cutting edge of all that stuff. And another question, so, now you've met with LeVar, you're going through the script. Did you have any influence over the rest of the casting. Were you able to meet some of the kids beforehand or no?
We had a I think we had a table read. So I met Ryan, of course, and I met my Daty, my young daughter, well Katie Segall I didn't know. We didn't meet Katie. Katie only came for like two maybe three days of shooting. It took four weeks. We did it in those in those days, you got twenty shooting days. So that's five days a week, four weeks, which to these days is just stupid lovey, you know, like you
have to shoot out, you have to shoot it. Like Hallmark movies they shoot him in twelve days or something.
A full script. It's like ten days for a full script. It's insane.
It's still on the DCOM level. Most of the actors we've talked to, it's like it ranges from like six to eight weeks that they get to work on these movies. So four weeks seems really fast for d coom.
Yeah, although you know, I'm thinking of the early nineties when I so I I started my I went to New York in eighty five. I came to LA in eighty late eighty nine, I went back to New York ninety three to ninety five. But I was back and forth between the coasts then. But I could the television movies that were done in the late eighties early nineties, it was like a twenty to twenty two days whatever that movie was. I mean, I can tell you I've
did too many of them to not remember. But that being said, even then, they were like, you know, just cutting days and cutting days and cutting days, and now it's like the come and you know, of course, like anything else that reaches the loss of diminishing returns, you know what what what do you? What are we turning out here? You know what I mean?
And ted days? What can you turn out? I mean exactly?
And it's I told tell you it's frustrating because I like, for example, I've done both Hallmark Channels and I did I did one Hallmark hall of Fame with James R. Jones and a very u a place call. It was called time Piece and Ellen Burst and and you know the Hallmark's got you know, kind of like Disney they have there that formula. And you know, I did like I don't know, I want to say, three or four
other Hallmark Channel movies. But like after the last one I finished, I was like, really, I don't want to do this anymore because there's no it can't possibly be good. If it is good, hopefully you have a supporting role where you're doing so much work before you shoot that what you're turning out on the days. But if you're the lead and you're there every day, it's sort of like hard to get your prep in As an actor.
It's hard to you know, you do to do your research and get it and really get the rehearsals in. So you're just shooting super fast and you're not doing a lot of takes. You're doing a master in your makeut. You might get too you know, you may get a meeting or too shot, and then you get like over over. You might get two takes in each of your close
up over overs and that's it. You're done. Yeah, And so you know there's a point and and again this goes back to crediting Disney that and look, let's give me even more flowers. You know, LeVar Burton, African American man, gave the director reins too, gave a lot of leeway to a lot of leeway creatively. Yeah, and you know, to Levar's great credit, he know, he friggin delivered big time.
Yeah, very much.
So it's also it's a it's a it's a especially in the mid nineties, it's a special effects heavy movie with no budget. So I mean it's it's one of those things where that easily could have been driven off a cliff. I mean, you've got you've got a movie that you know is let's put it together.
We're going to do twenty days.
We've got special effects in a house that we are kind of creating on the fly as we go.
That really could have been a train wreck.
Instead, it's Man Entertainment Weekly number one d comm of all time, and a lot.
Of it rides on the connection that you have with your two kids. What was it like creating that bond and working for you as an adult actor working with these young actors, How was that connection and what was the relationship like there?
Well, I think you know this is the part where in terms of both Katie and Ryan, is that you know this is where I give I always give lots of credit to my mom. My mom taught for thirty years kindergarten and my sister and I when we didn't have a sport we were playing, we would walk to her elementary school and we would help her in the classroom and she my mom had a master's cree in
early childhood. She had real strict rules about never condescending to a child, never talk baby talk to a child, Always ask questions, always give them two choices, use the Socratic method, and they learned how to wire their brains by saying, do you want the red coat or the blue coat. You can choose. But you know, no, no, not when I talk about the other coat, that's a ring thring. It's the red of the blue because it's a winter day. And you know what I mean, like
you talk about it. So my wife always laughs, She's like, you know, animals and children friggin love you. I don't know what the energy thing I said, Well, really, I just really goes back to my mom. It's like I worked all those years in my mom's classroom. I was a big brother my senior year of high school for a little boy who was this you know, latchkey kid who had just a mom and he was really missing.
You know. I would get together with him privately once a week, you know, and we would just play play games literally, or go somewhere and hang out, go to the playground whatever, you know, just talk about stuff, you know, get an ice cream together. Then I would you know, meet him with his mom at a certain time, you know, And so I you know, whether it was I mean, I was just as my wife says, you're the Dean jan of Dean Joan of dads in the nineties and
the odds. It's like Dean Jones, who was the Dad and all the Disney movies and the sixties. Yeah, you're that version. It's like kids love you. They you never you know. I just talked straight to them. And so when I met, you know, the two of them, I said what I've always said any children I worked with, whether it was Home Alone three or Raising Hill or whatever, I just said, listen, you know we're we're all professionals here. You know, I'm going to treat you with complete and
utter respect. And you got any great ideas, I want to hear them. Any ideas, you got any concerns, I'll help you with them. You got anything that you're afraid of on the set, talk to me. I'll get I'll talk to the director. But you know, we got to
do this together, you know what I mean. And we would talk about scenes like and I would say to them, I'd say, listen, you know all sorts of things like if we're going to get physical, I would I would always say to them as early as I could, like we're going to be shooting a scene in a couple of weeks where like you were wrestling and stuff like that. Just know that other than my eyes and a couple other parts. You can just wrestle with me however you want.
You know, you can. You want to punch me in the arm, that's fine, and you want to you know, you want to like come up behind me, lift my hair up, you know, have at it, like you know, have feel free to act impulsively in the moment and let's let's, you know, help each other. But I think that you know, again, all credit to my to my mom and my dad, you know who always just said, you know, treat everybody with respect, including young people who
you know there's you don't know better. And frankly that you know, as we all know, the best actors in the world are animals and small children. There they're completely free, they have no fat, no filter, and you know, a lot of times they make the scenes. I've been a hell of a lot better because of who they are. And I it's all about making, as Jimmy Cagney said, you know, making the audience never forget you because you create something very memorable. So you just for all, you know,
you try and sit all these little fishhooks. I would say to them, you know what, if we tried this, take doing doing this. If you have me the prompt just like one line later on that and maybe I'll look at it and do you want to like, maybe we can improvise the line. You think it's goofy looking or it's silly color, maybe you want to say something about that, and we would get these like little magical things out of it. You know that whole seat shot
with the oranges shooting orange. Yeah, oh my god. We had so much fun. All of us were like at times we were like on the floor and we were like whipping oranges around. Of course you guys like stop that, you know, like but and of course the thing that slid up it was some guy down below, poor guy, and like push it up right, like it's like you'd never want to know how the cake is made.
Of course, movie magic, movie magic.
Movie magic, some grip underneath.
You know.
Yeah, that's so great.
And so like we're in between takes, we're like I put my hand on top and I go and I'd slide it back down and whoa, wha, whoa man, which crack them up, and we keep the you know what, the thing I find, especially with young actors is they're just not used to working. The hours are really long, right time, and so you know, I part of my job, as you know, their parent or somebody i'm acting with them, whatever relationship I have with them, is to keep them
engaged and keep them happy and keep them going. I mean, you know, if that takes like stupid dad jokes, or if that needs me making a goofball out of myself, which I'm really good at doing, especially according to my life, you do that because it just brings energy to the set and you want to make it fresh, and you just you know, look, you know the days are twelve hour minimum and sometimes you're going you're shooting sixteen seventeen hours. Yeah, it is what it is.
I know it's always tough, and you guys worked for such a short amount of time. But have you ever been able to link up with them on like social media or have any any interaction? So then you would you wouldn't know that Katie's tattoo artist. Now she has like a huge tattoo studio and she's like a tattoo artist. Really well, yeah, is that wild.
Covering tattoos and is a tattoo artist?
Yeah, she is.
Yes, It's just wild to me to think of this cute like little just ray of Sunshine with her little blonde bob is Now, like, I can't even imagine what she looks like with being.
A tattoo like owning a tattoo salon, that's so crazy.
Well she she, I mean both of them had ryan too, but she in particular she had great First of all, her parents are great. She had great spunk. Yeah, wreckles, she had these adorable wreckles. She looked like she looked like the Frankly she looked like to me, the face
of Ireland. That might be just be my but she looked like one of those like those tough Irish girls who was like all punky, like if you if you push her, she like push your right back and jump on your back and you know, want to wrestle with you. Like she was just all in and and and and you know, just great personalities. It was a real pleasure, a real pleasure, sincere pleasure working with both of them.
Oh good.
It couldn't have been better human beings. And they were totally professional. You know.
Now, you mentioned before that you were in New York, and then you started in New York, and then you came out to LA and went back to New York. How did your journey as an actor start. Were you a child actor? Were you a little bit older when you started? How did you get into it?
I was definitely older. I was really deeply depressed. So my dad. I grew up in Maryland. I grew up in a I was born in the city and we moved out of the city when I was about four or five, and my mom worked at this Episcopal day school. She started volunteering and then she started working there, eventually started teaching there, and we got to go to the school for free. But my sister and I both were keenly aware that we were with kids whose parents had money.
Our parents had no money. I mean they really did, but they learned how to work the system in a time, in a day when you could work the system. So my mom we got free tuition because my mom worked at the school and they weren't paying her very much, you know, and we had this really great education. I got to do Toad in the Wind in the Willows in the sixth grade musical, and I absolutely loved it. And we had a cap gun that malfunctioned and I improvised a line. I said, you know, the line was written.
It was like rat says Tody, why did you, you know, shoot that gun off? And the line was like, I just wanted to see if it would work, and I and you know it didn't work. So I said, I just wanted to see if it would work, and it didn't, you know, like this big comedic moment, you know, but beat beep, you know, and the audience roared and I got my first laugh. Well, I would like to say to you that I then did. I was a theater
kid from age twelve on. But no, I was the only way for me to get to college was to get a sports scholarship. So my way out was playing sports, and I got recruited for football and lacrosse. I ended up playing lacrosse in college Johns Hopkins and and And when I got out Hopkins, I had no I do what I was going to do with my life. I worked for a bank and I started a commercial as a commercial credit anialist and I was a commercial loan officer.
I was there for about three years. I went into mortgage banking because of three of my former teammates working for this company. They said, we can get you at raised and salary. I thought it would last about a year to two years, saved my money, moved to New York and follow this crazy dream. Because when I started at the bank, I started in an MBA program. Hated it so much I dropped out after a month, and then I took a couple semesters of fiction writing, a
couple semesters of journalism. I thought I wanted to write and I wanted to tell stories and I didn't. But then writing is solitary, and I had come from the world of team sports and I wanted to be a part of a team creating something. And then on a whim, I came out of the bank one time on I remember it was I was on a lunch break and they used to have these free newspapers on the street and these boxes, and I go to the box. I get this, you know, I'm like looking through it and
offers you everything. You know, average it's basically advertising. But there was an advertisement for introduction to acting class and it was like three blocks up from the bank, and I thought that's interesting. I've always thought I could be a good actor. So I took this class and I did the first night, I literally just I was like, oh God, this is so cool. Because the woman who taught it. She just said, you know, you really got
to be part journalists. You have to do It's the who, what, where? Why? With each character? Who are you portraying? Why? Where are you? What time? Is it a period piece or not? You know, what do you want? What do you need? What are you trying to achieve? And I then took another acting class, but this time on camera and it was sit that on camera class that a bunch of my fellow classmates said, you're so relaxed in front of the camera. Why are
you so we're all like dying? And I said, well, you know, I played a sport where you would either be playing in front of, like, maybe at the low end, one thousand people, and if it was a national championship game twenty thousand people and you turned your head the wrong way on the field, you get your head handed to you. So, because it can be a pretty and especially in our day, it was a pretty violent sport.
So I said, you know, I'm not I'm used to people watching me, so I don't really you know, you just focus on what I got to do. Sold everything. I took a mortgaging. I ended up in Alabama with this mortgage banking company, living in a trailer and living on off of a clay road. You know, it's literally in a corn field with railroad tracks like one hundred meters behind the interne. At three in the morning, when the train would go through the whole, the whole thing
would shake, you know, the whole whole trailer. No insulation in the trailer. So when I wake up in the morning, like in Alabama gets cold in the winter, you know, like you can see breath, you know. And I'm sharing the trailer with a mouse who you eat through my planner's peanuts. And then I started leaving peanuts out for the mouse, and I would talking to the mouse. I was like, I gotta get out of here. I'm talking to money.
Oh my god.
I go to I sell everything. I sell the car, and I had two thousand dollars and I moved to New York in nineteen eighty five. I had some my sister's former friends from her college who put me up so that I could sleep on their floor. And I literally slept on the floor. And then I found two women who one of whom I had known in high school, who said, we have an extra room. You want to rent that as a bedroom, and I had an introduction
some managers and I just started. I got a waiter job, I got a doorman job I had later on, I got a bartending job. I did cater waitering, and the whole time I had an introduction to some managers who have basically wanted me to go away. They were like, I was in my bank. I was literally in one of my bank suits when I met them, and they were like all dressed up, and I'm like, people got dressed up when they did a job, and I'm trying to get you as a manager, and they wanted me
to go away. And I remember the woman that's another story, but she had these Catai glasses on a long straight It was like strict. It was straight out of Woody Allen's Broadway. Danny wore, this stuff does not exist anymore. I mean it was building back in the day. And she's smoking, literally she's smoking Virginia's slims that are about this long. She's looking with these cat Ei glasses on the on the bejeweled string and she goes, okay, honey,
where's your resume, where's your picture? You know? And I and I said, well, I don't I don't have a headshot, and I don't have a resume. I'm trying to, you know, get all those things. And I told her my story and she's like, there's this great moment where she goes, so you're not an actor. And I said, she said, well, honey, and she's like putting her cigarette. She goes, honey, just come back when you get those things. Someday we'll see
in a few years. And it was like this one of these crazy moments where I thought she was just being mean and where I came from a farming community, if you were you know, if you were being rude, you had to call someone out on it. So I tried to do it gently, Like I literally remember leaning on her desk with one of my ELO's and I leaned for it and I said, listen, I'm really good at following directions and I come from a business background. So if you give me a list of things to do,
I'll do everything on that list. But I don't have a photographer. You say, I need voice and diction, you see, I need acting classes. Maybe you can give me some names. I'll do everything on the list and then i'll see you in a few months. And she looked at me, and she went and her name was Anne Steel, and she said all right, and she pulls out this big yellow pad and she takes her pen and pencil or whatever. She goes, do this, do that, do this, do that?
You know? Hare see you? And I did, and like that was like late February of ninety eighty five, and then like in April, I get this. In those days you had answering services, and my answering service was the aptly named bells are Ringing and message from Needletz and Steel, and I had met Anne Steele. But Gene Neederletz, her partner, said it's from a woman named Gen Needles. I call
her back. She says, yeah, you met my partner a couple of months ago, and she said, you look like this thing that they're you're going to use in advertising soon. I've met with all the people up at Gray, so I want to meet you. So I meet her, and then she says, yeah, the people at Gray Advertising say they're gonna be meeting people like they look like you and commercials, so I want to see what you can do. They're called yuppies. I don't know what that word means.
And you know, whatever it means, I don't care. So they had a studio with lights, a camera, the ability to play back whatever you recorded, and a piano and they and half they were child managers, but their children had all grown up. And like I met a very young Jason Alexander, I met a very very young I met a young, already Emmy Award winning Michael Knight, who
was on All My Children for you. Of course they married people alex Winter Bill and yes they had this you know, like talk about this is the dumb luck that you know you fall into some group, that this is the group, this is the group. So I can remember, like all the actors would help me. They taught me how commercial copy. They taught me English is spoken four by four meter. They taught me how to use emphasize adjectives. I started going out for commercials. I started booking them.
They signed me, and that's kind of how I got the start. And then so classes I took every class I could. I entered a two year Meisner program and I went through Mester training for two years. And I remember in September of eighty six, I got four network national commercials in one month, and I said, all right, I'm hanging up my I'm hanging up my bartending soup. I'm hanging up my tuxedo. Because I was caterwaiter in those days. I was working for Abigail Kersh catering and said,
you know no more about Mitzvah's bar metz Was. I told myself, I'm making a living as an actor. Yes, and then so from September of eighty six until COVID, I didn't have to do anything else but but be an actor.
So you really, yeah, you don't hear those anymore.
That's yes, you do so.
Many amazing anymore. So much of that doesn't. I mean, I'm lucky the Fisk Building is still at Broadway in fifty seven.
No, that's because that's I mean. I was. I was a child actor.
I started in Connecticut in eighty six and then wasn't going to New York and by eighty seven eighty eight, So getting off in Port Authority and walking.
The streets and go in New York.
Do you go up into the little cage and you close the cage and you go upstairs and they go, sorry, kid, you're too fat. I turn around, I go back down. I get it on three hour bus ride back to Connecticut.
I mean, like, none of that. It's just the whole business is different.
Now, so different.
Well, speaking of.
Success and all the things you did, our fans would absolutely come after us if we did not at least talk about One Tree Hill a little bit.
Uh sure, So what was that like? What was that job like? And what was it like being on that set?
It was very fast, I remember, I think that was a straight offer. They had seen me do something else and thought that I'd be good as Peyton's dad. And I think I did over maybe three definitely two seasons, but maybe three. I think I did five or six of them. And he was always a captain. I mean, this just made me laugh. It makes me laugh to this day. He was always a captain who was out at sea with his boat. I mean I was like, really, really,
the heck was out to see this much? You know, rain is out to see but whatever, And we were in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was really really you know, it was good. I mean I had a good time. I met Ironically, even though I had no scenes with chet Michael Murray, I met him. We had a lot of back and forth on the set. He was he had become a big star. And then I worked with him directly, of course, in a Cinderella story playing playing the King.
Yep, the other one we're supposed to ask about. All of our producers are like Cinderella Story. Come on, Cinderella Story. Like, okay, let's do one tree Hill first, we'll get to Cinderella Store.
So at any rate, it was they shot quickly. It was a well oiled machine when I got there. But you know, she couldn't have been nicer. I mean, and she's so talented and so nice. And now they're doing their reboot.
Yeah.
Wow, amazing of them. And they're children. I'm like, wow, yeah.
It's like Fuller House.
Ye yeah, it's like and I'm like, I'm ready to be a grandpa, you know, even in my endo, my grandpa phase. But it was, uh, you know, I would fly down, shoot one or two, fly back to New York. It was, you know, like I said, they they were under a lot of stress that it become this this huge, huge, huge hit. And you know, Hillary became really huge, and I mean, you know, U, Chad Lafferty, all those guys, they became really really you know, yeah, star.
Well that's one of those shows.
I mean it's like it's like a smarthouse where it's got fans and fans and fans and just levels of fans that have been gone back for you know, years. So you've been involved in a lot of these things that have had just an incredible amount of longevity.
Well, yeah, another more dumb luck. I mean, what's interesting. I went last a year ago right now. In fact, I went to the I've never ever done a convention before, and they invited me for a Onetree convention. So I went to Wilmington and it was really fantastic and it was great seeing them again and and we talked and caught up. And what's clear from meeting the fans at the convention is that everyone you know, and much more women of course than men. But it was really a
mother daughter thing. I mean, I had if I had one mother daughter, I had you know, countless examples of mothers and daughters say that's that's our show, we watch it together, we commiserate. Wow, you know. And I found that really interesting too, because that was just I didn't solicit, you know, I wasn't asking a question. They were just
volunteering that. I thought, well, that's really interesting that One Tree Hill sort of became like the thing that bond bonds a lot of mothers and daughters and and you know in an interesting or analogous way that you know,
smart houses in many ways about father sons. Yeah, Like again, the power of storytelling and when you sort of touch on something in the zeitgeist that and what I mean by that not to sound fancy, because I'm not trying it, is that there are these I kind of think, there's these themes that are floating through our society and then some movie or TV series like really gets into it and everybody's like, oh God, that's why I love that show. Because they talk about the stuff that we actually are
dying to talk about. It gives you an excuse, it gives you a channel, you know, metaphoric channel to begin to share. And you know, that's always to me the great examples of why storytelling is so important, or else the planet that wouldree insane.
It would well more insane. So another question. Then, a lot of times we.
Talk about something like a high school musical or the movie that Sabrina did, Cheetah Girls, something where right when it came out, there was instant recognition instant success that it exploded on the channel, you know, entered the kind of mainstream right away.
Did you notice this with smart House as well.
Was this something where right after it came out you noticed people coming up to you or there was publicity about it, or did this take a while and kind of grow.
No, I think there was a you know, I was more surprised at the longevity, the tale, the long tale of it was an initial reaction. I remember, you know, people telling me how wonderful they thought it was because they had never seen a house like that.
They were all talking about the house, right, But.
The tale, the longevity became about all the things that we've already talked about about just father son, the father daughter kids, reverse engineering problems and becoming their own heroes and taking ownership of them of themselves, and and a problematic situation and acknowledging grief and everybody missing mom and you know that, you know, I'm so grateful for the just the lines of like you know, when I think when I said, I think it was to my son
who said, I said, You're not the only one who's hurting here.
Yes, Yeah, that was an incredible scene.
That was a moment you know it.
I mean, that's so oh, it's you know, I'm going to get emotional because the thing is is that we go to movies in the theater and and we watch our TV shows because we operate in these silos, even between fathers and daughters, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, two sisters, it doesn't matter. We we sort of get in our silos and we sort of forget that, you know, that other person's going through hard
times too, and as their hearts hurting too. So again, any story that allows the it sort of becomes like a bridge to each other. You know, it's sort of the story becomes the bridge itself, and from one side to the other, you begin to talk and to share, and you begin to you know, I mean a psychotherapist
would say, you begin to empathize. So great empathy is brought up because you know, you start you start confessing, think you all my verbs, You confess, you, you share you you know you you bear your bones, that you bear your soul about something that's really troubling you. And then there's talk.
Yeah, well that's what I think was really awesome. And what makes this is a lot different than some of the dcoms that we've seen, is we're not just seeing the kid's perspective. You are seeing like an adult, and it's the lesson for the kid to see that. You know, everyone kind of looks at their parents when you're growing up like they're superheroes, right, and you just kind of it's like you realize and it brings that to the forefront, like the raw idea of this person is a human
who is going to go through things as well. It's not just the kids learning, people parents learn. And I think now when I watched it this time, I'm a parent now and it was like that moment of like, oh my gosh, yes, oh god. I mean that it took me by surprise of how emotional that that scene takes now looking at through like a parent's eyes. Very cool. It was awesome.
Sabrina, thank you for sharing that because you know, again, look and you guys know this, You've not only been in the industry, but you you know, interviewed a lot of actors and I'm sure they've all said the same thing, which is like, you know, you're a part of one hundred a minimum of one hundred person crew. You know, maybe two hundred. Everybody's got to do their job. You're
doing your job. You know you're you're part of a cast that could number in the do you know, a couple of dozen or more, and you know you only hope that there's a long afterlife and that people it resonates for a long time and it just h I think, you know, and I'm great again. I'm grateful that you guys shared the ratings of I've never frankly, never even heard of because I don't I don't go looking for that kind of stuff. But I've always gone by what people have said to me when they stop me or
ask if I'm the dad in smart House. And then you wouldn't believe what comes out of people. They just these confessions, these these these like can I tell you what it meant to me? Type of thing? I tell you how it helped? Can I tell you how? And it's happened so much that you know, there's a part of me that's like, I don't give it what Rotten Tomato says. I know the power of what it did. This is what critics don't count, you know what I mean?
There are you know, idiots because they don't even acknowledge, you know, a seminal moment like you just did, Sabrina, the power of of just the raw, raw honesty of a confession of the heart of a broken heart in that moment. And if it's done well, and I think again, you know, again, credit to a wonderful script and credit to LeVar. When it's done well, I mean, oh my god. I mean we're still talking about it, and here we're going. You know, in twenty and twenty seven, it will be thirty years Wow.
Yeah, getting.
And not that this could ever ever, because it can't approach something like it's a wonderful life. But if people begin to say to me, we watch Smart House at Thanksgiving every year in my house because it's a ritual in the same way that you know, Jerry watching Christmas movies. Whatever becomes a ritual, I really won't be shocked, you know what I mean. I know, I know there's a whole group of people out there that watch all the home alones. They watch one grief, you know what I mean.
That's we we while we're making our Christmas meatballs home alone one, two or three. You know that's what That's a tradition that I got pulled into with my husband's family. They've been doing it their whole life and now I we do it at our house because we host Christmas now. And that's what it is.
Yeah, you know, it's one year lives, you know, an annual ritual once a year, whatever that ritual is.
With this incredible resume you have, what is the one that you get recognized for the most?
Oh? Smart?
Smart?
There's no doubt even Home Alone three even you know, you know, I would say I could put Raising Hellen and a Cinderella Story together, tumblone three and By two and a couple other things and they would equal Smart House.
But again, I don't you know. I remember I bumped into I want to say, maybe like ten years later, right before I left LA to move back East with my wife, I ran into the producer of Smart House, and he and I had had a lunch afterwards because he wanted to know if I'd be open to doing a smart house too, and I was like absolutely, But for whatever reason, it never happened. I was like, we said, the Disney Channel people are over the moon over this.
That's it's so successful. And you know, and I know it was because I've got the residuals to tell you how many times. I mean, I'm telling you they wouldn't rerun it if it wasn't good. So it it resonates and it has stood the test of time. And so I don't know. I mean, I I'm immensely there was a time when I would And again this is a poor reflection on me, but I'm going to be honest
about it. Where I was like, you know, I remember I used to joke with my wife before she was my wife, when she was when we were living together, she was and I said, and we were just dating, and I said, you know, watch it, I'll be remembered for smart house and nothing else, you know what I mean, like kind of like that would suck, you know what I mean, kind of thing because I wanted to do such other blah blah blah, but only only with time and frankly, to be frank lost, you know when your
parents die, when people friends of yours from high school and college begin to die early, and you begin to realize and I now, I'm like, you know, I should wash my mouth. That was so because being you know, born Catholic, you know I would I would probably go back to the old school, you know, punishments of like that,
because I should be so lucky. I should be so lucky to be remembered for something that has all these wonderful themes that you've touched upon, and that it still helps people and they still want to watch it and they still resonates with them. Make come on, they love it.
They love it too. I remember it coming out. I was a Disney kid that grew up racing home on the night of d COM's being premiered, you know when back when they would premiere on the channel. And I remember watching it when I was younger and thinking, Wow, could you imagine living in a house like that, you know, and and all of that. But then again, rewatching it now as a parent, just older life experiences, it was like a whole new movie to me, and it was
just that much better. I mean that really, it just was that much better and it was so fun to watch.
I guess a great movie.
A couple of times when I bumped into Katie some function or another. Long time now, but I remember, you know, within within the ten year period after we shot it, and Katie would like, look at me, and she goes, who'd have thunk? Hawk? Killer. She'd be like, who if I said, Katie, you know that bob hair do girl, And and you being a smart Alex smart house, you know that you said, I never would have guessed, you know.
And and Katie, you know, she's a brilliant musician, songwriter and singer and incredible actor and you know, I mean, she's a real artist. And so for Katie to like say that, it means something as well, you know, So you know she acknowledges it too. I regret that I haven't bumped into you know Ryan, you know, over all these years, I would I would, you know. I know, for for a while there, I used to get the question all the time, can you put me in touch with Ron? I was like, no, I can't do that.
You know, I mean, I mean, if you want to give us a Cinderella story story.
You know. She it was her first feature film, Hillary's, Hillary's, and she was absolutely scared. I mean she was. I mean, she had a bodyguard. This guy was huge. She used to run lines with her and she would like literally like sit on his knees and run the lines in the scene. And she was terrified of the big kiss with Chad. She didn't know how I literally think that was the first time she was ever kissed period, not yet, let alone on camera. Right. Wow, that was shot in
a very fast way as well. But I remember we had a really fun time down at the car wash when we shot it was down Long Beach somewhere, and we shot it down there, and the two young women who played the wicked step daughters were hysterical and they were so up for like, yeah, we want to get full of soap, and you know they're just going to like run us through this car wash a million times
and stuff like that. So I remember that was really fun and and we were, you know, later surprised, of course, but you know, I think at that point everything that Hillary touched when you know gold, Yeah, it was very successful. She had a massive and I guess to this day so I was a massive following. It was fun working with Chad. Chad was so like he was like, you know, I got to make room for this Disney movie because then I got to go back to North Carolina. I
was like, boy, you have such a like that. You know, you got to your TV star, now you're becoming a movie star.
You know, Yeah, I feel bad for you.
I was like enjoy it all, you know, like stop saying it like it's you have a scheduling problem. That should be the least of your worries.
You know, right.
But he was glad to see me. I was glad to see him, and it made there was a very great and there was a great shorthand there as well, and we got to you know, the director was kind
enough to let us, you know, improve. I will use that word of some lines on the script because I always try to do that just to make just to put in stuff that sounds more truthful to my ear about fathers and sons or any parent child relationship, because a lot of it sometimes they're written in a very like you know, tell a TV or yeah, like bad TV, bad movie way, And I'm like, no, let's like mess this up a little bit and ye make it more ambiguous. So yeah, no, that was fun as well.
That's great. Well, I just have to say, first of all, thank you for joining us.
But also you've you've mentioned several times how you you gave props to LeVar Burton and to the writers, but it's also because of the cast.
I mean, you guys were all just.
So great and you and Ryan especially your relationship was really the crux of the piece, and it was a very very you know, we've said this for we're watching all the Disney Channel original movies.
Some of them are more difficult to get through than others.
If we're being honest, this one was not difficult to get through at all. This is a great put it on and you're just watching an awesome movie. It just happens to be a dcom. That's how I look at it. It was, Man, it was really good.
Last few guys for watching every.
Yep, yep. We're getting there, so I don't know how many we're in now, but there's really good.
School is really tough home work.
No, you know what the good thing is is, it's been so fun. Most the majority of them are great. We've some we have hit some that are just like, oh my gosh, I could not wait till this movie was over. But for the most part they're really good. And it's really fun is doing the interviews because every single person we get on loves and feels so honored that they were able to be a part of the channel because of what all the things we were just talking about. When they get to meet fans who loved
the movie. It's so much more than just the job. You realize how much you're impacting and how much of an impression you've put on somebody, and it's just it's wonderful. And that's my favorite part of it is seeing it over and over again. Every actor we get to talk to how much they loved being a part of it.
Yeah, well, you guys have been really great. I've loved being a part of this. If you need anything in the future, don't hesitate to reach out.
Oh we will. We're gone it.
We're now.
We're not done yet with the show.
I really do. And well, we.
Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us.
We'll see it next time, all right, William all right, man, another good storyteller.
I know, my gosh, this.
Actor is the storytellers.
Man.
It's just great.
I mean, think about it. With the resume he has this movie. Smart House is the number he said he was putting one treat that he was putting, yeah together Cinderella, putting them together and saying it's still the one that he is recognized by the most.
Yeah, that's incredible. D Combs Man, D Combs, we found it. We found it. Found the Golden Dick. We did, we did well.
Thank you everybody for joining us for this incredible interview, and thank you.
Kevin Kilner for joining us, for taking the time and for very I mean kind of ignoring your wife's call, which is which I love that. Yeah, good looking.
Dude, cooking dude like hi, jeez, he just I mean, and he's a he's an acting coach now, I mean what this.
Is amazing, Sabrinas Minton. Sabrinas Minton, I love it. Thank you everybody for joining us.
You can join us again over on our other feed as we watch these wonderful movies and you know.
Stick with us because well we've still got a lot left to go.
You know, if you actually put them all together, we've got about another We figured out another nine hundred years of content of watching these movies, and we're so happy that you're gonna be sticking with us for all all of them.
You really can't wait, don't forget.
You can always join us or follow us, I should say, that's the word I'm looking for. You can follow us over on the Instagram machine at the Magical rewind Pod.
Not a good interview, Sabrina, Yeah, we'll see everybody next time. Thank you, bye bye.