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