The Melrose Minute (We Love L.A.)

Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney thorn Smith.

And Daphney's Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast.

Hey everyone, so this is our Melrose Minute.

It's a little different because Laura and I are here in the middle of these La fires. We really want to jump on and respond to our listeners. People are sending out love from all around the world. I've really been impacted by it and it reminded me that, you know, we're all so connected. And we'll answer some fan questions, but just FYI were all evacuated out of our homes. I'm waiting to hear about my home. Courtney's waiting to

Yeah, it's it's quite a time in La and we know that by the time you're listening things may have changed, and really hoping that by that time they will be much.

More peace in the city and the fires will be more contained.

So pray for us.

We wanted to be here to also just really express our gratitude for so many people who've reached out and expressing your concern and your thoughts, and we wanted to let you know how important you as listeners continue.

To be for us.

So this will be a little bit of a different episode today. We're not going to do a recap or regular content. We're really just here to express our gratitude, share our thoughts, and.

Also connect with you guys on a real level. Right, Like this is a podcast, it's a rewatch, but we're also Laura and Courtney and I really care about each other. We care about you guys as our listeners, and we're telling you what is happening in real life now.

So that's important to us to connect with you. We see your questions.

You guys, DM are still the place on Instagram. We get tons of questions, and so here we are just we're relating to you as people.

Yes, so let's do a couple of questions.

Okay, ones we get all the time, or what are our favorite storylines? And what are our worst? So you had so many of Sydney, what were yours?

Do you have that?

Yeah? It is okay, very strange to shift gears in this moment, but maybe it's a good distraction.

I think to talk about Melrose like this.

All right, So my character got to do a lot

Of back in Thomas.

You know, you had a lot of comedy in your character as Sydney. I didn't have a lot of I had zero comedy as Joe. So your storylines like that when you were the secretary hilarious, And it could have been another show. It could have been like this trio. You guys were all so funny.

We were on a little bit of a different show, Like yeahy.

Now tune into this episode. But then how was it Laura to play the other parts? You did some very serious things.

You were a stripper, you were a callgoer, you had men taken advantage of you.

You had all that, which Joe.

Had a biz tons of bazillion men taken advantage of her.

And but did you prefer the doing the lighter.

Comedic stuff as Sydney or the dramatic stuff for both?

Well, I think it's obviously it's more fun to play the comedy, and I loved that I had the character that gave me the opportunity to do that.

But I thought it was also really important that.

Sydney had like a heart and like to see a fully rounded person in the context of the show as well, Like she was constantly in search of herself and trying to you know, compete with her sister. And we're about to finally have Sydney's first appearance on the show, and we lay the groundwork for seeing that really what drives her is her insecurity and her you know, trying to live up to her expectations of herself and trying to be like her sister or like at least figure out

Yeah, and it was cool.

It's cool to see you do both. I've told you that before. Cool to see do the wacky, funny stuff. But then also you were so real and heartbreaking and some of that other stuff as the vulnerable.

Well thanks, And you of course know that the drama is exhausting, and it's exhausting too. I just you know, had had nothing but on camera, you know, emotion and drama. It's just as exhausting as an actor.

So yeah, that's funny because you know I was.

I was exhausted, and yet I also a lot of my training, well I did. I started out doing comedy, that's the irony, but I really did get into the drama of it. So, like my favorite stories were I loved falling in love, so I had a lot of love stories on there. You know, Joe was such a dummy to leave Jake and then go for his brother Jess, who you know, beat Joe up.

That was all very difficult for me.

But you needed the drama, so you had to leave him.

But I needed the.

Trauma and then you know, getting pregnant with Reed's baby and all of that.

I mean, that was fun to do. The drama. So I had a fight with him.

He hits me and you know, puts Gaffer's tape on me and throws me at the bottom of the boat in this hole, and then I fight my way out and I you know, blow him up on the boat. And so I loved having physical and emotional stuff to do on camera.

I just am so comfortable with that. But yes, it's exhausting.

I did enjoy that storyline, and then having to go to his parents and then Kimberly steals my baby and tries to breastfeed the damn baby.

Give me, you're giving it all away for I keep finding people who are like, I'm listening to your podcast and I'm listening or I'm watching the episodes for the first time, and I just love that people are are good coming back to Melrose by discovering the podcast first and then going now I want to watch the show.

So I love that. And so there are some people out there who some of these stories might be.

I don't care, Laura. I want them to see me.

I want them to go get a paramount plus subscription and see me throw a chair through the sliding glass, mashing the window.

As I go after Kimberly, who as my baby. I mean, it's all coming. I love that storyline too. You know, we had such drama.

But I have to say, having said all that, when we would get our scripts that didn't come very far in advance. I remember being in the makeup trailer or or you're exhausted shooting your day and then you go back to your own trailer and there was that Manila envelope and that was next week's script and it was.

A few days away. You know, I was very excited.

I always would like, say, what's my exciting dramatic stuff, And yet towards the end, to be I'm gonna be very honest here, towards the end, you know, things started to really repeat. I mean, just scene after seeing it was like I had another guy come in, a bad guy, taken advantage and threatening me. And I don't know how you felt, but there were times when I thought, oh god, it just feels too familiar.

Do you have a recollection of your would you say your least favorite storyline?

Then I don't have any story on specific enjoy doing.

I have to tell you it's true, but but I do. The least favorite part of it is later in season three. I did four years, so in season four, for sure, Season three was wild and crazy and wonderful for all of us. I think that was our big year. And then season four for me is when it got kind of repetitive and I'm like.

Oh, can't you know?

And I think I was thinking, can't they give me some humor too? And every job since I've done, like on Lantree Hill, I'd be like, can you please make me drunk in the middle of the afternoon, as I say, can I please be a little tipsy here and.

Have some humor, have some fun.

I always want to add a little humor now, you know, even if it's dramatic.

Well, and like you know, we had chippeys On and he commented that it's really kind of a universal theme that years two and three are the best for the writers as well. But like once you get into the season four show, it becomes hard for everyone to come up with new and creative stories.

And it's hard.

It's a wonderful thing that we all went for so many years on the show, but it does the evolution of the seasons will have an ebb and flow to them, and certainly after that, you know, initial explosion of wonderful scenes. It's it is hard to come up with stuff that's fresh for every single character, and you know.

And also for the because it's an ensemble, certain characters have to be storyline heavy and then other ones have to be like lighter, and then they switch around and then you won't see so much of this couple over here or this, and then you'll see a lot of you know, the Joe and the baby, and then you see a lot of they.

Can't keep it all up high.

They have to, which I which it gave us a little break, you know, when you in between.

And what else we've got.

We've got some other fan questions here. We just appreciate you guys sending these questions in and we sometimes we just sort of accidentally answer what you're asking, but we want you to know that we're hearing you when you're reaching out, and we do love it when you ask questions. The Daphne, i think, even addressed another fan question when she said that we don't get our scripts very far

Up one episode.

We had to read the envelope and they didn't come in an email at that time. But then we were right into the next one, and it was I think it was the same for all of us. We couldn't wait to open that envelope and see how it's gonna happen.

Yeah, and then it's funny because you start to learn your lines.

You have to start to learn and run away.

But then they have, you know, new pages, and every time there's a new as a rewrite, there's like a new color set of pages, and sometimes your your lines would change, so you're like, you know, you have to learn those changes. And sometimes I mean by the end we'd have rainbow of our script would be tied together with those brass you know, those little tab brads. It's up they're called brads, and different colors, like six different

Golden Rod, Remember Golden Rod, Golden Rod.

Yeah, it was a very colorful script.

Here's one question. What was it like shooting the Rolling Stone photo shoot cover? We shot a lot that day.

Do you remember across from Paramount in that little I forget the name of the bar sidebar?

Maybe yeah, And we should answer this one when we have more of our cast to weigh in, because we were all there for that. It was like, I think it was one of our major magazine covers that were all really proud to have been a part of bute like no small feet, to have all those minim in the height of our and this says the cover here.

We also did five others setups, so all get on the inside. Well, they can cut this, our editor can cut this out, or they can leave it on and maybe we'll do a tease for next Melrose minute.

They'll be pieces of it that will.

Trust me.

There's many Melrose minutes to talk about to come.

But also There's another fan question.

Someone asked, what is the storyline your character was involved in that Your first thought was, wow, this is over the top, even for Melrose, which.

I will say we all thought of at some point.

You're right, it wasn't just the audience going wow, this is over the top, even for Malurs.

I think there were Honestly, I thought that.

Sydney often had the oh, you want to do something like, let's give it to Sydney, and so I would read the script and go, really, I was being a stripper first to a cult and like being a madam. I went from being a call girl out of desperation and then not just that she tries to, you know, take over being a madam whatever souper fun. But a lot of the times I would ask myself, oh, my gosh, really is this I mean, is this over the top?

And like all right, let's go and let's do it as well as well.

We didn't have to say, you know, we just had to read it and make it work.

That was our job.

So it was like, okay, and it's like I again, season three, you start to go season two and three, you were like, oh, this is going to be over the top, more and more and more and more. But it's you know, and well working or not, you have to make it work. We had no say, we couldn't change any lines, you guys. So you know the thing about Joe's baby, Joe's has a baby, then it's kidnapped. I mean I was on David Letterman once and I

Of that, and I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that Jane and Sydney buried Richard alive. So that was a big spoiler people, for those of you who haven't watched Melrose yet, that's coming.

Yeah, to bury a guy alive.

But and then what happened, and then what happened when more over the top thing happens.

Alive being the key word, right, Laura alive.

It was fun to take the audience along for the ride before we go.

I just want to mention we all talked about how popular Chips episode was, and we loved talking to Chip and he We all agree it was too short and all the fans were saying it was too short. So we definitely will have Chip Hays on again. We are starts with Darren and we're going to reach out to the other writers. You know, we've talked to our other castmates, but we're going to have him on again and other people. And don't you worry, it's all coming.

You know.

There's so many stories that we don't even know about behind the scenes.

So I think that's that's about all we can manage for this time, a little mini episode for today, but just know that we really appreciate everybody and your continued support and your continued thoughts about where we are in the world and in the city of La which you know, all three of you are Still the Place.

You know, there's there's drama La Laura.

It's just making me think there's drama in fiction and then real life drama, you know, and uh, it's I mean, it's just really intense.

Because we're layering the two.

I just want to remind everyone to please write us reviews on our our actual podcast, you know, give us a rating and follow that and download those. That's really important. And of course you can find Still the Place on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at Still the Place. I'm on social media on Instagram and Red's and Laura, you're on Instagram that you Laura Layton for real.

Yeah, Laura Layton for real and yeah, just most of all, like we just appreciate you subscribing to the podcast and continuing to listen. We do have an extra special episode coming up this week.

We're gonna drop it on Wednesday.

We do a pod swap with pod meets World and that will be coming up on Wednesday.

That was pre recorded.

Yeah, so thank you so much.

Fun. We're continuing to be here for.

Us and we want to love you guys, here for you.

So thanks for coming to still the place and we are still in La. It is still the place.

Love you, Bye bye bye