Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Jenna von Oy (Blossom's Best Friend!): Don't Live in Your Own Shadow

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Jenna von Oy (“Six” from Blossom!) reunites with Mayim to discuss coming of age on television, their mixed feelings about 90’s nostalgia, and the evolution of Jenna’s sexuality. They reminisce about all things Blossom - the origins of its “hat culture”, their on-set inside jokes & pranks, the groundbreaking nature of the show, why the odds were stacked against them, and their excitement about a potential Blossom reboot. Jenna explains how she cultivated emotional agility to handle rejection as a child actor, her people-pleasing tendencies that developed from portraying “girl next door” qualities, and how her role in her family changed after she found success acting, including the hard financial lessons she had to learn. She also opens up about the acceptance she found after beginning a relationship with a woman. Check out Jenna von Oy's work with The Cassandra Project: https://www.thecassandraproject.net/ BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We would like talk about all of the boys on the show, which had I really been able to come out of my show a little more, probably would have been looking at some of the female guest stars on our show too. But I didn't know that yet. Then I was like, no, women were never on my radar. And then I really thought about it. Like in retrospect, I think they probably really were. And I just, but I just didn't give myself.

I didn't allow myself that. But like making myself happy, I started asking myself happy. I started actually questioning, what does that look like? And that was one of those things where I just realized that I had fallen in love with this woman. And here we are. By and large, people were really accepting. I feel closer to some family members than I've ever felt before because I think that authenticity was such a breath of fresh air.

and while unexpected was, you know, they knew that that was me saying, hey, you may or may not have a response that's fun or comfortable for me. And this may be an uncomfortable conversation for you, but here we are. I have friends that I expected living in the South, obviously, the landscape is so, challenging is such a misunderstatement, especially at this time. And I didn't really know what that would look like. And one of my dear friends who has been a friend of mine for over 25 years, he was kind of the last person that I told about my relationship with Kaylee.

And he said to me, you know, the beauty of you telling me this is, I suspect that you thought that my reaction was going to be to try to talk you out of it. but I want you to know that I love you. I love who you are. I want you to be happy in whatever that happiness looks like for you. And regardless of religion, culture, background, any of it, I will walk beside you. And for me to abandon you in this moment says so much more about who I am or the lack of who I am than it does about who you are. He gave me this soulful love in this moment where I, he knew that I wasn't getting it everywhere that I needed it, but it made up for it a little bit.

You know, it just, it kind of, it kind of gave me a hand to hold that I didn't think I was going to have. It's my and be all eggs break down. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. Hi, I'm I am Bialik. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. We're already laughing because we have so much fun this episode. Jonathan, you get to meet someone who knows me very, very well today because who is she?

Your best friend from childhood. At least that's what she was cast as. Jenna Vonnyi, who played six Lemure on Blossom is with us. This is a big get for us. A huge... 90s presence, at least in my life and in the lives of so many people who watched Blossom, Jenna gets really real with us about, I mean, honestly, things that I didn't know about her from the time. You know, I had all these perceptions of what she was like and what she came from and where she was going.

And, you know, she's a grown-up. And I don't know. Did you learn anything good? If I'm pitching the episode, what's most important is if you're a real, you're a little bit of, Blossom fan. You want to know about the days, the behind the scenes of what it was like on the show, how Jenna got the role, we go deep. We do go deep. And also, um, in addition to, um, you know, she did a bunch of stuff before Blossom. She started acting very young. She was in the goofy movie. For, for those of you who are 90s kids, um, that's another thing that she did. But she was also in

born on the Fourth of July, something people may not know about her. That was before Blossom. She was on The Parkers. That was another long-running series. She was on After Blossom, which was on UPN. She's done a bunch of shows, but she's obviously so well known for her time on Blossom. In addition, she recently wrote a short film

and is co-producing it for a trilogy called The Cassandra Project about elevating women's voices. She's going to talk about that. She went to USC film school. Like, we're going to learn all the things. Jenna also is going to explain. what the F was up with hats because true story, it actually started with her. If that doesn't make you listen to this episode, I don't know what will.

Another reason you should listen to this episode is Jenna Von Oye and I have never talked in this depth and like processed and unpacked and like deprogrammed from what our life was like growing up on Blossom and we're going to get into it. Break it down. Jenna Von Oye, welcome to the breakdown. Thank you. It's very exciting to have you here for many reasons. You have a huge, you know, a huge portion of our audience that is just going to be losing

their minds right now because much of our audience, you know, is of the demographic of people that, you know, are fascinated with sort of like where people are, especially from the 90s. There's a huge nostalgia. I wonder if you can... Before we even get started with, you know, hearing sort of who you were before, you know, the blossom years and who you are now, can you talk a little bit about this, like, 90s nostalgia? I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm curious what your kind of take on it is. I guess I have mixed feelings, too, in a sense.

I mean, it's still very real for us, I think. Like, there's still a part of my brain that's like, oh, yeah, you know, we're going to work tomorrow and we're going to wear hats and I'm going to talk fast. I don't know. It feels like yesterday. So it's a bizarre transition to look in the mirror and be like, oh, we're adults now. And we've sort of like transitioned into this other level of life.

Well, I was recently on David Lashar and Christine Taylor's podcast. And, you know, they're getting all these like 90s stars and, you know, many people that we hung out with, like worked with, knew about. And it, like, it took me a minute to remember that, like, they were on a show together. Like, it's kind of like I, a lot of that chronology, you know, I remember what people looked like when we were all teenagers.

But, like, you mentioned that you ran into Stephen Dorf and, like, you know, I still see Mario Lopez. Like, it's so, it's so strange, like, to put, um, to put that kind of chronology together. And we'll kind of get to all that. But I think that it would be helpful for you to kind of talk a little bit about where you grew up and what your young kind of acting life was like because you started acting very young. And I remember when we worked on Blossom, you know, you and Joey were veterans.

Like I was literally, that was the first TV show, you know, that I was like, you know, kind of in with any regularity. Like this was all a very new world to me, but you had a lot of experience in the industry. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, where you grew up and what it was like and then how you got into acting so young? Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, going back for just a second, running into Stephen Dorff yesterday, when I say I ran into Stephen Dorff, like I didn't even say hello because I was so sure that he was not going to remember me or maybe even that he was on a show called Blossom once upon a time. So I just refrained from saying anything at all. So apparently the chronology has. in fact set in for me somewhere in the recesses of my brain. But yeah, I started really young. I, when I was about two and a half or so the story goes, I told my parents that I wanted to be an actress because I saw this joyous jeans commercial. Remember those? And these girls were doing

ballet and I took dance classes at the time and there was something that resonated. And I said to my parents, say, that's what I want to do. And they said, ballet, you already do ballet. And I said, no, I want to be on TV. And I want to say that that was probably the first inkling that I had, that those were people, because they were children my own age. And I don't know, I don't know what I, what concept I had of it prior to that, but in that moment, that was me realizing that there were actual children who had this thing, whether I thought it was a job or something they did for fun, an extracurricular activity after school, I don't know. But I was like, that's what I want to do. And my parents were like, oh, that's so cute. Today, an actress tomorrow, a firewoman. And that, you know,

that latter half of that never showed up. It was always an actress from that point on. And at some point my dad who um you know i come from a really small town really my parents are my mom's from a small town in wisconsin my dad is from a small town in connecticut and you know they knew nothing about the industry at all this was not anything that i was groomed to be um but my dad worked at a restaurant with this woman who had just started taking her son to new york uh on the train for auditions and And she met me and she was like, that one. Of course, we later found out she was stealing money from me. But that's a story for another day.

That's, I mean, that's like the 80s and 90s all day. But yeah, so that's kind of how I started, was she started taking me to auditions. Yeah. So tell me, like, and you have more siblings than some people. Not, I mean, many people come from. Some people. Right, not a girl, but some people. But, you know, you, you, you came from a family where, you know, when you have a lot of kids in a family, everybody's got a distinctive personality, everybody's got their thing. Yeah. What do you think, like, now that you're a grown-up, now that you're a mom, what was it? Like, what was it about you?

Well, I'm the oldest before. So there was no pre-me to sort of. set the stage for what was to come. And I think my parents didn't know what to do with me. Honestly, I think they were just baffled. Like I didn't stop talking. Shocker, I know. And I had a lot of creative ideas and I was constantly writing things and creating songs. And they were just like, this is, this is sure, this is normal. This is what kids do. And then they had enough people say, this is a little off the normal track. to start listening when I was saying, this is really what I want to do. I'm telling you I want to be an actress

and please help me find a way to do this. And to their credit, they did. I, you know, now being the mom of two, I don't know what I would say. And granted, there's a lot of experience behind me now. So, you know, with my parents being as green as they were, I'm sure they had no idea what they were in for. but I don't know.

You know, we all had our own sort of thing. Like I, as, and I think this is a very common. I'm sure it's still very common, but it was very, my brother and I have talked about this a lot. He was, I was the creative one. He was the smart one. My sister was the athletic one. And then my youngest brother is nearly 11 years younger than me.

So with that gap, he was sort of allowed to be, little bit of all of it without any sort of classification that had to remain with him. I also think of your youngest brother as the baby, because that often happens in a family, especially like when I met you. He was. He was still little. He was too, I think. Right. So like then that kind of became the personality. So, and how far were you from the city? Because also for people who may not know sort of that region of, you know, like surrounding New York areas, you can definitely not be from New York, but be New York adjacent enough that going into the city for auditions is a thing. But what do you remember as a kid? Yeah, and such was the case. We were probably a two-hour

trip to New York. And when I say I took the train to the city for auditions, I mean, we were there multiple times a week. My parents devoted a lot of time to taking me in. I have very fun memories. My father is really tall, as you may or may not remember. Yes.

Unlike yours truly. And I got all the recessive jeans, all of them. But my dad is really tall, so I just have very fond memories of trying to keep up with him on the long blocks in New York going to auditions,

and he used to carry me on his shoulders. And yeah, it was, it was, I spent a lot of time in, in the city when I was a kid. And so what, you know, what, what kind of jobs were available to you? I mean, you were adorable. And adorable children, you know, was, there was a market, you know, for that, you know, in television. So this would have been early 80s, right? Early mid 80s. Yeah. I want to, I started when I was six years old. So, and I was born in 77. So, go ahead and just throw that out there.

So, yeah, I mean, it was the early 80s. And I started in commercials and voiceover work and all of that. And then it sort of moved into guesting on shows. And I mean, we're talking everything from like Kate and Alley to Tales from the Dark Side. And just like, you know, the shows back then. I auditioned for a little bit of everything. I did some films and I remember doing a reading for a really a movie that ended up being huge later at Paul Newman's apartment overlooking Central Park. Like just just random, random memories that jump back in when.

But I mostly was like at the very beginning, my thing was that I wanted to be. be a triple threat. I just knew that that was my lot in life. I was like I was going to dance and sing and act and I was going to be on Broadway. Lo and behold, I was just like not as excited about being on stage as I thought I was going to be at the beginning. But I did also audition for a lot of Broadway stuff and seven auditions in front of Steven Sondheim.

And I was quite sure that I was going to be a little red riding hood into the woods. and that I didn't fit in the same spotlight as the guy who played the wolf. And so that one was out. And that was like one of the biggest disappointments of my early childhood was not getting to do that. My MBLX breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful.

Maybe they're like, you're fine. Drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what superpower is doing. They send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab.

One simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers. That's way more than you usually get. It unlocks a true understanding of your body. Their app has detailed information on heart, liver, thyroid hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. From disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system out there. I've been super tired of constantly guessing or just trying to read articles online about what to do for health.

Superpower gives you an actionable health plan based on personal results. It's a real game changer. Plus, they have an on-demand clinician team to answer questions. Supplement or prescription suggestions can be directly bought through superpower so you don't have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499. Right now, it's $199.

for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them.

Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. Yeah, what do you remember? because, like, you know, a lot of, I wasn't acting a long time, you know, before Blossom. And this is, you know, I think you and Joey are, you know, people who understand this best. You know, people refer to me as like, a child actor. I'm like, I totally get it. You know, I started professionally acting when I was 11. But, you know, the years before that to be in the industry is very different than not being in the industry.

And so I would always reference you and Joey, you know, because. you had a lot more experience. Like, that's just the truth. Like, it would have been true if you had a year more, but you didn't. You each had, you know, between the two of you, a decade of experience, you know, doing things that I didn't really understand. So I was still very new, you know, to the acting world. I got cast in beaches a year after I started acting.

But what I remember was that I was not an emotionally resilient child when it came to rejection. and I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that because you, you know, you always struck me as having a lot more confidence, just kind of like in yourself and in your talent. And I wonder, were you always like that? Because I have friends who are just like, if I get it, I get it.

If I don't fuck them all, you know? And like, I was never like that. But I wonder if you remember there being a progression of how you dealt with. Because also, like, to be a child and be told, like, no, you're not cute enough or someone else is better. Like, that doesn't feel good. No, and that has really long-term effects that we probably don't talk about enough.

But I think it's interesting, first of all, that you saw me as confident because I felt that I was the least confident person that I knew. I struggled often with being different and feeling because I was always enrolled in the curriculum at my school growing up. So even in middle school and high school when we were working on the show, I always felt not quite where everybody else was in terms of going to prom and having to have. having those normal adolescent experiences that I would, I mean, I would obviously, I don't regret a thing. I would choose it all over again. I don't mind that I missed out on those things. But I did always feel a little bit confused about how to be a normal kid because of it. Because that element of being a normal kid wasn't really part of our normal everyday existence. We had such a unique

experience, shared experience during our highly formative years. And so confidence for me really fell short. And to a certain extent, still does. There's a lot of, for me, I think it was a lot of the people pleasing aspect, the being the quintessential girl next door. And in some way, you know, that sort of warms its way into your psyche and there's this part of my brain that's like, yeah, I'm still a ripped jeans flannel shirt-wearing teenager from the 90s who wants to be everybody's BFF. Like that's, you know, there's a certain part of that that remains.

I think in a way my exuberance may have overshadowed lack of confidence. I am a very outgoing person when I need to be. I'm also highly introspective and love to have a lone time, but that that people pleasing aspect of my personality, that that need to sort of live up to expectation and having spent so many years being the girl next door and feeling like that's what everyone wanted from me and to a certain extent still does, probably belied what was really going on in there. I likely was as lacking in confidence as you were, just maybe not overtly.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think the other thing that I wanted to ask about is, you know, the role in your family changed from an early age in a way that, you know, obviously my role in my family changed, you know, when, I began getting paid to do something that I just like enjoyed doing. Sure. I'm not necessarily like, you know, asking you to speak to like money per se, but maybe you can talk

a little bit, you know, about, you know, kind of how your role in your family had to change both, you know, before blossom, because even, you know, even the success you're talking about, that may not be like, we're going to buy a new house, right? But it definitely is like, oh, this thing that our daughter's good at and natural at and that people want to, you know, have her do is also, it's like a thing that, like, she gets paid for. Like, it's just, it, it kind of changes your role in the family. And I wonder kind of what that was like, because also your siblings were young, you know, like, you were all little. Like, it was, you know, you were a new family for your parents, right? They were just still building their

family. And you have this kid who, like, has not only, like, making money, but, like, has this independence and is like having a career and people building her up. And, you know, it's kind of like everyone was our parent. That's how I felt. Like everybody I worked with kind of became a parent in some way. Interesting. I, my experience differed slightly, but I also wonder if that's because I went back and forth so often to Connecticut. You know, my parents did this crazy thing where my mom stayed with me in Los Angeles and my littlest brother Tyler. And my dad stayed with my middle brother and sister, Peter and Alisa, so that they could maintain their schooling.

The schools in Connecticut are really known for being much more aggressive than the majority of schools in California, at least if it's not a private school. But the public schools are super aggressive and great. And so my parents really felt like it was a. important to keep them engaged there. And they had all their friends and their after school activities and things that they were amazing at. And my parents wanted to, and I'm glad they did, it was important that they did support them and encourage them to continue being who they were.

And to take them out of that wasn't really a fair thing. And so we really just went back and forth as much as we could. So I always kind of felt like we were going back to get grounded, which really was helpful. Looking back, that's probably the best decision they could have made as hard as that probably was for them to be a part like that. I can't imagine making that sort of sacrifice. Hey, some of the best marriages happen when people aren't in the same place. Now, that's also true. That is so very true. So, yeah, I think, you know, I don't feel, I didn't feel quite as parented by other people. I felt like I was going back to being parented by my mom and dad. I felt like they shielded me from a lot of stuff

that looking back in a sense, I kind of wish they hadn't. I think I was delayed in really having a more worldly understanding of certain things, whether they happened on or off the set, because my parents were so good about sort of keeping me in this bubble. but that I think also turned into some confusion later in adulthood when the world sort of threw itself at me and said, here I am. You know, it's a little odd to live in that kind of small arena of going to the set and going back home to do homework and going to sleep.

And then on hiatus weeks, going back to see your family and being a part of that. And I don't know, there was no, there was really no time for much else. You know, I really thought of you, you know, as like you and your mom and Tyler. And then, you know, I would get to meet your other siblings and your dad. You know, sometimes like they would come out. It was a circus. Yeah. But yeah, maybe we can kind of shift then a little bit to how you got to, you know, your blossom.

years because you had, you know, kind of this batch of years where you were doing other things and you were, as you said, you know, working, would you say you were working like regularly, semi-regularly? Like enough that you were still in school, obviously enough. Yeah, I felt I was working fairly regularly, but because it was smaller projects, you know, like you, I often, I looked at Joey as the veteran. I didn't consider myself that way. I can completely understand why you saw put Joey and I in the same category in that way. But I, but I didn't see it that way. For me, I'd had all of these sort of abbreviated experiences

throughout the years, you know, and Joey having been on a long-running show and being a regular on it, he had an understanding of how things worked on set that I did not yet have. So I really gained a lot of my experience at the same time that you gained yours. Yeah, for sure.

that's interesting and, you know, kind of before we, because I want to, you know, kind of hear about how you first, you know, got to audition and things like that. But I think that was one of the things also that felt really different about Joey's family versus our families. You know, his family was already really structured around him, him as the centerpiece and the star, you know, of what he did. And this is not, you know, in any way to speak disparagingly about anything. But I'm saying, like, for us, I feel like, like our families, our moms were kind of figuring it out. Like it was our first time as regulars on a set. Like it was our first time, you know, having a company that like we had to, you know, have interactions with year after year after year. Like it was a very different world. And it's true. Joey's family was really structured.

You know, I feel like we were still learning like what's a business manager? Like what? Like how do we do? Like who's a lawyer? Like I felt like we were both very green that way. You know, my parents were not industry people. like they were public school teachers. And, you know, so like we both kind of, it's true.

We're learning at the same time. Tell us how, you know, a girl from a small town in Connecticut gets an audition for a TV show that eventually would lead to you relocating across the country when you were not even finished with middle school. Right. Yeah, I, I, I don't know. auditioned in New York. It's a kind of bizarre story.

The day that I auditioned for Blossom, I was taking the train into the city. We got on in Fairfield, which is where we always got on. My grandparents lived in Fairfield. And so that was our, that's where my dad grew up. So that was our train station.

And this guy was sitting behind my mom and I, and I remember he said, he asked me some sort of question. about why we were going to New York, probably thinking that we were going to see a show or I don't know what he thought, you know, skating at Rockefeller Center, who knows? And he asked me what we were doing and I said, you know, I've got three auditions today. And that was fairly typical for me to have multiple auditions in one day. And it was for like a commercial and a mini series.

And I said, and I'm on a show called Blossom. And he goes, oh, that last one, wait, what's it called? And I said Blossom and he goes, that one, that's the one you're going to get. What? Yeah, this is so weird. And he goes, get ready. And I didn't, I mean, I was 12. I didn't really know what to say about that.

And I was like, okay. Well, at the next train stop, like, you know, there aren't many stops between Fairfield and Grand Central. And at some point we turned around, well, the guy wasn't there anymore. and he must have gotten off at 125th Street or something. I don't know where he went. This guy like disappeared. But I looked at my mom and I was like, well, what would we do if I got a show like that? And she goes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

And I was like, no, I think we have to cross the bridge now. I think we need to talk about it because this guy just said, I'm going to get that. So such a bizarre circumstance, but it really did kind of get us in that frame of mind of What would we do? What would that look like? How would that change, how we work through our schooling and family and all of these things? And so I don't know if you remember this, but when I, so I went to the audition and I wore this big, wide-brimmed purple hat. And it had buttons down the front.

Somewhere in the recesses of my attic, I am certain I still have. this hat. Someday I will find this. And I will send you a picture what I do. But wide-brimmed purple hat. And when I got the call back, apparently Don Rio had said to my agent and make sure she wears the hat. Oh. Yeah. And so I wore this hat again. And then I was flown to L.A. for the screen test. Simultaneously, I was screen testing for a show on CBS called Lenny. And also written by Don Rio,

unbeknownst to NBC and CBS, I was going to network the same day for two different Don Rio shows on two different networks. And one character was, obviously, fast-talking and really a bullion. And the other one was very dry, sarcastic,

you know, snarky kind of girl. And apparently I can pull off both. The Scrantzv for Blossom was first. And I met you at the studio, and we went to network, and they told me right there that I had gotten it. and I still went to the screen test for Lenny. And now I'm not like my brain is not functioning.

Did I go to the screen test for Lenny? Maybe I didn't. Maybe they canceled that screen test because I had already gotten Blossom. And they cast somebody else in it. And when we finished our pilot, at first we didn't get picked up. And while they were restructuring Blossom for a mid-season, replacement, they called me and asked if I would do Lenny. And so Lenny did get picked up. And I did the first half of the season of Lenny. And then Don called me in my school room. I'll never forget.

I'm just being tutored on the set, doing a little math. And I get this call from Don. And he's like, hey, so I know that you're already on this show, but do you want to be on another one? Yeah. And I got to to come back and reprise my role of six. You know, for people listening, this is like not a typical thing to have happened. Jenna was a, I mean, Jenna was a very, very special, you know, a very special talent. And it is not typical to be cast in two shows or even to be up for two shows simultaneously. So, you know, there was, you know, a certain zeitgeist, you know, there was a certain thing about Jenna and, you know, her presence that was really special. And in terms of casting, you know, a friend for Blossom,

what was unusual about our show was that it was based around me, this female that didn't look like other girls on television. Don wrote a character that was originally supposed to be a boy. It was supposed to be Catcher in the Rye, like, you know, a TV show based around an exceptionally precocious but also playful. character that was supposed to be a boy. And so we already were like doing a weird thing. We had this weird lead character. And again, like I was just in beaches and everybody was excited. But also shows about girls, there was no network shows about girls at that time at all. So everybody thought Don was crazy. I mean, everybody thought we were crazy. So the question is when you have a lead character who typically is the strange looking friend. I mean, that's really what I'm usually

cast as. I'm the, I'm like the quirky friend. I'm like the weird one. You know, the question is, who is that person's friend on television? And extra quirky friend. An extra quirky friend. It's the answer for that. No, but I think, but I think it speaks to a lot of the quality that you brought as a comedian to this show because Jenna was a person who could carry a plot on her own and, you know, did. Um, she also was, um, she also was, um, you know, she was a special kind of precocious. You know, she had this, I don't mean to talk about you, like, you're not here. But it is a little weird, I'll admit. Sorry. No, but I'm saying like when people think about like, oh, Blossom and Six, like, it was this beloved, you know, pair. But also we were both non-traditional leading ladies, you know. We were both like quirky and we had like a thing about us. And, you know, Don ended up, you know, capitalizing on your, you know, you were very bubbly, you know, you were exuberant and bubbly. And also, like, you had a very

East Coast way about you. Like, you had a deadpanability that, you know, when, when asked why her name was six, like, the answer was, my father said that's how many beers it took. And, like, you don't expect a 12-year-old, you know, to deliver things the way Jenna could and did. And what ended up happening, you know, was we did. We had this sort of friendship that got to grow on television. that I think for a lot of women in particular, and men as well, but I think for a lot of women in particular, this felt more like what friendships actually looked like than a lot of the friendships that we had seen on television because Jenna and I, you know, we watched 90210.10 and like, everybody was gorgeous and like everybody was amazing and they looked like women. And our age.

But that's, yeah. Right. But we were actual teenagers, you know, who actually enjoyed our lives. And, you know, I think we both kind of experienced that struggle of like we were girls becoming women like at a very awkward time, you know, of adolescence to to be on television. But we were really, I mean, I hope you agree. Like, we were gifted with material that was like very interesting. And it was funny. And I think especially for girls on television, it was not, you know, it was not what a lot of people were used to. You know, we, we had a show also that, you know, it was always fighting. for ratings, always, always fighting. And it's funny because people were like, but it was fresh prints and then blossom. And it's like, yeah, but we actually premiered after the Cosby

show. No one thought anyone would watch a show about a girl. That's what they said. They said, girls will watch girls and girls will watch boys, but boys will only watch boys. And we were up against Monday night football. Like, it was like impossible. And it was always like. It was stacked. It did. Yeah. Yeah. So I think also like a lot of, a lot of what I remember was you know, both in an attempt to capitalize on, you know, like Joey's teen idol status. And also in an attempt to sort of build up ratings, like Jenna and I also grew up on a set where it was very common to have Playboy models and half-naked women in dream sequences and all these things. And it's funny because, like, I was this like, I'm sure no one's surprised,

like, diehard feminist. Like, I didn't shave and I wore Doc Martins and like I was dark. But, you know, for both me and Jenna, we were also like, trying to find our own identity as women in a culture at that time that was still completely comfortable with just like, I mean, I remember when we would have Playboy models on, like, word would get out on the lot. And men from other sets would just, like, show up to take pictures with these women. And look, God bless these women, that was they were used to it. But the exploitation was really prevalent. And it was so normal. I mean, everyone treated it like it was normal. If that happened today, it would be a, I mean, sets would be shut down,

sag after would be stepping in. There would be, I can't even imagine what would be going down. Yeah, can you talk a little bit? I know I just kind of like said a mouthful, but I wonder if you can talk a little bit about sort of like what you remember, you know, of these kind of formative years, in particular as you sort of, you know, blossomed from a girl into a young woman in front of America and the world, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, you're right. We had a very at the risk of overusing this word, but we had a very groundbreaking show. I mean, Dawn somehow managed to step into this young, female teenage skin and write in this very authentic way that that allowed us to pursue subject matters that I think most shows were, I, either uninterested in pursuing at that time or couldn't handle the backlash on or, I don't know, somehow Don was given this like carte blanche to write these things that most shows didn't tackle.

And I love that we got to be a part of that. And then you pit that against the fact that there were, you know, scantily clad women on a weekly basis showing up in Joey's dream sequences. and I don't know. It was a very weird dichotomy. I don't know if I really... I always thought of those women as so much older than me at that time. Totally.

That I don't know that I really sat there and thought, oh my gosh, I don't have that. Hell, I probably wasn't even wearing a bra yet. I mean, I just... I think that kind of awareness showed up more in my personal life. When I went back home, for example, to finish high school in Connecticut, and for example, I remember that I went to a friend, a friend was having a bunch of classmates over,

and I hadn't been there in months because obviously I'd been in L.A. on the set, and one of the boys came up behind me and went to go snap my bra, which was such a common thing. I wasn't wearing one because I was flat. I didn't need a bra. Like, what? What? And so that kind of thing gave me probably more awareness than these ridiculous women that had their breasts hanging out and were wearing bikinis on, you know, on what for all intents and purposes was thought to be a kids show.

But, you know, I don't know. It's like, I'm like, yeah, times were different. They really, they were so different. Yeah, again, I go back to for me, it was less, I think it was less about what, less about like the feminism side of it, which I really didn't have an understanding of until far later. And more about this going through these awkward years in front of people and trying to be what they wanted me to be or what I perceived that they wanted me to be. and I sort of became fixated, I think, on making sure that I was giving people, giving the people what they want. And so, for example, I had a horrible time with acne.

But I, you know, Linda and all of our amazing makeup staff did like this incredible job of putting makeup on me every day, but I got used to that. So this daily makeup became daily makeup in my own personal life. And God bless COVID for making me realize that may be wearing makeup every day. That's horrible to say. But like, you know, that is something that really I was reminded of, I think, working from home a lot and being at home so much during the lockdown was like, oh, yeah, I can let my skin breathe.

like I don't have to do this. This isn't a necessity. It's a work in progress. I'm still learning. But there were days where with all of this horrible acne, I would like go to the grocery store. And this was the concept of giving people what they want was very much supported at home for me.

And so I recall, for example, I was like going down to Ralph's for milk. And I was told, wait a minute, you're going to go like that? because I had no makeup on. And I was encouraged to go back and put makeup on to ensure that in case somebody recognized me, I would be presentable.

And so there very much was this facade of presentability and what that looked like. And I probably hid behind that for a really, really long time. And it's very, it's sort of hard to live in your own shadow as much as it's hard to live in someone else's shadow, it's very hard to live in your own shadow. And I've very much lived in the shadow of this person that I thought people wanted to see for a very long time.

And I think also, you know, one of the things that, you know, when I look at what it's like to be a girl on TV or a teenager, you know, in the public eye now, I don't, it almost feels like it's a completely different, like, century. Like, it feels so different because obviously, there was, of course, like that notion of presentability and, and, you know, we each had our particular things. And, um, but, you know, when, when people ask like, oh, like, did people tell you to be on a diet? I was like, no, Jenna and I just, like, had the bodies that we had. Like, we didn't even

think about it. And, and also, you know, when I think there weren't really, like, there were publicity things, but you usually just, like, did your own, like, hair and makeup or like, I remember Joey and I once went to the people's choice awards or whatever. And it's like then like the people at work did our hair and makeup, but we didn't have like personal stylists. Like we weren't getting manicures and lash extensions and like all these things that are like, you know, really like at least in my perspective, like laborious for grown women, much less teenagers. But I feel like in a lot of ways like culture was so different. And I don't think people remember kind of what, you know, early 90s was like, like, you know, I have pictures of us when we went to the NBA All-Star

game and like, we're in like Nike's and T-shirts and like, you know, we were just, we just kind of looked like kids, you know? And I wonder sort of if you have any sort of reflections on kind of, you know, the differences between what it was like for us to grow up, you know, in the public eye versus what it's like for young women now. For obvious reasons with social media and such, you know, one bad picture is out there forever. I think it was Ian Zering who years ago had said something about like getting, he used to get letters in crayon and in lipstick. And that's such like a really great, for some reason I've never forgotten that. But there's something about that that's like, it's a reminder that, oh yeah, we got fan mail. It wasn't,

it wasn't an email. It wasn't. It wasn't an email. It wasn't. It wasn't a social media comment. It wasn't a like on Instagram. It was an actual handwritten letter. They used to deliver bags of letters to our dressing room. And we could, you know, sift through them if we want to. From all over the world. I got mail from all regions of Africa and the East and like all over Europe. Like the UK, like we were huge in Australia and like Brazil. Like we literally got physical mail. I got to see stamps from countries. I didn't even know it existed. Right, exactly.

I used to collect those stamps. I had like a whole book of them. I'm far from a stamp collector. But that, you know, but that was just interesting to see where they all came from. And that did two things that showed us that the world was bigger and sort of the far reach that we had that I think is really hard to pinpoint these days. You know, social media, you end up living.

in such a small little world that you don't really understand the impact that you're having and how far reaching that is. I think we understood that better because we were receiving snail mail. And again, I go back to this comment that he made about lipstick and crayon and just sort of the difference of looking at getting letters, whether they were from a correctional facility or from, you know, a seven-year-old who said, I was told to write to my first pen pal and I wanted it to be you is such, right? But it's so interesting to look back at that because we really had a better understanding of what we were doing and who we were talking to and who our audience was and what things resonated and what things didn't and what jokes. Even just having the live audience

and having people laughing in front of us and that that immediate not only gratification, but understanding of like what actually worked so that the writers could write there on the spot say, oh, that joke sucked. Like, let's swap that one out. It was just very interesting and it was a much more hands-on experience as a whole

than what people get now. It was a much more tangible, I think, experience than what people get now. And I love that about it. I'm so grateful for that. We had some, you know, incredible losses on our show. Ted Wass, who played our father, his first wife, Janet passed. And shortly thereafter, our beloved director, Bill Bixby died.

And Bill Bixby, for those of us who grew up, you know, in the 70s proper and early 80s, he was Bruce Banner. Like, he was the Hulk. You know, for many of us growing up on TV. had, you know, a very rich career. But for me, it was literally like The Hulk was directing us. And he was very close with Don Rio. And Bill, you know, this was a time when cancer was still whispered. But Bill worked literally until the day before he passed away. And so we, you know, we were actively involved with a lot of loss. And it was, you know, very, very painful. Ted Wass ended up

directing most of the rest of our show, which I think felt really comforting because it was, you know, It was one of us, you know, and Ted went on to have and still has, you know, a very exciting directing career. But despite all of kind of the hard stuff, we also got to have, you know, we had these dream sequences in our early years where we had people like Little Richard and we had Alex Trebek and we had Alf and, you know, we had Sonny Bono and all these people. But we also had some really fun tie-ins. And Jenna and I also took dance lessons for many years together. We had the same teacher and we would do tap dance lessons in an empty soundstage. And it was like some of my most fond memories were dancing with Jenna.

She's an unbelievable dancer. And in particular, a really, really gifted tap dancer, which is like such an old lady thing to say. But it's a very specific skill for those of us who are classically trained as tap dancers. But, P.S. Not to interrupt my children, would highly disagree with you that I am a good dancer. This is going to come as a massive shock to them. We also had the opportunity, though, to interact with, you know, some really, really enormous stars, some of whom became larger stars. We interacted with

Will Smith when he literally was called The Fresh Prince. He did a crossover episode with us. And we had Toby McGuire on and we had Bonnie Ribisi and like, you know, all these interesting David Schwimmer. David Schwimmer. But, you know, we also had like C&C Music Factory. We had Salt and Peppa. We had BB King, which is like, you know, historically fascinating and amazing. But I, um, I wonder when you think about kind of, you know, all of those sorts of memories, what are your kind of like favorite memories just for you personally? Not really as, you know, what was great for, let's say the show, but like what were some of your favorite things? For me, I think it was all in the smaller details. For me, the memories that stand out the most are you and I writing each other

coded notes. They're forgotten. We wrote notes. About boys. We were the, we were the, we were the, we were only people in our junior high school class. It was literally like a class of two and we would, that's right, we would pass notes and writing code. Yeah, we would pass notes and writing code that we were quite certain no one would figure out, which in and of itself is really amazing. And yeah, we would like talk about all of the boys on the show, which had I really been able to come out of my show a little more, probably would have, I might have been looking at some of the, of the female guest stars on our show too.

Who knows? But I didn't know that yet. And yeah, we would write each other notes. And then I think the clothes pin. The clothes pins before, like, you know how? It was like this inside joke where we would put clothes pins on the back of each other's shirts before introductions to the audience. Yeah, we should probably explain.

So one of the, one of like the most often used at that time before there were clamps that grips used, they used like close. pins, like the kind that I used to use, like, literally to hang clothing out on the line because I was born in the 1700s. And it was, like, literally a running joke that people would clip the back of other people without them knowing with a close pin. And, you know, for crew members who were particularly not in touch with their bodies, you'd sometimes have a line of clothes pins, like on their back, on their sweater. And it was just a thing. But, yeah, we had a lot of in jokes. I mean, we were each other's entertainment.

Like we literally, we didn't have junior, I didn't have junior higher high school. You know, I would go back on hiatus weeks, but it was awkward and not pleasant. And so, yeah, it was like all of our goofy things we did, we did together. But they were also so innocent. And I think that's part of it for me, too, is there was like such an innocent about the inside jokes that we had, the secret codes and the clothespins and the, and maybe, I don't know, in the long run, maybe that's what it is that stands out for me is that, is that, is, is being able to maintain that sort of innocence

in this very not so innocent scenario of being in an adult world and making money and being in a business. I don't know. You know, maybe that juxtaposition of this very adult business world

against these sweet moments of funny that weren't you know, that had like no sexual connotations or innuendos or, you know, I don't know. Maybe that's why I sort of not ignore, but sort of try to like gloss over the Playboy funny peeps too. I don't know. Maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, people are very curious about money. And I tend to not talk about it a lot.

except to frame it for people. And I'm going to frame it the way I do, and then I'd like you to frame it the way you do. People in the era that we were on television did not make the kind of money that people make now. And even with inflation, like, the notion of sitcom acting, like we weren't, it was not a highly respected aspect of the industry. It was like, oh, you're on a sitcom.

And like, it was awesome. It was fun. It was great. But we were not a critically acclaim. I mean, people liked our show. I mean, we got a lot of criticism. also because I think people were like, two quirky girls on a show and like, oh, well, Joey Lawrence gets fan.

Like, they didn't know what to do with us. And people made horrible comments about my appearance, which have never left me since I've, you know, been 14 years old. But we were not like, you know, we didn't get awards. We were never nominated for anything. We were always, like, struggling to be in the top 25. It was always like the little show that could, you know, and we like kept going. And we kind of finally got into our stride.

but the notion that people would pay a lot of money at that time for sitcom actors, I think that Ted Danson on Cheers made $100,000 a week, and you literally, you would have thought he was making $10 million. People were like, it's disgusting, he ought to be ashamed of himself. Like people, and that was exorbitant, and it was exceptional at that time for Ted Danson to be making that much money. I also like to remind people that while we were respected as women,

I think the fact that I was a girl had a totally different standard in negotiations. I think male lead actors definitely were paid differently. And we did not get points in the show. I did not have points. I'm assuming you didn't, if I didn't. And what that means is that the ownership of the show

did not belong to cast members at that time. And it wasn't like, I don't want the headline for this podcast to be like, my M. Bialik was ripped off. Jennifer, I agrees. Like, it was not, like, it wasn't in the consciousness to give ownership of the show to the stars. Like, it just wasn't. So, you know, obviously there are Jackie Coogan laws.

And I, you know, like to tell people that, you know, approximately 25% of your salary before the age of 18 is set aside. The rest of it is essentially fair game. Like, there's that, that's just the truth of it. And, you know, I like to remind people and I let people sort of fill in the blanks, however, they want. You know, when I went to college, like, you know, I was not an independently wealthy. I never have to work again person. I did have to work again. I continued to, I tutored. I did all the things that people do to make ends meet. I budgeted. I had to have a whole life. We did not make the kind of money that set us up for the entire universe. That's my take. And I'm curious if you'd

like to share yours. Yeah. I mean, my take is very similar. I, well, a couple of things. One, you know, the money that I did, that I made, thankfully I had a dad who was incredibly savvy when it came to finances and also highly conservative. I was not so conservative because I didn't know how to be. And no one, including my dad, God bless him, ever really laid the groundwork for me to be, to have that understanding that I really needed. and so that understanding came later like a fucking anvil on my head. But that's life, right? I mean, to a certain extent,

I know a lot of people outside of the industry who didn't make a ton of money who also had this similar experience. Now, we didn't make the kind of money that people make now by any stretch. I also acknowledge that we made more money than... 100% than children.

our age or most adults even made at that time. So I also don't want to ignore that and because I do think that that's an important thing to say. But is that long lasting? Can that can support your family 40 years later? No, no it cannot. You know, and the for me the struggle was really understanding that like after so after i did blossom and lenny fairly soon after that i went to college for a little bit i went to u sa film school and then i got another another show called the parkers right so for me doing those shows relatively backed back felt like money was just going to be there It was, you know, and I, again, I didn't really have someone saying to me, hey, here's how many works. And I really in my head was like, once an actress, always an actress, I will always be working.

This is, of course, I'm so passionate about this. How could I not continually work in perpetuity? And, you know, and that's, that obviously is not always the case. and also paths change. You know, I decided to have a family and move to Nashville and kind of have a bit of a quieter lifestyle. And so I think the result of that, though, is that so many people still assume

that I'm going to have this massive house and tons of money and that's confusing for me because I was 12 when I started the show and I was just shy of 18 when I finished it. I was just about to graduate from high school and go to college. And I did put myself through college.

I paid for that. And that was a big chunk out of it, especially going to a private school. And I feel very blessed to have been able to do that for myself. I really, I feel very proud that I was, able to do something that I know my parents would not have been able to do for me financially. But being an adult, adulting is a whole other thing. Yeah, so you did.

You also have an exceptional singing voice and did some singing and moved to Nashville. And yeah, you kind of, you did. You had a quieter, you know, existence. And also, you were on TV, you know, for years when I was, you know, off. in, like, I went to college and kind of left. And that was sort of my, I mean, I think we each had different, you know, ways that we coped, obviously. But you, you were married and you have kids and you are no longer married.

But, you know, and I know you have talked about this. And, you know, sort of when we first talked about it, I think it was at a time when, like, all you had to say to me was like, love is love. And I was like, that's right. Love is love. you have, I don't want to say chosen because it's not a choice, but you are in a relationship now, a long-term relationship with a woman. And I'm curious, you know, I'm asking this because, you know, I've known you through, you know, like such critical, you know, developmental years

of our life. And I think the way that I want to ask it is like a way that I hope you'll, you know, take it well and answer in a way that's helpful to people. Were you always gay? Did you know that you were gay? Did you, is it more complicated than that? Is it more about the person? Is it about sexuality? Is it about gender?

Like, what is the evolution, you know, that you get to now live a life that feels authentic, good, true, and also, you know, is bringing you so much joy? I think it's all of those things, really. And yes, it is complicated. in that I didn't see in myself, or maybe I didn't allow myself to see for a long time, something that I am sure has been there for much longer than I know or give it credit for. I think that having spent so many years living up to these expectations, not just that other people set for me, but that I set for myself. I forgot to look through the lens of what makes me comfortable

and uncomfortable, what I love and don't love, what is authentic for me without that layer of people pleasing and wanting to make sure that I give everyone what they expect of me. And I think I finally started to take charge of that when I got divorced. And when I started to sort of dig a little deeper and understand more about what that authenticity looks like for me. But bringing up authenticity, it's also important to say, loving and being in relationships with men, I don't see any of those in the past as having been inoffensive. authentic in any way. There wasn't, I don't think that I was ignoring the fact that I was gay and

putting on some sort of facade that I hope these men will now somehow forgive me for, you know, I wasn't faking any of my love or friendship or any of it, you know. But at some point, I think there was this sort of little door that opened up and and I moved in a little closer and grabbed the doorknob and said, well, let me see what that means. Let me see where this goes. And it opened up this world that I just really didn't know inside of me for a long time. I guess I've said before that women were never on my radar. I think when I think it was my sister who like, very beginning of my relationship with my girlfriend had said, you know, was this like something that you knew? Like, did you, were there other women that you were in love with? And I was like, no,

women were never on my radar. And then I really thought about it. Like in retrospect, I think they probably really were. And I just, but I just didn't give myself, I didn't allow myself that. Because I grew up in a Catholic family in a small town. My dad studied to be a priest for God's and there's like there's expectations of of marrying a man and having the you know two kids in the white picket fence and the dogs and the you know um and i really i thought that that was what i was supposed to do this was a very like set thing set lot in life for me um and then as i've gotten older and i started really again taking charge of of realizing that I can't possibly, first of well, it's such an impossibility to make everybody happy, right? We all know that.

So, but like making myself happy, I started actually questioning, what does that look like? And that was one of those things where I realized that I had fallen in love with this woman. And here we are. How did your family react? Because, you know, you and I are a little bit older

than a lot of people who are having these kinds of conversations at the stage of life, you know, like, yeah, I'm, I'm curious, yeah, I'm curious what that was like if you found acceptance or if it was a mixed bag or kind of what that feels like now. By and large, people were really accepting. I feel closer to some family members than I've ever felt before because I think that authenticity was such a, breath of fresh air and while unexpected was you know they they knew that that was me saying hey you may or may not have a response that's fun or comfortable for me and this may be an uncomfortable conversation for you but but here we are um i have friends that i expected

living the south obviously there it's the landscape is is is is so So challenging is such a misunderstatement, especially at this time. And I didn't really know what that would look like. And one of my dear friends who has been a friend of mine for over 25 years, he was kind of the last person that I told about my relationship with Kaylee. And he said to me, you know, the beauty of you telling me this is, I suspect that you thought that my reaction was going to be to try to talk you out of it. But I want you to know that I love you.

I love who you are. I want you to be happy and whatever that happiness looks like for you. And regardless of religion, culture, background, any of it, my, I will walk beside you. And like, for me to abandon you in this moment says so much more about who I am or the lack of who I am than it does about who you are. he gave me this, he gave me this soulful love in this moment where I, he knew that I wasn't getting it everywhere that I needed it, but it made up for it a little bit. You know, it just, it kind of, it kind of gave me a hand to hold that I didn't think I was going to have. You know, Don and I have talked about, um, trying to do a reboot, you know, in a way that we think would fit,

um, kind of the vibe of our show, which was, you know, you used, the word groundbreaking and I think, you know, with a lowercase G, that feels right. You know, Don has written, you know, it's not a dramatic reboot, but what he's written for us is, you know, a very grounded and, you know, kind of real approach to, you know, seeing what these characters would be like. And, you know, one of the things, like, you know, Six was this, like, outrageous, she was, she was an outrageous character. And, you know, one of the things that he's kind of teased about, you know, where six would end up is, you know, like several successful divorces down the road, like living her best life, you know, like really just like, this is where

I'm at. And I just, I love that, that notion of kind of your, you know, the, the playfulness that you brought to this character. You know, I think your character would probably be one of the funniest things in, you know, in a non-comity, like a non-sitcom kind of reboot format. But if you were to sort of, you know, if you were to sort of like make your pitch for like what you're curious about, you know, if we were to do a reboot, I'm curious. What would your pitch be? Sort of why you think people would be interested or why you're interested? I'm interested wholeheartedly. The chemistry that our cast has, and I say has, not had, because it hasn't gone anywhere. And there's really something so

so rare and special about that. We are very exquisitely connected in this way that I think people wouldn't understand unless they saw us together again. We got to have such a small glimpse

of that guesting on Call Me Cat with you. And it feels like we never left. And that's a, again, that's a really rare thing to have that sort of camaraderie between cast members, particularly when you consider how young we were, when we all started together. And I realize that we grew up together,

but that doesn't necessarily mean that we grew up, you know, in a linear fashion. Like we all could have grown up and just completely gone awry. And I think the beauty of the fact that we all have, still have this connection is just that there's more to that. There's so much depth to that. People need to see that. You know, I want to, I think people deserve to see where that.

goes. Now, in terms of the character, I, obviously I would, I love a flawed character. I love the fact that toward the end of Blossom we got to do as much as much as we could push the envelope in the 90s we did with Six dating an older man and, you know, them can, Blossom and Six considering smoking a joint and like there were so many crazy things, you know, Six's parents got divorced, which seems so sweet and innocent right now, but then it was like such a big thing. And so timely in terms of our age range at that time too. So I just, I can only imagine what that looks like, what that groundbreak with the lower G looks like right now for us to push boundaries and explore.

I don't know. I just, for me, it's the chemistry. I love the idea of getting us all. all back together and it's, you know, and even if it's in a slightly different capacity than what people expect of us, and I hope that it is, I hope that it makes, I hope that we can do that and give people an opportunity to sort of think outside the box a little bit and, and, and look at, maybe be a little bit introspective and look at like where they were when we were in this 12 to 14 year old 90s zone and what that looks like now for them, where our brains are, where we've all come

around and where we're still trapped. Well said. I mean, honestly, said better than I can. So I will hand that to Don. Also, before we let you go, as we mentioned in the intro, you do other creative things. And maybe you can tell us a little bit about the Cassandra project, which is a short film trilogy that talks about women's voices. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I've been writing for a really long time. It's always been kind of a part of me and it's taken on different levels of interest as the years have gone on. But I've always written scripts here and there. And one of my best friends, Barkley DeVoe, who's an amazing producer and director, who was in USC film school with me. But we've actually, we

grew up together in New York auditioning and swore one day that we would work together in a greater capacity. She called me last September and said, I have this trilogy that I'd like to do. And it's loosely based on her own experience with just spending over eight months dealing with horrible, horrible health issues and painstakingly attempting to convince doctors that it wasn't all in her head. and finally she found a team of doctors who believed her. And so this trilogy sort of came about, was born out of her, out of her pain and anger

and trying to sift through what it means to just not be believed in the middle of all of that. And so she called me and she said, I have this idea and I'd like for you to try and write one of the scripts. And so I took, immediately when she said that to me, I thought of this, of this dream that my older daughter had had a few years ago. She's 11 now, and I want to say she had the dream when she was 7 or 8. And it was this incredibly vivid, vibrant, profound dream.

And the script that I wrote is sort of my interpretation of what that dream means. That's awesome. And, you know, such an important thing. Such an important thing for you to do, you know, especially as someone who means so much to so many women, as I know that you do. This is really, really a delight, a really fun trip down memory lane. You know, I feel a really, obviously deep love and connection with you and always will. You know, we literally grew up together.

We were, you know, we were forced siblings who really weathered a tremendous amount together. And I'm, you know, very grateful that you were in my graduating class. Same here, as small as it was. Three students. Yes, right. Thank you so much, Jenna. Thank you for having me. There's a lot in there.

It's interesting to hear. I mean, we had different experiences and we lived the same experience, you know? And yeah, I was like, the star of the show, but like it didn't, I don't know. For me, it just felt like we were always in everything together. We experienced everything together. I didn't get to ask her, what? She thought in, like, the first days of meeting you. Like, she gets on the set.

Oh, please. She had to pretend to like me. I was the star of the show. I know, but, like, I wanted her to, like, sidebar with me and be like, what did you really think of that kooky kid? Look, no, what I remember is that, like, she was from a small town in Connecticut, you know? Like, it was literally, like, transplanting her to L.A., you know? I mean, I remember when I met her.

I met her literally outside of Paul Wood and Tony Thomas's offices. Like, I can picture the hallway. She wore the hats more than I did. That's something people don't know. She actually was the hat wearer. I had like, whatever, some hats were, but like it wasn't a thing. She actually started the trend, and then I wore it in like one publicity shoot, and that was it and it took off like wildfire.

But she still wore hats. Sometimes we both wore them. Would hats have been a thing had she not worn it to the audition? I mean, she has stories about you that we didn't get. She's got all my secrets. I'm like, were you nice to her at the beginning or were you like, Of course I was nice. No.

But you were so grumpy back then in general, reading your Camus and like being so grumpy and Catcher in the Rye-esque, even though you weren't Catcher in the Rye. So like, I wonder if she got like the, oh, I got to like be careful and I eggshells around this one. No, it wasn't like that. I was perky. I was perky and hopeful at the beginning. You know, when I started, I was 14.

Yeah, but by 16, you were like wearing dark makeup. up and you oh by 15 it was over it was over um no i wasn't wearing i was definitely having to explain to joey like joey was like why don't you shave why aren't you like other girls and i was like because i'm different um and so like jena had to tolerate i think a lot of that like back and forth and like learning about how strange i was um but no i wasn't like we i don't think i was ever mean to her i think that as as things got more complicated and we did have a lot of loss on our show um that absolutely played out, you know, into all of our experience. You know, I had never experienced really death of someone close to me. And we had, you know, Ted Wass, who was, you know, a young man.

Like, now that I'm 47, like, I could do the math. Like, he was not, he had two little kids when, when Janet died. Like, it was hard. It was a really hard time. And it just sort of, like, played out. There was a heaviness to us, you know. Michael Stoyanov, you know, definitely had feelings about being a young frustrated, you know, actor who wanted more out of his career. Like, it was just like everything. But there still was a lot of joy, a lot of fun. And I always felt very close with Jenna, you know. I always felt like she was the one who best understood what was going on. And oh, we'll do a whole separate thing on the code that we used. I could show you. We didn't break down the code. What was it? I can tell you the code. I'll tell you

the code. You want another code. Okay, tell us. So if you make a grid, like hash marks, and you put three dots in every square. That's the alphabet. So the upper left quadrant of three dots, if you put a dot on the left side, that's A. In the middle, that's B. And on the right side, that's C. In the upper middle quadrant, the three dots is D-E-F, G-H-I. It goes all the way through the hashtags. For the last one, there'll only be two dots. That's Y and Z. But you can write entire notes and letters, and we did in code. Or sometimes if we were like writing about a boy, because like we would interact with like other TV stars, you know, like at things and events and teen events. It's like we would just use the code to write out their name.

If we could find one of those letters and discover who you were talking about. We had to, oh, I know who we were talking about. Who were you talking about? I'm not telling you. How did you interact or were impacted by the dream sequence ladies that were cast? We're not talking about that now. We can have a whole other episode where you're, Jonathan is the host of Myambiolik's breakdown and his guest star is 90 star

Mayambialic. We'll do a whole episode like that. You can ask me all the things. If you want to submit questions for that episode, send it to At Biallic Breakdown. We're going to start collecting the 90 star questions for young Mayambialic, the retrospective of her early days. I might even put on makeup for that episode. All right.

with that from our breakdown the one we hope you never have. We will see you next time. It's my and Bialyx breakdown she's gonna break it down for you she's got a neuroscience PhD or two one fiction one and now she's gonna break down