February 22, 2024 • 25 mins
Join us as we dig deeper into the incredible life, and resume, of Full House’s on-set teacher, Adria Later.
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to how Rue Tanaritos. We are back with
the second part of our interview with our studio teacher
from Full House, Adria Later. Adria is giving us all
a unique glimpse into what it was really like behind
the scenes of the show and being the baby wrangler
for Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. So buckle up and
get ready, here's part two with Adria. Now, Jodie, I
(00:39):
think you and I went to regular public school in
addition to being schooled on the set.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So do you remember did you go to like your.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
First period of the day or did you do all
of your schooling on the set and just go to
school on the hiatus weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I went to school, I mean cause I was in
elementary school, so we didn't really have like periods yet.
First second, it was like I went to school until
about lunch, which was like eleven forty five or twelve ish,
and then my mom would pick me up and I
would work on my script in the car and I
would drive, you know, from because we lived in Orange County,
drive from Orange County to Sony Studios, which was in
(01:20):
Culver City, which at that time in La traffic was
such that you could make that journey in about forty
five to fifty minutes, and amazing. That would not be
happening now, that would you wouldn't You would not.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Be able to do that now.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But I was so fortunate because you know, it got
to like have quote unquote normal friends and normal school
stuff and be plugged in a little bit to the classroom,
and then I would take that stuff, you know for
Thursdays and Fridays on tape days when we had to
be there longer hours. I would take all of those days,
all those days, work for Thursday and Friday and work
(01:53):
on it on set.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Now, the reason you were able to do that and
go to school for those few hours and then come
to set was that your time on set could only
be three and a half hours because if you do
go to your own school, you can't then come to
work and work eight hours. So on the day so
you went to your own school, you could only be
on this head for three and a half hours, so
you would come from to run through. That was it.
(02:16):
But on Friday when we were taping, you had to
be there all day because we needed an eight and
a half hour day on yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Okay, huh, Okay, Yeah, there's all those like little nuances
and things of you know, how often kids need breaks
and how like how long they can work for Like
Ashley and Mary Kate at the time, what is like
for young kids, It's like twenty minutes in front of
the camera, right, but broken up into.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean when they're infants. Actually they read it
at eight months old, so I think at that time,
I didn't have to look back at my book. I
think it's they're allowed on the set for four hours,
you know, working four hours. I think it's two hours
of work and two hours of break. When they're infants,
like under six months old, you know, they can only
work twenty minute increment, right, But once they were you know,
(03:02):
because they were eight months old, they were they fell
into that category of being allowed there for four and
a half hours.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And the reason we use twins is because what they
could have done. They could have brought let's say, Mary
kateen at eight o'clock in the morning and brought in
and Ashley brought in or her at noon and then
you know, get an eight hour day out of it.
But because we flipped them back and forth and back
and forth every other scene. They were both there for
(03:29):
their whole a lot of times. So four and a
half hours, you know, gettle and then it goes up
to six and a half hours when they hit I
think I forget five, five or six years old, and
you know, the goes up. But they chose not to
split their call, which they do on most feature films
and most TV shows, is they'll give a staggered call
(03:50):
on twins to get a longer period of time on
the set with them.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Right, But then you're but then you're sort of you know,
you got to keep your fingers crossed that that one
particular twin is in the.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Mood to be doing it.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
It's kind of risky.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, if you tried to do something right about nap time,
forget it, it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And they were such good natured babies, so.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They really, yeah, they absolutely were, and they just became
such a part of the family.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
When the two of you too, I mean you treated
them like little sisters, you know, oh yeah, burn your
back on them. You played with them, you sat with them,
you talked to them.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I was very close with Ashley Mary Kate.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I mean sort of like how Andrea and I were close,
like I, you know, sort of look to Andrey and
Candice is like the older ones, Like I definitely was
that to Ashley Mary Kate and oh yeah I had
they would come to our house on weekends and all
that kind of stuff. But when you had such a
huge part in really you know, creating the fun of
(04:51):
the Michelle character in you know, them repeating the lines
and doing all that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Stuff, when did you kind.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Of realize like, oh, they were like this was becoming
more than just them on the show.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
But because you traveled with them quite a bit, right.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I want to say it wasn't until they were five
years old. I think it is when they did their
first movie of the Week with Jeff. Jeff wrote a
television movie of the Week for them, followed by I
think two other movies of the right, and then they
went on to do a whole video collection of spy,
you know, little Spy.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
They worked, They worked a lot, They worked really hard.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah hard, Yeah, they definitely did.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
But yeah, it was like five, They were like five
when they started doing all this, So it was a
little more towards like the fourth or fifth season exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I know, after the first season, first of all. After
the first month or two, Jeff and I talked about this.
He had them just paid as daily actors. They were
not under contract, and I remember it was like, I
don't know, three four, five weeks into the shooting, he said,
he kid to me, He says, I guess I should
put them under contract, shouldn't I?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I think, wow, right, I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I think originally the plan was to use babies for
a certain period of time and then just flip out
to older ones and liked and then season two go
to a couple of five year olds. Well, they chose
not to do that on Full House, which I think
was the key because America absolutely those little girls grow
up right in front.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, they like they watched literally, you know, Michelle go
from infant to toddler to you little kid, and you know,
they watched all of us sort of grow through the
just in these incredible you know lengths of time of
like so much, I mean, such our formative years, you know,
like the things that you really remember about your childhood
(06:44):
and so much of that.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I remember being in a restaurant during the time the
Full House was on the air, and this is before
you could tape shows and go home and watch them later,
right right right restaurant with my family, and there was
a table next to me, a whole family with several children,
and all of a sudden, this mother said, oh my god,
look at the time. Full House is going to start
in thirty minutes. We have to leave now get the show.
And they had out of that restaurant so they could
(07:08):
go home and watch the Full House. And so I
love that. I love that they were going home to
watch the show.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's amazing, so great. So I love hearing those stories.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
I had a great following that show Full House for seriously.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And then in the later seasons, you know, we had
more babies that you were nick We had Blake and Dylan,
and so you know, we kind of started the process
all over again, although they weren't the same infants where
that we used different we went infants, and then I
think we did skip.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
There the first Nicky and Alex as infants, and then
the bill points were the the toddler version of the
right Nicky and all.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Right, yeah that's right, I remember. I remember the renter is.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Were you put on Nicky and Alex's duty? Then? Because Mary,
Kate and Ashley were a little bit older and could
kind of manage their own lines a little bit better.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
At that point, they were older, and we hired another
dialogue coach to work lines with them because at that
time they were they were I was not coaching them
with lines. They were now saying their own lines, and
so he brought a dialogue coach on, Barbara Dowt, Barbara
her last name, and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
She oh, yes, oh, she was my acting teacher for
a while too. I loved working with.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Barbara, wonderful woman and she worked. Yeah, so that I
could move on to working with Nikki and Alex. You know,
the will Hoyt boys, right, Having twins on set playing
brothers at the same time. Boy, that's a that's a
big ask.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
That Yeah, that was hard because you couldn't there was
no swapping them out. It wasn't there weren't they weren't
triplets or you know, there wasn't four of them. There
was two of them, and both of them were on
camera at the same time.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And you're working with boys instead of girls, which I
know sometimes language comes a little bit later for boys
or the command of language, So I imagine it was
a lot to differ.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Mean, they're friskier for the most part.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, they're sort of scattered. It was. It was a
big change working with on set twin boys at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, did your same tricks work of the fruit, the
dried fruit and the bracelets to make up. Well.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
My sister Ronda at the time, who was also a
studio teacher, we brought her.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yes, and I think yeah, Ronda was working with Ashley
Mary Kate as their.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Teacher and helping me coach the two boys. And so,
I mean we would talk to them in the dressing
room and they always wanted stories about band aids and
monsters and sharks. And one time we're going out on
the set to do a scene and I said, okay now,
and I think it came across on the microphone. I said, okay,
we're going to tiptoe like sharks. I don't know, I
just made that up selection because they liked sharks.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
My sister said, the audience is going to have no
idea what you're talking about. I said, they shouldn't even
listen to me.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know, this is I'm working with babies. You do
you have any idea? What kind of ridiculous has me?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I get up as I go along. You know, there
was no set pattern. You just you shoot from the
hip when you're working with right, That's what I had
to do. There was a scene where we wanted to
have the boys go from the crib and crawl out
of the crib to walk, you know, because you know
coddlers eventually do that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've lived through that myself.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Trying to explain to them, they couldn't get it. I
grabbed Ashley and I said, Ashley, get into the crib.
She climbed into the crib. I said, and I want
you to climb over the top and out of the crib,
which she did. Then I put the little one in there.
The boy did exactly what she did, so Ashley was
able to help.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Me, and then their mom was forever pissed that we
taught them how.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
To crawl out of the crib.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
After Full House ended, did you I mean, you know,
like I was saying, you were working on on Hook
and doing other movies and stuff part of the time,
but not you know, you were full House was kind
of where you were mostly. But what happened after the
show did you wind up going with Ashley, Mary Kate
or did what happened?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What happened next?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
No, when the show ended, I had a falling out
with the gentleman who represented them, Rob Wright, and so
my connection with them ended abruptly by him. He did
not want me working with them. So they went on
to do a lot of these little music videos, and
there were other studio teachers they used. I went back
into the film world and did a number of feature films.
(11:30):
After I did Jurassic I started doing some of the
Jurassic Park movies. I think I did Jurassic Park and
Jurassic three.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
My friend Stephen Ray Morris would die to hear that.
He's such a huge Jurassic Park fan. I forgot you
worked on that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
So I did that. I did Harry and the Henderson's.
I did a really interesting film called Road to Perdition
with Paul Newman and Daniel Craig. Ashley was in that too.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It was a career that took me back into the
feature film world, although I did do one other series.
I did Two and a Half Men for four years,
okay with Angus Jones. Yeah. Yeah. He had a real
nice setup because we would do we would do I
think three weeks on one week off, so we do
three weeks in studio, and then that other week he
would go back to his own school.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
We did everything by fax machines. His school was voy cooperative,
sent me all the work, so he was right on track.
So yeah, I mean I went back into the feature
from film World. I ended up getting married and my
husband and I moved to Lake Tahoe for ten years
we lived there, and then about four years ago, I
(12:36):
moved back to Los Angeles. We sold the home in Tahoe,
and my husband passed away unfortunately last year. So I've
decided to work more. I actually have an assignment this
week for a few days. And I don't know that
I led you to tackle a series again, but I
do work and enjoy working a few days a week
still in the business. That's so great.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I love that, you know. It's funny.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I got my undergrad degree in like liberal studies with
an emphasis in elementary education, and I actually wanted to
be thought about being.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
A studio teacher for a while.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I really, and I think I even may have talked
to you or Laura about it and was trying to
kind of get more information about what I needed. You know,
what I would need to do and after I had
graduated and stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But it's it's such a delicate.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Balance because you like, you know, we said, you're you're
there to protect the welfare of the kids and to
teach them, but you also, you know, working within the
craziness of this business, right like you have to be
there to protect the kids and be like, no, this
is what's happening. And I just always admired you for that.
You you know, you took nobody's BSh.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's all about the safety of the children. Safety.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
So I mean when we were doing the movie Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom and Kihi Kwan was
my student who just won the Academy Award last year.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Wow, Yeah, excited for him.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
There was a scene where he who he was about
ten years old at the time, he had to run
across this rope bridge over a three hundred foot gorge
and it was built by engineers. It was a very
safe rope bridge, but I wasn't comfortable with it. And
he and Kate were supposed to run away from the
bad guys across this rope bridge, and I was he
was such a little thing and I was so afraid
(14:21):
for him to be on that bridge, and they're ready
to roll the camera. Stephen is ready to roll, and
I said, well wait, I said, you know, I'm just
I am not comfortable with him running across this bridge
with no safety line. With this it's a three hundred
foot drop into the gorge. So he said okay. So
the special effects guy came in and he set up
all these wires and he wired key to Kate Capshaw. Now,
(14:45):
if he had fallen off the bridge, actually he probably
would have taken her with him, taken her right, but
at least he was wired to an adult. So I
write safer. But Stephen was always great about that. If
there was anything that I saw that concerned me, he
would just stop and wait for it to be corrected.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
And that's really great to hear because there are not
everybody you know in this businesses like that. And it's
he's done so many incredible movies with so many kids.
Do you, I mean, have you stayed in contact with
anybody else from from any of the movies that you've
worked on.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
I saw Drew Barrymore not too long away. That was great.
In fact, I had lunch with Ashley last year and
she's told me that she ran into Drew Barrymore at
Fred Siegels years ago, and she said it's funny, actually said,
I was so nervous to talk to Drew Barrymore, but
I went up to her and said, you know, you
and I had the same studio teacher. I know we did,
(15:41):
you know, says her, that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'm actually I'm I'm flying out to New.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
York to go do Drew's show, so I will definitely mention. Yeah,
I will definitely mention cool.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Oh. She was also great, great, you know, we had
such a good time and full on the et. She
was just just yeah. I remember when we finished the
film and we went on a promotional tour. We flew
into Oslo, Norway. She had never seen snow in her life,
and I said, Drew, only you can have your first
(16:12):
snow experience in Norway.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Right, Yeah, yeah, not the mountains of Big Bear, you
know anything, but like, you go all the way to
Norway to see snow.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
He was a real person. She thought Et was alive.
Et was her friend. But Stephen had the scene where
E t he's in this like this contraption and he's
he's done.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Oh, that all God, I'd still to this day.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
So when he when he was doing that scene, he
talked to Drew first and he said, so, this is
a scene where Et is so so sick, he's going
to die, and it's really sad. And the tears started
to roll out of her eyes. And then Stephen went
like this with his finger to roll camera. He didn't
say action, he didn't sick, just right right, and they
photographed Drew being so sad and crying over Et. And
(17:02):
that was one of the magic tricks of that of
that particular thing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I was a huge Et fan as a kid. I
used to I had the record of ET, and I
would sit in bed with my grandmother who was staying
at her house when I was like three years old,
which was about when the movie came out, and she
had broken her leg, and I would drag my little
Fisher Price record player into her bed and I would
sit there and we would listen to ET or you know,
(17:37):
snow White or something. And I loved ET, but the
scene where he screamed where he in the closet always
freaked me out. And I was that part, so I
would like grab onto her.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When Et screamed.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
But I when I learned I had the same teacher
as you know that did eat the movie ET, I
was like.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I was very excited.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So I was, yeah, it was like, you just have
had such an incredible career, and I.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
You have been lucky, been really lucky. It's you know,
I'll never mean, it's just this whole lifetime experience that
I had in the film industry, which was kind of
a fluke because I mean, I was a public school
teacher and I went through a divorce and I was
still teaching public school and going in at lunchtime into
the lunch room and sitting with the other studio, the
(18:26):
other school teacher ladies, talking about who got benched at recess,
and I thought, there's got to be more to me
than this, you know, just being in the lunch room
with the school teacher ladies and being confined to one
classroom and one school. And that's when I found out
that they used teachers in Hollywood and started pursuing that direction.
(18:47):
So I'm lucky, fortunate and was able to do some
incredible projects, you know, in my years.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Ah, what was the most what was the most difficult
age to teach?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
On a set?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Elementary high school babies.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I think when you get first graders, you know, most
of them were not like Jodi was in first grade.
Some of them come having never experienced preschools, so they
they're not sure about their alphabet, they're not sure about
certainly not reading, or phonics or a math. And especially
if you have a classroom where you have two or
three or four. By law, you can have a studio
(19:22):
teacher can have ten children in the classroom, but if you.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Have I remember like extra days when we would have
you know, a classroom scene and we'd have Ronda would
be there, a couple other teachers managing all the background kids.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, so it's difficult if you have first graders or
second graders who need a lot of one on one instruction,
especially when you have a first grader from Pasadena and
you have another first grader from Santa Monica and they're
not in the same schools, they're not at the same level,
they can't do the same work. So I think it's
more difficult working on jobs where you have multiple children
at a very young age. The high school kids, and
(19:57):
especially nowadays, I had to show a about two weeks ago,
and they were all high school they all come with
their laptops and they all have their linked into their school.
In fact, now on set, you absolutely have to make
sure that even when you're on location, which we were,
you've got a Wi Fi set up, a Wi Fi
right lock into the Wi Fi network, and the high
(20:18):
school kids can work, you know, pretty independently. Yeah, so
that makes you know, they can just raise their hand
if they have a question about an assignment or a
or a problem. But they're pretty independent for the most part,
the junior high school and the high school kids.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Do you find that your students are probably like everyone
all of the rest of us, much more distracted with
technology and phones and all of that. I mean, I'm
sure you know, I found a way to screw around
in a classroom way before you know cell phones, So
I'm sure that now they have those. It's you're like,
can we please can you stop watching YouTube?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Well that that is one of the things on this
project that I had a couple of weeks ago. We
had all high school kids and you as a team. Sure,
you have to walk the room, you have to con.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Right, Yeah, what are you actually doing on your monitor?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Right? Stop scrolling at Sephora or looking at YouTube, Instagram,
Snapchattle way, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
How long have you been doing your podcast?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Six months? Seven months? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we started it
this summer.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
We started from the very beginning and are watching each
episode all the way through because we never watched it, right,
we never, you know, we did it and then it
was like, yeah, I know, I know how this one.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Ends, and it brings back so many men to watch
myself watching ourselves as little kids. Oh my goodness, the fashion,
the hairstyles, it was just it's it's such a treat
to get to watch these episodes again and dissect them
and make fun of yourselves and relive all these memories.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Oh gosh, yeah, now it's fun to make fun of
ourselves when it was other people doing the making fun
of not so much, but yeah, it's so much fun
to go back.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And watch these and you know, again, Adria, you were.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You were such an important part of our childhood and
growing up and you were Yeah, I just so many
of my important childhood memories are with you. And I
know my mom and you still stay close and talk,
and she, you know, always jokingly says that you know,
if you or her thinking about each other, one of
(22:22):
you will eventually one of you calls almost you know
you have this little sense, but I you have remained
a big important part of my life to this day,
and I just I love you for that.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And thank you for having the show. It was so much,
so much.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
You're so special to us. You're like a second mom
and this is just such a gift. You're ready to
talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Love you, love you, love you, Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Ashley Mary Kate always used to they couldn't say so.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
They called her a.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That was so so sweetsh love. She is the same,
She's exactly the same.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Adria has always been a badass like she has always been.
And again, like somebody that I looked up to, a
woman that like was like, Nope, this is.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
What we're doing.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Like like she said, I saw there was more for me,
and I just like, what an awesome influence to have
in our lives at a young age of you know,
someone like that that just like went for it and
you know, and and was so wonderful and loving and like.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
She she always had the kids' best interests at heart,
and that wasn't just her job. I think she felt
that intrinsically. She was just that's who she like, I'm
an advocate for these kids, and she's going to stand
up to even the harshest producer, not on our set,
but on other set, since she's like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I mean to Steven Spielberg, gonna be like this is
not worth working for me.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
That's the thing we were always you know, again, we
had producers that never like took advantage of situations, but
we all and I remember my mom saying I always
knew Adria would jump in like you were not gonna
do anything, no question, And it's so true, so true.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh so that was awesome, Such good feelings now, such
warm fuzzies.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That was a really fun conversation with someone that is
incredibly near and dear to our hearts. Adria was such
an essential part of Full House and of our childhoods
and growing up. We are so glad that you guys
got to listen to our interview with her. She's just
wonderful and I can't say it enough. So in the meantime,
make sure you're following us on social media. You can
(24:32):
follow us at how Rude Podcast on Instagram. You can
also send us emails at howardpodcast at gmail dot com.
Make sure that wherever you're listening to the podcast, you're
liking and subscribing so that you can get all the
newest episodes as they come out. And we will see
you next week for another fun recap episode.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And in the meantime, everybody, remember the world is small,
but the house is full.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
A plus Jodi Sweeten, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
It would be proud, Adrian would be proud. A plus
for me.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Hey mm hmm.
Welcome back to how Rue Tanaritos. We are back with
the second part of our interview with our studio teacher
from Full House, Adria Later. Adria is giving us all
a unique glimpse into what it was really like behind
the scenes of the show and being the baby wrangler
for Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. So buckle up and
get ready, here's part two with Adria. Now, Jodie, I
(00:39):
think you and I went to regular public school in
addition to being schooled on the set.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So do you remember did you go to like your.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
First period of the day or did you do all
of your schooling on the set and just go to
school on the hiatus weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
I went to school, I mean cause I was in
elementary school, so we didn't really have like periods yet.
First second, it was like I went to school until
about lunch, which was like eleven forty five or twelve ish,
and then my mom would pick me up and I
would work on my script in the car and I
would drive, you know, from because we lived in Orange County,
drive from Orange County to Sony Studios, which was in
(01:20):
Culver City, which at that time in La traffic was
such that you could make that journey in about forty
five to fifty minutes, and amazing. That would not be
happening now, that would you wouldn't You would not.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Be able to do that now.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But I was so fortunate because you know, it got
to like have quote unquote normal friends and normal school
stuff and be plugged in a little bit to the classroom,
and then I would take that stuff, you know for
Thursdays and Fridays on tape days when we had to
be there longer hours. I would take all of those days,
all those days, work for Thursday and Friday and work
(01:53):
on it on set.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Now, the reason you were able to do that and
go to school for those few hours and then come
to set was that your time on set could only
be three and a half hours because if you do
go to your own school, you can't then come to
work and work eight hours. So on the day so
you went to your own school, you could only be
on this head for three and a half hours, so
you would come from to run through. That was it.
(02:16):
But on Friday when we were taping, you had to
be there all day because we needed an eight and
a half hour day on yourself.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Okay, huh, Okay, Yeah, there's all those like little nuances
and things of you know, how often kids need breaks
and how like how long they can work for Like
Ashley and Mary Kate at the time, what is like
for young kids, It's like twenty minutes in front of
the camera, right, but broken up into.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean when they're infants. Actually they read it
at eight months old, so I think at that time,
I didn't have to look back at my book. I
think it's they're allowed on the set for four hours,
you know, working four hours. I think it's two hours
of work and two hours of break. When they're infants,
like under six months old, you know, they can only
work twenty minute increment, right, But once they were you know,
(03:02):
because they were eight months old, they were they fell
into that category of being allowed there for four and
a half hours.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Got it.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And the reason we use twins is because what they
could have done. They could have brought let's say, Mary
kateen at eight o'clock in the morning and brought in
and Ashley brought in or her at noon and then
you know, get an eight hour day out of it.
But because we flipped them back and forth and back
and forth every other scene. They were both there for
(03:29):
their whole a lot of times. So four and a
half hours, you know, gettle and then it goes up
to six and a half hours when they hit I
think I forget five, five or six years old, and
you know, the goes up. But they chose not to
split their call, which they do on most feature films
and most TV shows, is they'll give a staggered call
(03:50):
on twins to get a longer period of time on
the set with them.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Right, But then you're but then you're sort of you know,
you got to keep your fingers crossed that that one
particular twin is in the.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Mood to be doing it.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
It's kind of risky.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, if you tried to do something right about nap time,
forget it, it's not happening.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And they were such good natured babies, so.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They really, yeah, they absolutely were, and they just became
such a part of the family.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
When the two of you too, I mean you treated
them like little sisters, you know, oh yeah, burn your
back on them. You played with them, you sat with them,
you talked to them.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I was very close with Ashley Mary Kate.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I mean sort of like how Andrea and I were close,
like I, you know, sort of look to Andrey and
Candice is like the older ones, Like I definitely was
that to Ashley Mary Kate and oh yeah I had
they would come to our house on weekends and all
that kind of stuff. But when you had such a
huge part in really you know, creating the fun of
(04:51):
the Michelle character in you know, them repeating the lines
and doing all that.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Stuff, when did you kind.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Of realize like, oh, they were like this was becoming
more than just them on the show.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
But because you traveled with them quite a bit, right.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I want to say it wasn't until they were five
years old. I think it is when they did their
first movie of the Week with Jeff. Jeff wrote a
television movie of the Week for them, followed by I
think two other movies of the right, and then they
went on to do a whole video collection of spy,
you know, little Spy.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
They worked, They worked a lot, They worked really hard.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah hard, Yeah, they definitely did.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
But yeah, it was like five, They were like five
when they started doing all this, So it was a
little more towards like the fourth or fifth season exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I know, after the first season, first of all. After
the first month or two, Jeff and I talked about this.
He had them just paid as daily actors. They were
not under contract, and I remember it was like, I
don't know, three four, five weeks into the shooting, he said,
he kid to me, He says, I guess I should
put them under contract, shouldn't I?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, I think, wow, right, I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I think originally the plan was to use babies for
a certain period of time and then just flip out
to older ones and liked and then season two go
to a couple of five year olds. Well, they chose
not to do that on Full House, which I think
was the key because America absolutely those little girls grow
up right in front.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, they like they watched literally, you know, Michelle go
from infant to toddler to you little kid, and you know,
they watched all of us sort of grow through the
just in these incredible you know lengths of time of
like so much, I mean, such our formative years, you know,
like the things that you really remember about your childhood
(06:44):
and so much of that.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I remember being in a restaurant during the time the
Full House was on the air, and this is before
you could tape shows and go home and watch them later,
right right right restaurant with my family, and there was
a table next to me, a whole family with several children,
and all of a sudden, this mother said, oh my god,
look at the time. Full House is going to start
in thirty minutes. We have to leave now get the show.
And they had out of that restaurant so they could
(07:08):
go home and watch the Full House. And so I
love that. I love that they were going home to
watch the show.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's amazing, so great. So I love hearing those stories.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
I had a great following that show Full House for seriously.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
And then in the later seasons, you know, we had
more babies that you were nick We had Blake and Dylan,
and so you know, we kind of started the process
all over again, although they weren't the same infants where
that we used different we went infants, and then I
think we did skip.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
There the first Nicky and Alex as infants, and then
the bill points were the the toddler version of the
right Nicky and all.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Right, yeah that's right, I remember. I remember the renter is.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Were you put on Nicky and Alex's duty? Then? Because Mary,
Kate and Ashley were a little bit older and could
kind of manage their own lines a little bit better.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
At that point, they were older, and we hired another
dialogue coach to work lines with them because at that
time they were they were I was not coaching them
with lines. They were now saying their own lines, and
so he brought a dialogue coach on, Barbara Dowt, Barbara
her last name, and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
She oh, yes, oh, she was my acting teacher for
a while too. I loved working with.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Barbara, wonderful woman and she worked. Yeah, so that I
could move on to working with Nikki and Alex. You know,
the will Hoyt boys, right, Having twins on set playing
brothers at the same time. Boy, that's a that's a
big ask.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
That Yeah, that was hard because you couldn't there was
no swapping them out. It wasn't there weren't they weren't
triplets or you know, there wasn't four of them. There
was two of them, and both of them were on
camera at the same time.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
And you're working with boys instead of girls, which I
know sometimes language comes a little bit later for boys
or the command of language, So I imagine it was
a lot to differ.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Mean, they're friskier for the most part.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, they're sort of scattered. It was. It was a
big change working with on set twin boys at the
same time.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, did your same tricks work of the fruit, the
dried fruit and the bracelets to make up. Well.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
My sister Ronda at the time, who was also a
studio teacher, we brought her.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yes, and I think yeah, Ronda was working with Ashley
Mary Kate as their.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Teacher and helping me coach the two boys. And so,
I mean we would talk to them in the dressing
room and they always wanted stories about band aids and
monsters and sharks. And one time we're going out on
the set to do a scene and I said, okay now,
and I think it came across on the microphone. I said, okay,
we're going to tiptoe like sharks. I don't know, I
just made that up selection because they liked sharks.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
My sister said, the audience is going to have no
idea what you're talking about. I said, they shouldn't even
listen to me.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You know, this is I'm working with babies. You do
you have any idea? What kind of ridiculous has me?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I get up as I go along. You know, there
was no set pattern. You just you shoot from the
hip when you're working with right, That's what I had
to do. There was a scene where we wanted to
have the boys go from the crib and crawl out
of the crib to walk, you know, because you know
coddlers eventually do that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've lived through that myself.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Trying to explain to them, they couldn't get it. I
grabbed Ashley and I said, Ashley, get into the crib.
She climbed into the crib. I said, and I want
you to climb over the top and out of the crib,
which she did. Then I put the little one in there.
The boy did exactly what she did, so Ashley was
able to help.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Me, and then their mom was forever pissed that we
taught them how.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
To crawl out of the crib.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
After Full House ended, did you I mean, you know,
like I was saying, you were working on on Hook
and doing other movies and stuff part of the time,
but not you know, you were full House was kind
of where you were mostly. But what happened after the
show did you wind up going with Ashley, Mary Kate
or did what happened?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What happened next?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
No, when the show ended, I had a falling out
with the gentleman who represented them, Rob Wright, and so
my connection with them ended abruptly by him. He did
not want me working with them. So they went on
to do a lot of these little music videos, and
there were other studio teachers they used. I went back
into the film world and did a number of feature films.
(11:30):
After I did Jurassic I started doing some of the
Jurassic Park movies. I think I did Jurassic Park and
Jurassic three.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
My friend Stephen Ray Morris would die to hear that.
He's such a huge Jurassic Park fan. I forgot you
worked on that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
So I did that. I did Harry and the Henderson's.
I did a really interesting film called Road to Perdition
with Paul Newman and Daniel Craig. Ashley was in that too.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It was a career that took me back into the
feature film world, although I did do one other series.
I did Two and a Half Men for four years,
okay with Angus Jones. Yeah. Yeah. He had a real
nice setup because we would do we would do I
think three weeks on one week off, so we do
three weeks in studio, and then that other week he
would go back to his own school.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
We did everything by fax machines. His school was voy cooperative,
sent me all the work, so he was right on track.
So yeah, I mean I went back into the feature
from film World. I ended up getting married and my
husband and I moved to Lake Tahoe for ten years
we lived there, and then about four years ago, I
(12:36):
moved back to Los Angeles. We sold the home in Tahoe,
and my husband passed away unfortunately last year. So I've
decided to work more. I actually have an assignment this
week for a few days. And I don't know that
I led you to tackle a series again, but I
do work and enjoy working a few days a week
still in the business. That's so great.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I love that, you know. It's funny.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I got my undergrad degree in like liberal studies with
an emphasis in elementary education, and I actually wanted to
be thought about being.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
A studio teacher for a while.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I really, and I think I even may have talked
to you or Laura about it and was trying to
kind of get more information about what I needed. You know,
what I would need to do and after I had
graduated and stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But it's it's such a delicate.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Balance because you like, you know, we said, you're you're
there to protect the welfare of the kids and to
teach them, but you also, you know, working within the
craziness of this business, right like you have to be
there to protect the kids and be like, no, this
is what's happening. And I just always admired you for that.
You you know, you took nobody's BSh.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's all about the safety of the children. Safety.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
And yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
So I mean when we were doing the movie Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom and Kihi Kwan was
my student who just won the Academy Award last year.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Wow, Yeah, excited for him.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
There was a scene where he who he was about
ten years old at the time, he had to run
across this rope bridge over a three hundred foot gorge
and it was built by engineers. It was a very
safe rope bridge, but I wasn't comfortable with it. And
he and Kate were supposed to run away from the
bad guys across this rope bridge, and I was he
was such a little thing and I was so afraid
(14:21):
for him to be on that bridge, and they're ready
to roll the camera. Stephen is ready to roll, and
I said, well wait, I said, you know, I'm just
I am not comfortable with him running across this bridge
with no safety line. With this it's a three hundred
foot drop into the gorge. So he said okay. So
the special effects guy came in and he set up
all these wires and he wired key to Kate Capshaw. Now,
(14:45):
if he had fallen off the bridge, actually he probably
would have taken her with him, taken her right, but
at least he was wired to an adult. So I
write safer. But Stephen was always great about that. If
there was anything that I saw that concerned me, he
would just stop and wait for it to be corrected.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
And that's really great to hear because there are not
everybody you know in this businesses like that. And it's
he's done so many incredible movies with so many kids.
Do you, I mean, have you stayed in contact with
anybody else from from any of the movies that you've
worked on.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
I saw Drew Barrymore not too long away. That was great.
In fact, I had lunch with Ashley last year and
she's told me that she ran into Drew Barrymore at
Fred Siegels years ago, and she said it's funny, actually said,
I was so nervous to talk to Drew Barrymore, but
I went up to her and said, you know, you
and I had the same studio teacher. I know we did,
(15:41):
you know, says her, that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I'm actually I'm I'm flying out to New.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
York to go do Drew's show, so I will definitely mention. Yeah,
I will definitely mention cool.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Oh. She was also great, great, you know, we had
such a good time and full on the et. She
was just just yeah. I remember when we finished the
film and we went on a promotional tour. We flew
into Oslo, Norway. She had never seen snow in her life,
and I said, Drew, only you can have your first
(16:12):
snow experience in Norway.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Right, Yeah, yeah, not the mountains of Big Bear, you
know anything, but like, you go all the way to
Norway to see snow.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
He was a real person. She thought Et was alive.
Et was her friend. But Stephen had the scene where
E t he's in this like this contraption and he's
he's done.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Oh, that all God, I'd still to this day.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
So when he when he was doing that scene, he
talked to Drew first and he said, so, this is
a scene where Et is so so sick, he's going
to die, and it's really sad. And the tears started
to roll out of her eyes. And then Stephen went
like this with his finger to roll camera. He didn't
say action, he didn't sick, just right right, and they
photographed Drew being so sad and crying over Et. And
(17:02):
that was one of the magic tricks of that of
that particular thing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I was a huge Et fan as a kid. I
used to I had the record of ET, and I
would sit in bed with my grandmother who was staying
at her house when I was like three years old,
which was about when the movie came out, and she
had broken her leg, and I would drag my little
Fisher Price record player into her bed and I would
sit there and we would listen to ET or you know,
(17:37):
snow White or something. And I loved ET, but the
scene where he screamed where he in the closet always
freaked me out. And I was that part, so I
would like grab onto her.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
When Et screamed.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
But I when I learned I had the same teacher
as you know that did eat the movie ET, I
was like.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I was very excited.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So I was, yeah, it was like, you just have
had such an incredible career, and I.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
You have been lucky, been really lucky. It's you know,
I'll never mean, it's just this whole lifetime experience that
I had in the film industry, which was kind of
a fluke because I mean, I was a public school
teacher and I went through a divorce and I was
still teaching public school and going in at lunchtime into
the lunch room and sitting with the other studio, the
(18:26):
other school teacher ladies, talking about who got benched at recess,
and I thought, there's got to be more to me
than this, you know, just being in the lunch room
with the school teacher ladies and being confined to one
classroom and one school. And that's when I found out
that they used teachers in Hollywood and started pursuing that direction.
(18:47):
So I'm lucky, fortunate and was able to do some
incredible projects, you know, in my years.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Ah, what was the most what was the most difficult
age to teach?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
On a set?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Elementary high school babies.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I think when you get first graders, you know, most
of them were not like Jodi was in first grade.
Some of them come having never experienced preschools, so they
they're not sure about their alphabet, they're not sure about
certainly not reading, or phonics or a math. And especially
if you have a classroom where you have two or
three or four. By law, you can have a studio
(19:22):
teacher can have ten children in the classroom, but if you.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Have I remember like extra days when we would have
you know, a classroom scene and we'd have Ronda would
be there, a couple other teachers managing all the background kids.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, so it's difficult if you have first graders or
second graders who need a lot of one on one instruction,
especially when you have a first grader from Pasadena and
you have another first grader from Santa Monica and they're
not in the same schools, they're not at the same level,
they can't do the same work. So I think it's
more difficult working on jobs where you have multiple children
at a very young age. The high school kids, and
(19:57):
especially nowadays, I had to show a about two weeks ago,
and they were all high school they all come with
their laptops and they all have their linked into their school.
In fact, now on set, you absolutely have to make
sure that even when you're on location, which we were,
you've got a Wi Fi set up, a Wi Fi
right lock into the Wi Fi network, and the high
(20:18):
school kids can work, you know, pretty independently. Yeah, so
that makes you know, they can just raise their hand
if they have a question about an assignment or a
or a problem. But they're pretty independent for the most part,
the junior high school and the high school kids.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Do you find that your students are probably like everyone
all of the rest of us, much more distracted with
technology and phones and all of that. I mean, I'm
sure you know, I found a way to screw around
in a classroom way before you know cell phones, So
I'm sure that now they have those. It's you're like,
can we please can you stop watching YouTube?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Well that that is one of the things on this
project that I had a couple of weeks ago. We
had all high school kids and you as a team. Sure,
you have to walk the room, you have to con.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Right, Yeah, what are you actually doing on your monitor?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Right? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Right? Stop scrolling at Sephora or looking at YouTube, Instagram,
Snapchattle way, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
How long have you been doing your podcast?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Six months? Seven months? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we started it
this summer.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
We started from the very beginning and are watching each
episode all the way through because we never watched it, right,
we never, you know, we did it and then it
was like, yeah, I know, I know how this one.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Ends, and it brings back so many men to watch
myself watching ourselves as little kids. Oh my goodness, the fashion,
the hairstyles, it was just it's it's such a treat
to get to watch these episodes again and dissect them
and make fun of yourselves and relive all these memories.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Oh gosh, yeah, now it's fun to make fun of
ourselves when it was other people doing the making fun
of not so much, but yeah, it's so much fun
to go back.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And watch these and you know, again, Adria, you were.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You were such an important part of our childhood and
growing up and you were Yeah, I just so many
of my important childhood memories are with you. And I
know my mom and you still stay close and talk,
and she, you know, always jokingly says that you know,
if you or her thinking about each other, one of
(22:22):
you will eventually one of you calls almost you know
you have this little sense, but I you have remained
a big important part of my life to this day,
and I just I love you for that.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
And thank you for having the show. It was so much,
so much.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
You're so special to us. You're like a second mom
and this is just such a gift. You're ready to
talk to you today.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Love you, love you, love you, Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Ashley Mary Kate always used to they couldn't say so.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
They called her a.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That was so so sweetsh love. She is the same,
She's exactly the same.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Adria has always been a badass like she has always been.
And again, like somebody that I looked up to, a
woman that like was like, Nope, this is.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
What we're doing.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Like like she said, I saw there was more for me,
and I just like, what an awesome influence to have
in our lives at a young age of you know,
someone like that that just like went for it and
you know, and and was so wonderful and loving and like.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
She she always had the kids' best interests at heart,
and that wasn't just her job. I think she felt
that intrinsically. She was just that's who she like, I'm
an advocate for these kids, and she's going to stand
up to even the harshest producer, not on our set,
but on other set, since she's like.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I mean to Steven Spielberg, gonna be like this is
not worth working for me.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
That's the thing we were always you know, again, we
had producers that never like took advantage of situations, but
we all and I remember my mom saying I always
knew Adria would jump in like you were not gonna
do anything, no question, And it's so true, so true.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Oh so that was awesome, Such good feelings now, such
warm fuzzies.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That was a really fun conversation with someone that is
incredibly near and dear to our hearts. Adria was such
an essential part of Full House and of our childhoods
and growing up. We are so glad that you guys
got to listen to our interview with her. She's just
wonderful and I can't say it enough. So in the meantime,
make sure you're following us on social media. You can
(24:32):
follow us at how Rude Podcast on Instagram. You can
also send us emails at howardpodcast at gmail dot com.
Make sure that wherever you're listening to the podcast, you're
liking and subscribing so that you can get all the
newest episodes as they come out. And we will see
you next week for another fun recap episode.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
And in the meantime, everybody, remember the world is small,
but the house is full.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
A plus Jodi Sweeten, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
It would be proud, Adrian would be proud. A plus
for me.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Hey mm hmm.
Hosts And Creators
Andrea Barber
Jodie Sweetin