Nate Richert Meets World

On screen, Nate Richert played Harvey Kinkle in “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” but after he left the set, he transformed into a roofer who hung out with David Lee Roth! Now that’s real witchcraft. 

 

The gang sits down with yet another TGIF neighbor to share behind-the-scenes stories and the truth behind his sudden disappearance in Sabrina’s 5th season.

 

Nate opens up about how he survived anxiety during his early days as an actor (and living in a studio apartment with NINE other people!)

 

It’s time to reunite with one of the nicest guys around, and learn about this Gamebox 1.0 movie, on a brand new Pod Meets World!

 

Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
I've been on pretty extensive road trip, Like I've been
on the road for three weeks and I'm still going
to be on the road for another ten days. But
part of the trip was driving from Portland to my parents'
house in Sebastopall with another family. So it was me
and India and Alex and then our friends in their

(00:39):
car with their two daughters. And one of the games
that we've were playing, like you know, we're doing all
these sort of road trip games and stories and.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Whatever, but one of them was the Cursed Item game,
where like you.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
We stopped for lunch somewhere, we're all having We're in
this little picnic area having sandwiches, and it's like somebody
picks an object that is cursed, like whoever has it
is and then throughout the road trip you're passing this
item like you're cursing the person. So we picked like
you know the little tabs that close up bread like yeah,
those little pin Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So we're like every so you do, like stop for
gas and.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Like one of the kids would be like hey ride
or what and then you just throw it in your
lap and run away.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
You're stuck with the cursed item and.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Then you're trying to like, so it was just like
this ongoing thing that went on for days, like who
is stuck with the breadpin?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
But whatever reminded me of do you guys remember the
clothes pin stuff that.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
We used to do?

Speaker 4 (01:33):
Oh my god?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Memory? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, and what do you remember what they call clothes pins?
It's like a film set thing, the C forty seven No, oh,
you don't know this yet. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
So there's this whole thing where you call clothes pins
on film sets C forty seven's, Like it's a technical term,
and I think it goes back to like that was
a it was like a billiing thing, like because if
you were just buying clothes pins, you couldn't count it
as like gear, but they would like call it a
C forty seven, and then the studio heads wouldn't notice
that they were spending money on clothes pins. But yeah,

(02:06):
so they're called C forty seven's on sets, and that's
like an ongoing thing experienced on almost every set.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
And I don't think people know about it because it's
so obscure.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
But you try and take a clothes pin and you
pin it to people, like a crew member who's like
watching the set and you try it.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
We used to add like fifty of them.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
So many clothes pins, so you clip them to.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Like the back of their shirt.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
That was like the primary spot, like where they wouldn't
even feel it or know it. But then like, yeah,
at the end of the day, somebody might have like
five clothes pins on the back of their shirt.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
And you got me Rusty's.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
Rusty's jean jacket was perfect for it, And so we
would all just walk by and he'd eventually go to
sit down or something and there would literally be ten
or twelve pins on.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
The back of his jacket. So, oh my god, Kim, we.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Started that, didn't We used to write something on them
to our names? Did we write? Do we have our
names on them? So you knew which clothes pin was
from who.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
I don't even remember. I just remember it happened.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's happened on every set I've ever But my boy,
we did it all the time. But it's like it's
a tradition and it's like I totally forgot about it
until we were doing this cursed item thing and I
was like, why does.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
This feel familiar?

Speaker 5 (03:10):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right, we used to do this all.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
The time, so much fun. Speaking of cursed items, did
you have you guys ever heard my cursed items story
from Hawaii?

Speaker 2 (03:20):
No?

Speaker 5 (03:21):
No, okay, wait, like the like the Brady Bunch with
the tiki doll.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
What happened?

Speaker 3 (03:25):
I don't know, but I don't know that episode.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Well, my god, famous, yeah, famous Brady Bunch.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Anyway, okay, Well, on one of my many family trips
to Hawaii when I was a teen, on Boy Meets World,
we were playing in the ocean, as one does, right,
you know, on the sand near the ocean, and my brother,
who was probably no more than like eight at the time,
eight or nine, comes running up and he's got a

(03:49):
bone and he goes, look, it's a whalebone. It's a
big bone. And we're like, a whalebone, what are you
talking about?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
And he's like the beginning episode, this is a human bone.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
It's a whalebone. Look at this whalebone. We're like, no,
I don't think that's a whalebone. He refuses to get
rid of it. He's like in a carry it around
with him, so he takes it with him. Later that afternoon,
we go on jet skis and we get jet skis.
We're out in the middle of the ocean, and they
have those emergency clips kind of like treadmills where you're
can adadge it to yourself and fall off stops. So

(04:26):
my dad is like doing donuts in on his jet
skis as my dad would do, and the jet he's
going really fast, so he's going at full speed and
then turning it as quickly as he could and doing
a spin. He goes flying straight up into the air.
He gets like, I don't know what happened. He gets
propelled straight up into the air. The emergency clip gets released,

(04:50):
my dad lands back down on the jet ski starts,
cuts his shin open, and the jet ski with the
emergency key out of it, then takes off, just jet
ski possessed gone out in. My dad is now in
the middle of the ocean, bleeding from his shin in
the water.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It was the spirit of the whale. The whalebone cursed him.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
So there are now at least four or five other
examples on this trip. After my brother had this whalebone
and it kept happening to my dad, all these really
bad things kept happening to my dad.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
Yeah, yeah, and my brother.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Finally one day we're going to Whaler's Village, which is
the shopping center in Mali, and they have a museum there,
and my dad goes, let's take this whalebone and show
it to them and ask them if they have any
idea what this bone is. It was a human femur
that had washed up from the cemetery. The cemeteries there

(05:52):
are their water levels have come up, and the ces
it was a human femur, and they said, the the
best thing for you to do is to take this
back to the ocean where you found it and just
throw it back.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
The beginning of every scary story. You're a voice at night?
Where's my female? But it has to start as a
whale voice, right?

Speaker 5 (06:14):
Who more?

Speaker 2 (06:17):
And then it's not a where it's not aware, it's not.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
But we then after we knew this, my dad was like,
wait a minute, all these awful things have been happening
to me ever since we've been in possession of this
cursed item.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
So this happened.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
Have you ever heard of the making of what was
it Poltergeist or Poultergeist too?

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Have you ever heard?

Speaker 5 (06:37):
So they were literally kept having all these accidents, people
getting hurt, the sets were crashing, all this stuff was
going on, and one of the cast members was like,
the skeletons we have, where did you get these? And
it turns out they were actual human skeletons that they
got from like a medical lab, and they were a

(06:58):
Native American shaman came in and performed these rituals and
they took the bodies away.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
And all the accidents stopped, like instantly.

Speaker 5 (07:06):
It was like, it's one of the most famous Hollywood
cursed kind of shooting a movie stories ever where even
Craig T.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Nelson is like, it was the craziest thing.

Speaker 5 (07:13):
I don't believe in any of this stuff, and we
just people were getting hurt stuff, the film wasn't coming
out right. Is like everything was wrong with this shoot
and turned out there at using actual human human bodies, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
Gosh crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, but were they putting close pints on the skeletons?
I know where they put the skeletons. Fifty clothes pins
on that skeleton. Forty seven trick Oh my, Welcome.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
To Pod meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm Rider Strong,
and I'm Wilfridill. When we hit the midway point of
Boy Meets World episodes to recap. We held a bit

(07:57):
of a family reunion, inviting all of guests we had
had on the first half of the Show's all to
Writer's House for a bit of a Korean barbecue party. Right,
that's the food you had. We had Korean barbecue, right, No,
we had tacos.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
Your taco guy was there?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Really? Y? Yeah, Korean barbecue?

Speaker 6 (08:14):
Is my birthday?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Oh that was my birthday.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
You know what's so funny. Jensen's not on here. He's
going to be real happy to hear that. He insisted
it was tacos, and.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
I said it was. It was a taco guy.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
A writer and Alex hate tacos. We wouldn't never have
had tacos. And he was like, but I think we did,
And I said, no, it was. There was a guy
with a grill. And then I started describing your birthday party.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, all right, tacos.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Remember this moment, Jensen was right about something.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
We all heard it, but he didn't.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
You didn't tell him later, She's.

Speaker 4 (08:51):
Never going to tell herself.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Come on, tell him, tell he did. There's a win
every five years, all to Writer's House for a taco party,
marking the first time most of our beloved co workers
were in the same place since the show wrapped in
the year two thousand and one. Unexpected by product of
that day was getting to hang out with this week's guest,

(09:14):
someone who hadn't yet appeared on the pod, but is
dating one of our favorite guest stars, Natanya Ross. And
so like when you find a five dollar bill in
a vintage jacket you bought off eBay, his attendance was
a welcome surprise, and now we get to have him
all to ourselves. He starred in almost one hundred and
twenty five episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch as Harvey Kinkel,

(09:36):
which was also somehow his first role ever. He helped
make Fridays a must see night of television and as
a result made us the middle child of the block
look a whole lot better when it came time for renewal,
and even when they tried to get rid of him,
they couldn't keep him down, a rare occurrence in nineties TV,
where child actors appeared to be as disposable as the
cameras we used at parties. He also appeared on The

(09:59):
Tony danzs sho and Touched by an Angel, and his
honesty about anxiety and life after Hollywood has been a
helpful breath of fresh air for those encountering the same
obstacles in life. And we think after today's episode you'll
be saying the same thing the three of us said
after that mid series Taco Party Guy Rules. Welcome to
the podcast from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It's Nate Richard. Oh, well, welcome.

(10:27):
Thank you so much for being here with us. We
are on a bit of a mission to reunite with
all of our former TGIF neighbors. Okay, and so we're
really happy that you're here with us.

Speaker 6 (10:40):
Well, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
We talked about how we reunited with you at our
pod meets World slash Boy meets World reunion. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (10:50):
Wasn't that your birthday as well?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Those birthday is in December?

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yea, that was just a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
You may have also come to the birthday. Did you
also come to his birthday in December?

Speaker 6 (11:02):
No, it was just that, Yeah, it was just that
one Taco day, Tayaco Tuesday.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
So, Nate, I want to talk to you about your
origin story, like where you began. You grew up in
Saint Paul, Minnesota, right.

Speaker 6 (11:19):
I did.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
How did you convince your parents that you needed to
move to Hollywood and.

Speaker 6 (11:25):
Wait to get rid of me? It started my my
little sister and my mother did community theater and uh,
one of the kid's mom said, oh, you need to
bring your daughter to this agency and have her do commercials.
And I was just along for the ride. And so
the agency was like, well, do you want to sign

(11:47):
him too? And I just started auditioning at I think
I was seven.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
Wow, So did you want to do it?

Speaker 5 (11:54):
Is this something you were interested in or were you
were just kind of were you trafficked?

Speaker 6 (12:00):
Like at that time, I was in a dance school.
I grew up in a dance school, tap, jazz, and ballet.
It was I guess, uh, you know, my parents wanted
to run the energy out of us rather than sending
us to daycare, that they sent us to this dance school.
And that was back in the days of you know,
I thought I was going to learn to break dance

(12:22):
because my friends had done it. You know, everybody had
their piece of cardboard out in.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
The yeah parachute in your Nike pullover jacket. Were I'm
guessing the same exact age?

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (12:34):
And then I show up in its ballet shoes and
tap shoes, and I had a few cries and but
but then I really got into it, and it was
it was a very very militant dance school. They took
every you know, they took it very seriously, even with
kids at a very young age. And you know all
these things that I'm sure you guys have been through this.

(12:55):
You have all these things where you laugh about all
this stuff that and then you realized later that was
probably child abuse.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
But you gotta laugh, you gotta laugh.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
And yeah, it was a very strict. So this auditioning
and having fun with dialogue and cracking the adults up
is something that I really loved about it. And I
was a latch key kid, so I was sort of
radised on television.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
You know, God where we very very similar background?

Speaker 6 (13:28):
Did you where did you grow up?

Speaker 5 (13:29):
I grew up in Connecticut. I was a latchkey kid.
I was a breakdancer. Did you prefer breaking or breaking
to electric boogaloo?

Speaker 6 (13:37):
I'm sure I never got the chance to do either.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
It was just straight to strength, to know what I'm saying.
Does there a movies there are movies breaking breaking?

Speaker 5 (13:46):
Too?

Speaker 6 (13:47):
Yeah? I don't remember.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
Oh my goodness, Okay, we're not the same person at
all anymore.

Speaker 6 (13:51):
No, No, I'm gonna watch I'll probably have.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Something podcast on it later.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
Watching sitcoms, you know, the Nike at Night and you
know I watched I Dream of Jeanie and then cut
to uh what ten twelve years later and I got
to act with Barbara Eden.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
It was mal so.

Speaker 6 (14:12):
You know, everybody that I grew up watching was a
guest star on THENA. So I was like a kid
in the candy store.

Speaker 5 (14:20):
You know.

Speaker 6 (14:21):
We had have to cast the cheers, and we had,
you know, have to cast a laugh in right, just
all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
All the people kids love.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
That's how we were too.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
Yeah, we're having soupy sales and Buddy Hackett, Like memory
twelve year old wanted, right, you.

Speaker 6 (14:37):
Had Buddy Hackett? Yeah, oh wow. The only audio. I
was a super shy kid back then too. You know,
I could turn it on when I had dialogue, when
I had a script memorized, but other than that, I
was a really shy kid. So I was too afraid
to get out. The only autograph I ever got was
Dom Deloise, and I didn't ask for it. I just

(14:58):
said oh, I can't believe you're here. And then next
day he brought in the side that shot for me.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
That is so sweet.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
It is really sweet. It's actually hanging on the wall.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
I love that. That's so nice. He's like, you know what,
You're probably not going to ask for it, but I
know you want it, so I'm going to bring it
to you.

Speaker 6 (15:16):
Yeah. Yeah, maybe he could see that I was a
shy kid. I don't know. And you know, we had
Martin Mall on there, and you know, we shared. He
had one half the tray. They called it, what do
they call him? The two Bangers one half. I was
on the other, and we'd bring guitars in and play
music to you. But I you know, I grew up
watching Roseanne was another show I watched, and so you know,

(15:38):
Clue I think was the very first VHS tape I
bought my own allowance, So you know, I was automatically
just yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Former you were a performing kid. You get for a kid,
you get into acting. You signed with an agent around
seven years.

Speaker 6 (15:54):
Old in Minneapolis.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
In Minneapolis, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 6 (15:57):
So lots and lots of commercials, you know, you know, legos,
stuff like that. People find that stuff it's on the internet.
Somebody will record the VHS tape and it's you know,
somebody found you know, commercial line. It never goes. It
was a little cave boy, you know. And that's the
other thing I liked about it as a kid. You
get to play dress up. I got to have like
a prosthetic forehead and teeth and the cave man and uh.

(16:21):
And the other thing I really loved about it as
a kid was I get out of school. You know,
of course, call to the office. Your dad's here to
pick you up. You have an audition. I'm the only
kid that could have a pager in school. Yeah remember
this page days?

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Of course?

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (16:38):
I missed the page days?

Speaker 6 (16:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Better off with that, you know, construction.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
When I have time, I have to make this phone
call to I know so much better. I was just
at a family reunion and my aunt reminded me, Uh,
do you remember at our last family reunion someone threw
you into the pool with your pager on and you
were furious about right, a pager?

Speaker 7 (17:01):
Oh no.

Speaker 6 (17:02):
The other thing about our shows, we had a bunch
of animals because everybody was getting turned into something all
the time, and there was a chimp on the show
and just we're outside and my pager went off. The chimp.
You handed him the pager, showed him where the button was,
and he kept flipping the button. He's all excited.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Oh my gosh, the pictures of a chimp with your pager.

Speaker 6 (17:23):
I got a Let me see, I got the elephant.
I finally saw an elephant go through the elephant doors.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
People get to see that.

Speaker 6 (17:35):
Yeah, we had a I think we had a tiger
or something at one point, and everybody, you know, obviously
that was a closed set situation.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
So wait, did you shoot in front of an audience
or no?

Speaker 6 (17:44):
We don't know.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
I was going to say, because you had so many
set pieces that you couldn't really shoot in front of
an audience.

Speaker 6 (17:49):
And that's the other thing too. It was kind of
a rude awakening when I did other shows that had audiences.
It was just something that I was I never really
got used to, you know. Yeah, it took me a
while to get over that.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
Yeah, well, tiger and audience don't usually go very well together, right,
So yeah, not so good.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
So how did you make your way then from Minneapolis
to Los Angeles and eventually booking Sabrina.

Speaker 6 (18:16):
Graduated high school about a half a year early, never
took a study hall, never failed anything. And one of
the agents at the agency in Minneapolis quit and started
managing kids and taking them out to Los Angeles getting
them agents, and I was in her first wave of
kids that came out. So I pretty much said, hey,

(18:36):
I'd like to move in all my classes early so
I can leave, and they said, wow, we don't really
do that. I said, well, I'd like to graduate high school,
but I am going to leave. So they're like, oh, okay.
So luckily I was able to finish high school. I
came out here in February of ninety six.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Wow, ninety six, and what do you remember the audition
for Sabrina.

Speaker 6 (19:00):
Three agents in the first day they went with the
last one, and it was several weeks of different auditions.
I did a pilot and a couple of commercials, and yeah,
I remember the very last audition that I had, the
producer session. They had Melissa read with me. But it
was like these seats. The seats were in a deck,

(19:22):
you know, and so all the suits are there. She's
sitting in the front row facing me. I guess they
didn't want anybody judging her in any way. They wanted
all the focus on me, and it was really cool
being able to read with her, but the fact that
she's in front of you and buying hers everybody just
you know, was odd, and I remember just feeling weird,

(19:46):
and I remember leaving there like, well, that's another one.
I didn't think I was going to get it. And
then I remember the first episode that we did. I
was like, I just done a pilot that didn't go anywhere.
So I'm like, ah, this isn't gonna this will last
the week or so, and yep, didn't know it was
going to be seven years?

Speaker 8 (20:05):
Yeah was it?

Speaker 6 (20:08):
What was it like for you guys?

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Same?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
We were probably auditioned in the exact same room. It's
that ABC Theater room, Like I know exactly what you're
talking about.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, yeah, that's where. Yeah, the same thing. I was
like already cynical at the age of thirteen.

Speaker 6 (20:21):
It's like, this thing's gonna never gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, and then it becomes your entire life, you know.

Speaker 6 (20:26):
Well, I actually remember seeing your show, like I wasn't
really in the demographic or so I thought for a
lot of shows. But then when I look back, and say, oh, yeah,
I remember watching you guys. I remember watching what other shows.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Uh, hanging with mister Cooper up.

Speaker 6 (20:42):
By step, hanging with mister Cooper for sure.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, so you watched that little TGIF block before you
were even on it. So you get the job, you
start working, you shoot the pilot. You don't think it's
gonna go because you've already done a pilot. You're already jaded,
just like writer. Writer had done it. Writer had done
a show that didn't go with Julie Andrews, and he
was like, yeah, I.

Speaker 6 (21:06):
Didn't really think I was Jaden at the time, because
you know, you saw a lot more other actors around you.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Than you know, all that guy that's Jaji.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
That's true.

Speaker 6 (21:18):
Yeah, but yeah, in retrospect I was, yeah, I was
a little too cynical for a seventeen year old.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, does everyone on set click right away? Is the
is the is the chemistry between you all just immediate?

Speaker 6 (21:32):
I think with us it was. I remember here in
the story. Ken Cook was one of our executive producers,
and as he was getting hired, he said, I only
want to do this if we're all a family. I
wanted to be a family with all the crew. That's
the only way I'm going to do it. And that's
what it turned out to be. And yeah, from day one,

(21:54):
we were all just sort of hanging out together. Melissa
had a get together with all the kids from you know,
from our cast, and we, uh, we watched some Clarissa
explains it all.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Come to my house. I'd like to have you guys over.
We're gonna watch me.

Speaker 6 (22:14):
We're gonna watch me. You know something about Melissa, though
she grew up in it, you know, she was a
star very early with the Nickelodeon show. And that's something
that I always thought about her is that, you know,
with all these jaded actors that you meet, I thought that,

(22:37):
you know, for somebody who didn't really get a chance
to be a kid, she seemed pretty damn grounded.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, I think, yeah, so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (22:51):
That's the other thing. Her mother was very protective. Even
though her mother was her executive producer, Yeah, she was still.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
She was a good balance formost and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah definitely.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
So you're out here, are you living by yourself? Are
you living with your manager? Did you ever live at
the oak Woods?

Speaker 6 (23:08):
Yes? Absolutely, that's where I went. That's where we landed.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
What was your building? What was your building?

Speaker 6 (23:15):
I switched around because what happened was I ran out
of money, and so I stayed with this guy, this
sort of sketchy guy who had a conversion van. And
uh yeah, well, no, up in the visitor lot. You

(23:36):
remember the visitor lot, way up at the top of
the hill. Yeah, we're in somebody's studio apartment. So there
was I think nine of us in the studio apartment,
and just those footsteps alone were enough to get the
guy that lived below us to you know, you kids,
to get us all get the boot. So we go

(23:56):
to the studio.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Guys a Murphy bed. Did have a Murphy bed?

Speaker 6 (23:59):
Yes, if you showed up late, you're the one that had.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
The sleepy Yeah, who got quite a quite a bit.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
Well, it was his, the guy who had the apartment.
It was his bed. He slept on the bed, and
everybody was just sort of lined up around the balcony.
Was a nice place to sleep because we'll stay nice
and cool at night. And back then, you could get
in and out of the security gate with any cardboard
business card.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
Yes, yes, you remember that.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yeah, it was just a slot and if you had
anything to fit in the slot.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
The gate would open, the gate would open.

Speaker 6 (24:37):
I fully remember that it was myself and Michael Penya.
I don't know if so he and I and we
were roommates for a lot of years after that, but
I remember it was he and I. What we would
do is if one of us had a callback or
a producer session, we'd pull what little money we had

(24:57):
go down the hill to the what is it called
the star our Starlight motel?

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Do you know that's on I can picture it.

Speaker 6 (25:06):
And so whoever had the audition got the bed. The
other one got to sleep on the floor. But we
were sleeping in a van, sitting up So.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Oh wait, are you talking about the Safari in that's it?
That's thear Okay, Yeah, it was a great place.

Speaker 6 (25:19):
So he had an audition. I think it was for
my fellow Americans with Jack Lemon and James Garner. He
had a great scene in that. But so we walked
back up the hill the next day and they had
fixed it. So our our suitcases were in the van
and uh, you know, no cell phone back then, so

(25:42):
all we had was the pager and uh, luckily the
guy who had the van, his number was in there,
so we you know, went to the paved phone called
him and so, uh yeah, that was it for that.
And then we were kind of roaming the streets for
a couple of days. And then I got a pilot,
so they hired me as out of town. They put

(26:02):
me up with the Hollywood Roosevelt, and then I made
sure there was a fold out for pennyass sleep on.
Oh my god, it was wild times many.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
It's such a Hollywood story. Also, the luck of like, well,
I've been homeless for a few days. I've got an
audition though, and then I book it on a pilot.
They're going to book me as out of town, so
they're giving me a room like by the seat of
your pans.

Speaker 6 (26:32):
Tell you, Oh, I went home twice and had to
come back to do a commercial that I booked before
I like, after I got home, I found out I
got the job, so then I had to turn around
and go back.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
How many of you lived in the van.

Speaker 6 (26:49):
One, two, three, four, five of us and a commersion
man with all of our stuff too, So it wasn't
like everybody got a chair, no suitcases, got one of
those chairs. You could sleep in the on the floor
in between all of them, or sit up, you know,
because it couldn't replying all the way because the stuff
of the bag. It was bizarre. But you know that

(27:10):
oak Wood was like I used to throw the football
around with Jessica Bill played basketball and Macaulay Culkin. It
was just all this weirdness, like such a weird My
first year out of the in Los Angeles, especially around Oakwood,
was so packed full of weird memories that oh.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, wild and fun and.

Speaker 6 (27:34):
Bizarre, just bizarre times.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, so life like drastically changes that very very quickly. Yeah,
you get you get Sabrina, you shoot the pilot within
the first season. It's an undeniable smash for the network.
How does life change for you?

Speaker 4 (27:52):
And bigger fan?

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, we Van, how does life change for you? What
do you do?

Speaker 6 (27:59):
I I it was still seventeen, so I couldn't legally
get an apartment, so I had to get one of
the Van guys to co signs so I could have
an apartment.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Okay, And then things.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Just got progressively weirder because the roommate was odd and
he came home one night. I was sitting on the
couch in the dark, playing my guitar, watching the Tube
television that was about this big and weighed seventy five pounds.
And it's dark in the room. The door's open, the
light from the hallway I see this big hair. I

(28:34):
was like, what who? So I'm getting robbed by somebody
crazy And the lights come on and I'm still playing
the guitar as the lights come on and it's David
Lee Roth coming through the door. Wow, it came back
from the bar with this roommate guy I had. And
he starts singing. So I just kept playing.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
And so David Lee Roth comes into your apartment.

Speaker 6 (29:02):
Singing out for the song I'm playing.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
And what does he just pour himself a drink and
make himself at home.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
No, he pulled out from his tuxedo jacket pocket a
large manila envelope and opens it up and folds it
out on the table and it's a pile of cocaine
like this, and he goes, take what you want, and
I was I was like, all right, this is gone.
It's well beyond my level of how much weird I

(29:29):
could take. So I'm gonna go to sleep. Thanks, thanks
for the good times. And about five thirty six am
I still hear them rustling around out there, so I
go out and it's time for Diamond David to go home,
and so we walk them down the elevators down to

(29:49):
you know, the sun's coming up, and his limo driver,
the poor guy had been out there all night sitting
in the car waiting for him. And you know, it
wasn't a great part of Hollywood that we were living
at the time in that apartment. It wasn't Oakwood at
that time. This is later than that, and so we

(30:11):
had prostitutes all all the way around the limo looking
in the windows to see who's in there. And Dave
comes out of our apartment.

Speaker 9 (30:22):
And goes, hey, ladies, and we all freak out out Dave,
and he's signing autograph and he gets in his limo
and he drives New Day.

Speaker 7 (30:32):
Beginning Beginning, Project Star, rock Star, still rock Star, And
all of this stuff happens within the first year that
I'm here, and it's just like nothing like that, you know,
has happened since.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
Welcome to Hollywood, kid.

Speaker 6 (30:55):
Yeah, pretty much pretty much.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
So what does your family think at this point? You're
now on a huge.

Speaker 6 (31:01):
Very little oh about the show?

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, I wanted to know what do they think about
David Lee Roth and the Mount of Coke, the Mount
of Cocaine.

Speaker 6 (31:09):
No, uh, they were. I think they were in a
little bit of disbelief because he thought, Oh, he's gonna
go out there, he's gonna run out of money, he's
gonna come home. And honestly, that's what I figured was
coming out.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
You're like, it was a possibility, to be.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
Honest, Yeah, I had to give it a shot, you know.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
So yeah, did they watch Sabrina?

Speaker 6 (31:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, they had a watch party for our
pilot and had all their friends and family come over.
And yeah, the.

Speaker 5 (31:42):
First of all, I'm gonna have nine hundred questions about
David Roth and the cocaine.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
I won't ask any of those. I will I will
get I'll keep it Sabrina friendly.

Speaker 6 (31:50):
I don't even know what kind of audience you guys aren't.
We got all ages we did.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
We say words and everything, cocaine, David Lee Roth fans,
so going we are show obviously you have. The schedule
is very particular because then it builds up to audience
night and that's you know, you're pointing towards the show.
Were you guys filming almost every day or did you

(32:16):
have standard run throughs and rehearsals and then you'd choot
a day.

Speaker 6 (32:20):
Monday was table read and half a day a run through.
I mean we showed up at ten and we were
done by I don't know four or five. Yeah, yeah,
and then Tuesday was more blocking and then the network
run through at the end of that day, and then Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday we.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Shot you shot three day.

Speaker 6 (32:38):
Ok. Yeah, gotch because all the little mash moments. Yeah,
a lot of pausing, and back then it was still
you know, it was still early on in all those effects. So, yeah,
there were things like they'd have a large tube television.
What was the biggest one back then thirty six inches?

Speaker 5 (32:54):
Yeah, I had a fifty I was a rock star
the first thing I bought.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Yeah, like people to carry it. It was insane. Yeah,
it was awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:03):
So I remember them having to basically with a grease
marker or grease pen draw the outline of say, she's
just popping in a book, so and she'd have to
hold like that and they'd lock off the camera, lock it.
Sometimes we would go to lunch at that point and
then she have to come back and they'd be like, okay,
hand up, just a little bit drop your pinky, all right,

(33:24):
lift your thumb and action and then you know, and
so that took a lot of time to get all
those moments. We were shooting three cameras, so it did help.

Speaker 5 (33:36):
Yeah, can you think of one, one specific like magic
moment that just took forever to have to do?

Speaker 6 (33:44):
No, No, it's good. The guy, yeah, yeah, the guy
who ran it, uh, Steve Kolback, he uh was, he
was just I think he just had it down after
a while. I mean at first it was tough to
get because to just first of all, you're looking you know,
your flipped reversed image, so you gotta have that communication down.
But by the end, he's like the or they would

(34:07):
turn the monitor toward you so you could kind of
see where, you know. And I didn't personally have to
do a.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Lot of that, right, Yeah, you weren't magic.

Speaker 6 (34:16):
Melissa did spend a lot of after hours, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
I get like Trooper, right, Yeah, she's in almost every scene.
She has to do almost all of that magic stuff.
So yeah, yeah, I mean the stuff for me is like, oh,
I got turned into a frog. So I'm sitting in
a car behind it with a green screen and I

(34:37):
just kind of have to go yeah, right, yeah, that'll work.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
You know, you're good, We'll make that work.

Speaker 8 (34:46):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
You recently said that you only watched like two episodes
during the show's run, which is something you have in
common with Writer. Writer also watched a couple episodes early
on and then said, this is not for me. Why
didn't you watch the show while it was on.

Speaker 6 (35:16):
I think just watching myself, I would get two in
my head or something.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
You know.

Speaker 6 (35:21):
I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to feel
how I was doing and see the reactions that I
was hoping to get. Because the crew was welcome to
laugh at things. So if you can crack the crew up,
that was pretty much your goal. So yeah, no, I
think I would have gotten too much in my head. Also,
I wasn't really in the demographic for the show.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
Yeah, it wasn't.

Speaker 6 (35:42):
It wasn't Cheers, it wasn't you know, right, but they
were really genius about having you know, I really did
get the whole family to watch it. When you've got
basically this kids show, YEP, but all the guest stars,
the parents tuned in for Shelley Long and for George
went uh.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
Davy Jones, uh, we had had.

Speaker 6 (36:07):
On the same network, right, So yeah, I'm sure they
got a deal.

Speaker 5 (36:13):
Yeah you do.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
You guys just shoot on Friday or Thursday night, Thursday night,
Thursday nights, what was Friday?

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Then table day?

Speaker 6 (36:24):
Yeah, following okay?

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (36:28):
Was that the typical.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Form it was for us because Michael Jacobs was Jewish
and observed the Sabbath, so he wanted his early day
to be Friday, So we would be done usually by
like three or four o'clock on Friday, so that he
could go and then we'd be able to tape late
on Thursdays.

Speaker 5 (36:45):
Sweet, and then by the end we didn't rehearse at
all on Fridays and.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
Then bounce Sweet.

Speaker 5 (36:54):
That was it was like that was like by sixth season,
it was like we worked.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
We don't want to rehearse anymore on this down.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
I don't want to stay here for three hours when
you look back at it.

Speaker 6 (37:05):
Awful.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
Now.

Speaker 6 (37:08):
I was always too shy to put any foot down
for myself.

Speaker 8 (37:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Were you also auditioning for movies at the same time
or were you just focused on Sabrina?

Speaker 6 (37:21):
I didn't really. It's an interesting situation with my representation,
let's just put it that way. I didn't get sent
out for a lot. I actually just had my first
ever audition for a Law and Order. Isn't that weird?
But then I should have had a Law and Order audition,

(37:43):
should I? I mean so many shows they even had
back then. Yeah, so, I mean that's that's the way
I weigh it out, you know, not a Law and Order.
But yeah, no, I I did have some. And what
ended up happening was I get offered things and I
would do them. And am I saying too much already?

(38:04):
Danielle and I would just.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Do that movie exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 (38:11):
I'm going there.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Joe, Nate and I did a movie together called game
Box one point Oh, we.

Speaker 6 (38:21):
Never We've never daniel has never mentioned Daniel ever I
have done. We've gone a great links to make sure
you never did.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
So we're going to be reviewing that movie on the podcast.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Should we really should review?

Speaker 4 (38:39):
Of course we should? Was there a game Box two point?

Speaker 5 (38:43):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (38:43):
They wanted there to be, but it was.

Speaker 6 (38:45):
Wishful thinking in that title that.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, how many days did we shoot that in?

Speaker 2 (38:51):
I think a week?

Speaker 6 (38:54):
I mean, really we shot the rehearsals. I can tell
you that I know there was no, what is this
movie about?

Speaker 4 (39:01):
And how have we never discussed game Box?

Speaker 6 (39:06):
I hadn't seen. Okay, so the first nineties gone. I
see Caroline showing up in her shuttle. We sit down
in this little lobby area at the hotel. I kind
of turn over. I'm sitting with Caroline in this way.
My manager's sitting over here. She gets distracted over here.
I get distracted over there. And the next thing I know,

(39:27):
Danielle has coming and sat in between us, and she's
talking to Caroline, and Caroline says, oh, Nate, Danielle, do
you guys know each other? And I said, oh, yeah,
Danielle and I did this cinematic masterpiece. Danielle goes, shut up.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Your mouth, shut Nate, geez, I go to great lengths
and never talk about these things. And Nate's just over here,
willy nilly throwing them out.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
Oh yes, yes, here he.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Is, join it on my podcast. Why did I invite
you here?

Speaker 6 (40:00):
I'm thinking at it that.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
Nothing.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
We absolutely will review it. It's I avoided watching it
for a long time and then did watch it, and there,
I don't know what to call those special effects.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
Oh my god, said two thousand and four.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
Science fiction you did a science fiction action movie and
you've never brought this up.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Oh my god, I don't know if I'm excited or pissed.
Oh I'm looking at the trailer right now. Why are
you unconscious? I have so many questions.

Speaker 6 (40:33):
Wow, you're excited or pissed. Once you watch it, you'll
be neither one of those.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yes, you'll be expert.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
Video game tester escapes reality by playing a mysterious game
he received in the mail. The game immerses the player
in a virtual world, the only catch being that if
he doesn't win the game, it'll cost him his life.

Speaker 6 (40:51):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
What, Oh oh, I'm so excited.

Speaker 8 (40:55):
Gripping, gripping, I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 (40:58):
You have no idea.

Speaker 6 (41:00):
I really shouldn't talk of the stuff that. I mean,
they handed me the job. I should be grateful, right.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Wait, Patrick Renna was in this too, Yes, he was
together so many.

Speaker 6 (41:15):
Daniel you didn't have any scenes with them. I think
it was just like in my office scenes.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Okay, so maybe I wouldn't have even yeah, okay, well.

Speaker 6 (41:24):
Yeah, it's not like we had a wrap party or anything.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
You are there any other films that you've done, Danielle
that we are unaware.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
Of Oh this is the best. Thank you love when
we find new episodes.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
That's definitely an episode.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
We were definitely doing that as a rewatch for sure, And.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
That'll be the first time I've watched it other than
I did go to the screening, but I kind of
watched it.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Like like, yeah, I know, did I go to that screening?
Was there too?

Speaker 6 (42:02):
Don't think so.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
I don't think she was already avoiding it.

Speaker 6 (42:05):
Yeah, this project and every all the crew, everybody is
like just kind of silently walked out of the theater.

Speaker 8 (42:14):
After all, that was a movie.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
That was a movie we made did something. We made something.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's the worst feeling in the world, though, when you're
the actor that like, yeah, I've had to get up
and do Q and as after a premiere screening for
something that I was in, and I'm just like, I
don't feel good about this.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
I don't want to.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
I have a question, why did your movie suck?

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Exactly?

Speaker 6 (42:40):
I have answers for that.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
Now.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Yeah, we've all been there. We've all been there.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
So, Nate, you did one hundred and twenty five episodes
of Sabrina. How many seasons was.

Speaker 8 (42:49):
That I did?

Speaker 6 (42:51):
Yeah, that's quite a few, quite a few how many seasons?
I think we did six altogether. They revamped the ship
at one point, so I got booted and then they
brought me. What was that like for the last two episodes?

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Yeah, Boy Meets World did that to people too, where
all of a sudden you just show up and it's
a new season and there's somebody's not going to be
there anymore. How did you find out they were going
to let you go?

Speaker 6 (43:17):
Paul told me, and she did it very nicely. I
think it would have boiled down to wash we've exhausted
the storylines for your character and we're going in a
different direction before the you know, this was towards the
end of the last year that I did the full
of yeah okay, and I was I was like, what

(43:39):
exactly does that? I didn't realize I was getting fired
just yet. I was like, what exactly does that mean?

Speaker 3 (43:45):
Right right? Where did your where did your character's storyline?
And like where did it end? When they were then
letting you know that we've exhausted it. Were you a
couple with with Sabrina? What was your what was your storyline?

Speaker 6 (43:59):
I don't know. I didn't watch damn thing. No, wait,
did it No, I think No, I think she'd been
dating David Lasher's character at that point or had that
not happened. No, I think we were still together. Okay,
and then but we knew we were going to different colleges.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Oh, comeing to that effect.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
Yeah, I watched the very first one we shot. Yeah,
because Melissa had a party and made us all watch it.
I watched the first one she ever directed, because she
had a party and at us all over to watch it.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Okay, those are the two episodes you had seen.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
And then Florissa, So.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
They let you, they let you go, and it's crushing.

Speaker 8 (44:46):
Yeah, yeah, what do you do next?

Speaker 6 (44:49):
Well, that's the thing, you know. I was still twenty,
I want to say twenty one, twenty, you know, I
was just like, oh, something else.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
But your representation still a.

Speaker 6 (45:01):
Kid, And yeah, they didn't really have anything lined up
for me. I did come pretty close to scrubs. It
was about that time. I think we were shifting over.
That might have been a little earlier, you know, I
got real close to a lot of things, but yeah,
just never clicked, and and the auditions became very very

(45:22):
few and far between after my agent had passed away,
and so I kind of got left with whoever was
around to to take me at the time, and being
a kid from Minnesota, like I didn't know anything about career.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Choices or staying.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
Active or proactive.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
And you know, we've talked about that so much on
the show about how for all of us whose families
had nothing to do with the entertainment industry, knowing to
think of what we were doing like a business and
thinking about, you know, well, I got to strike while
the iron's hot. They just let me go from Sabrina.

(46:05):
I've just spent five seasons on that. I'm probably a
pretty hot commodity right now. And if my agent's not
finding me somebody even just thinking about the fact that
your representation should be working for you and for you
to then be like shopping yourself to other agents and
managers like you would have been snapped up immediately had
you known to even be shopping yourself.

Speaker 6 (46:25):
Not a clue, Not a clue. I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
And there's no social media, so it's not like.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
Do something else for a while. If I thought a
duplex I was remodeling that I had a construction background
as a kid, so I was just having fun with
life as a twenty something.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
When did you What do you mean you had a
construction background? You started on Sabrina at seventeen? When did you?
When did you learn construction?

Speaker 6 (46:50):
I grew out. My dad was in construction all of
his life, and on the side he would build a
house while we lived in it, he would build another
one and then we'd sell and move on the side
of his regular sheet gig. So you know the house
when we were living in, uh, my sister and I
would started to get to that age. We were bickering

(47:11):
a lot, and so our rooms are right next to
each other. So my dad said, I'm buying the lumber.
Go down on the basement, frame it in, hang the drywall.
And that's where my room was for junior high high school.
But yeah, I just grew up. My first job job,
apart from acting, was literally roofing houses in the summertime.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Wow, gosh, that's so cool, so cool. I do how
to do nothing?

Speaker 1 (47:41):
He could be Panca, I could be I could do
Barbie commercials.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
I could I could go to her.

Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yeah out here and where I'm from. It's just like
that's if you can't do that, there's something wrong with you.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
As a boy.

Speaker 6 (48:01):
Anyway. Yeah, I mean you just yeah. My first toys
were a chunk of two by four and a hammer.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Adler needs What is Adler doing with his life? He
is six years old and he doesn't know how to
build a room.

Speaker 6 (48:18):
Gotta get him on it.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Come on, Adler, you're coming a slacker.

Speaker 6 (48:22):
This old house is still watchable, exactly.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Nate, you have been very open about how anxiety and
depression helps you back from being really able to pursue
acting much past Sabrina. Something else you and will have
in common. When did you start to experience anxiety and depression? Uh?

Speaker 6 (48:47):
I want to say like around puberty, and not that
it had anything to do with being interested in girls
or the changes. I mean, probably chemical changes, but I
know some of its hereditary. My mother's battled with it
all her life, and it's a generalized anxiety disorder. I'll

(49:09):
have random panic attacks over nothing.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Yep, It's fun, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (49:15):
I did have a very long wait for an audition
for Team America. Turns out they didn't hire any actors
at all, But I waited in the waiting room for
I think it was a total of three and a
half hours.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
I was sitting right next to you, were you? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (49:33):
And Paul Rudd was sitting across. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (49:35):
I know Ian Zerring was there.

Speaker 6 (49:37):
Did you go in? I can't remember you either went
in before me.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
I don't know I did.

Speaker 5 (49:42):
I did all the scratch track stuff for that for
Team America that day.

Speaker 6 (49:47):
Okay, okay, but they didn't.

Speaker 4 (49:49):
They didn't put anybody in the movie, right, they don't
put anybody?

Speaker 6 (49:53):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (49:53):
Was he really good?

Speaker 6 (49:55):
Wow? Didn't really started talking about anxiety and panic attacks,
and he started talking about lexapro and I'm on that
to this day.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
So you left that audition with an idea in your
mind that.

Speaker 6 (50:10):
Poets full of knowledge, you know, and it might be
a Midwest thing as well, or maybe it was just
the time, but you did not talk about that kind
of stuff.

Speaker 5 (50:19):
You know.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
I was afraid to talk about it. I thought I'd
get fired first of all. You know, you feel like
there's something definitely wrong with me that I that I
just have to get over or I have to fix
this on.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
My own, and if I tell people about it, it's
going to be a liability, right.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
Yeah. I was no doubt in my mind they would
have fired me. Whether that's true or not. I have
no idea, but that's the extra, that's the real stress
I lived under, you know. But I could have a
panic attack in line at the grocery store, so it's
not like there's any rhyme or reason to it.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
How were you able to balance that while also being
on Sabrina? Did you ever have a panic attack on
set or while.

Speaker 6 (51:10):
Lots oh, lots, lots and lots. Yeah, you just kind
of suck it up. Yeah, and that, like I said,
that's back before medication. I don't think the lexapro came
to I don't know when was Team America.

Speaker 5 (51:24):
Yeah seriously, well I started, so I started on boos
Bar when it was boost Bar and Selexo when I
was it was six season of Boy between six and
seven bar and medication.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Yeah, okay, how.

Speaker 6 (51:37):
How were you able to procure that?

Speaker 4 (51:40):
My doctor?

Speaker 5 (51:41):
So I went to a doctor because I thought I
was dying. I yeah, my first anxiety attack took place
on camera, like they used the take I was shooting
a movie, so I can actually watch my first anxiety.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
Wow, And I thought I was dying.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
So when I got home, I've had the same doctor
since I was like seventeen, and I sat there and
I'm telling them all the symptoms and he said, oh,
you have I think anxiety. And I said, no, no, you
don't understand. It's like or I'm having a stroke or something.
He said, no, no, it's anxiety. I said, no, it's
not listen to me, and so he started to read all.
He goes, let me read you a list of things,
and he read me essentially everything I was going through.

(52:20):
And I said, yes, that whatever that is, that's what
I have. And he turned over the pamphlet and it says,
so you're dealing with anxiety. And it was actually a
pamphlet put out by this a medication called boose Bar
at the time, which also I think the side effect
they said is that I might have quit smoking too,
which is like one of those kind of things, which
I didn't. But yeah, the Boosbar was the first thing
that I took, and then I was taking that during Boy.

(52:42):
Which is why between six and seven season I put
on so much weight. Is because the medication, I was,
you know, you gain weight on a lot of this stuff.
So I came back a lot heavier because I was
just medicating myself to perform. So it was, yeah, I
was doing that same thing. But you know, you're right,
you didn't. It's like, why am I wait, I'm having
a panic attack? Now, what the hell is this for?

Speaker 6 (53:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I just never knew.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
Yeah, you doesn't believe me either, and you didn't know
when they were going to come, and it was that
was the thing. And then because you couldn't talk about
it at the time, then you're just suffering with it
in silence, and it just gets worse. You just start
to spiral because because of all that stuff. So, yeah, nowadays,
with at least being able to discuss mental health, you know,
nowadays you say, oh, I'm sorry, I deal with anxiety.

(53:23):
I'm a little a little anxious right now. Half of
the people in the room go me too, like, don't
worry about it.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
They good.

Speaker 6 (53:29):
That was the biggest game changer for me. Yeah, besides
the lacks of pro obviously, but just the fact that
you hear so many times I have that as well. Yeah, yeah,
and just knowing how common it is. Really it's not
like you know, you're grown up to think that something's

(53:51):
wrong with you, that's a problem, there's something wrong with you,
Suck it up, get over it, and uh yeah, just
knowing that there's so many people that have it too.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
It is just yeah, yeah, knowing you're not blown.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
But yeah, So.

Speaker 6 (54:06):
Got done with the show, and you know, there weren't
a lot of auditions. A lot of the ones I
was getting I wasn't really right for, and then the
ones I really wanted. I would have full blown panic
attacks in the audition. And I even had some casting
directors say, hey, can you stay for forty five minutes
or an hour and they would work with me on

(54:29):
the auditions knowing that I was suffering. Maybe they didn't
know why, but there were a few casting directors out
there that were extra helpful.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
That's awesome. I just stopped auditioning. I literally just stopped
for years, and.

Speaker 6 (54:42):
I did eventually. I just kind of gave up. I
never called it giving up. I always but I wasn't
doing anything at all proactive other than making sure I
had representation who was also not very proactive.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
So makes the makes trying to have a career very
difficult in that situation.

Speaker 6 (55:05):
So I was like just waiting for the phone to ring, like.

Speaker 8 (55:07):
That was gonna Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
I still do that. They joke with me to this
day that I still do that.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
Where They're like, well, if you want to get in
a Hallmark movie, you got to do something about it.
In writers like, you're just waiting for them to knock
on the door. And I'm like, yeah, exactly, I knock.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
On the door.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Well, thinks that because we talked about him wanting to
do a Hallmark movie on the podcast.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Enough, that's my audition.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
That's there.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
That auditioning is still my biggest trigger. So I just
don't do it.

Speaker 6 (55:34):
Yeah, Well, I got to the point where I really
wanted to work again. It's the only like, it's the
only time that I am actually comfortable, Like when the
cameras rolling, I can't remember ever having a panic attack, right,
it's everything else that comes along with it. So just
the auditions, especially you feel like you got the interrogation

(55:55):
light on you, that sort of thing. And so, you know,
just a few years by maybe twenty seventeen, I really
wanted to start auditioning again and get the representation and
be proactive. And I knew I needed to get over
that hurdle, and so I was trying to think of, like,
what's the scariest thing I could think of was getting
on stage, which I'm not a theater actor. You know,

(56:18):
I like the ship and a bottle sort of thing
that we do with television, and you know, not the
open sea thing that live theater is so getting on
stage without a script. So I started doing Second City
and just the games that they play, and just the
stuff that forces you to get out there and start
opening your mouth and getting those laughs is so much fun.

(56:39):
And unfortunately I didn't survive COVID, but that's what I
ended up doing, and I did that for a few years.
And now it's like that fear around auditioning has now
gone right at the time where we're all doing self tape.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Now I can't run it into practice right right.

Speaker 6 (57:01):
Yeah, I feel like that that part of the fear
is maybe not gone gone, but at least I've got
got some tools to make it manageable.

Speaker 5 (57:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
That's great, And as you mentioned, we are now able
to participate in some great nostalgia conventions, including Nineties con.
What has it been like for you to revisit Sabrina
and seeing its effect on fans thirty years later.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
It's been really great. When we used to do things
like that back in the day, I was always terrified
to do them. Feeling so self conscious all this other
stuff we've been talking about, and this time around, it's
it's almost like I'm just having this the nostalgia with them. Yeah,
so they're they're telling me that I have to remember, oh, yeah,

(57:48):
I was that guy a lot of times, you know.
And so to to find out how much love everybody
had for the show, and you know, I've had so
many gay men say, there was this particular episode you did,
Sabrina turns into a boy, but she's still being a feminine,
and I'm saying to her, you know, it's cool with me.

(58:12):
I just don't want you to you know. So I
was being protective basically, And so many gay men have
said you helped me have the courage to come out
to my friends when and family for that matter. But
you know, I think mom and dad are an obstacle,
but friends are another obstacle. And so that was super,

(58:37):
super freaking heartwarming. I get choked up when I hear
those stories and just how connected people feel to the show,
to the characters, and how much we all were a
part of people's childhoods. I don't know, it's something you
you didn't I didn't think of at the time that

(58:58):
I was going to be shaping people's childhoods, are a
part of shaping people's childhoods, and now their kids are
watching it with them, with these reruns on Amazon or
Hulu or wherever they're seeing it, and it's just, I
don't know, it's a fantastic feeling. So to get to
relive it with everybody at these conventions, is it's really

(59:22):
something special.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Absolutely, I know we feel very much the same way.
Like you said, it feels like there's something about being
older and having the distance from it that now instead
of it feeling so much like it's us, it does
it feels almost like slightly like other people. There's something
that feels just so much we're like we're experiencing the

(59:44):
nostalgia with them. Exactly what you said was a great
way of saying it.

Speaker 6 (59:48):
Our crews were family, our casts were family, and now
the audience I really feel that with them as well,
which is definitely. Well.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
I know you've since seen I know you said during
the time the show was on you had only seen
two episodes, but since then you have seen more Sabrina
episodes because you have a teenage son, right, and he
wanted to watch it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:09):
Uh, yeah, well he does that by himself.

Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
I still don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
No, I don't think he wanted me to see it
with him either.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
What do you think his react? Did he tell you
what his reaction was to seeing his teenage dad on
screen in front of him?

Speaker 6 (01:00:28):
You know what I hear the most is, Oh, I
look so much like you did back then. So it's
like I'm looking at a mirrors that is so cute.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
Has he shown any interest in the business.

Speaker 6 (01:00:44):
Oh, yeah, he's doing a musical right now. Yep, So
I'm going up there to watch him in Rent.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
It's just a bunch of people who don't have a job.

Speaker 5 (01:00:55):
That's all at Rent is when I every time I
see it as an adult now, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Like, wow, someone get a job and you can keep
your place.

Speaker 4 (01:01:02):
Try that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
But it's also like a really nice place, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:06):
That's all right?

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Well, that's wonderful. Congratulations. I hope, I hope you enjoy
watching him in Rent. Don't let Will's no, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
A great show.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
A bunch of dead beats love it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
I love Grandpa. Republicans well, Republican.

Speaker 5 (01:01:35):
It's just as a kid, you watch it, You're like, yeah,
they're fighting for the power as an adult, and like
someone needs to get a job.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
No, one get a job.

Speaker 5 (01:01:43):
That's your problem. Why you can't afford rent? You can
sing as much as you want.

Speaker 6 (01:01:49):
What are their professions?

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
They one of them carries the camera, you know, one
of them does that, the other one does nothing. It's like, hey,
so weird, I didn't do anything today and rent the chances.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Yeah exactly, Nate says, somebody do some roofs. Come on, yeah, yeah, come.

Speaker 6 (01:02:10):
On, yeah, I'm going to get some roofing.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
Yeah, yeah, you gotta do something or else. David is
not going to show up with a giant thing of cocaine.
You gotta earn that, mate.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
Thank you so much for being here with us.

Speaker 6 (01:02:28):
Thank you guys so much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
I'm fun to talk to you. Hopefully we get to
reunite with you soon, if not in a nineties con
at a taco party or a Korean barbecue party, some
sort of get gathering. We would love to see you
again soon.

Speaker 6 (01:02:41):
Game Box, we are going to do that we've been
meaning to do. I kept my mouth shut on that one.

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
Excited, yeah, so excited for this.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Thank you for being here, always to see you. Give
our love to Natanya, please will do I will.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Good to say?

Speaker 7 (01:03:05):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:03:06):
Oh god, some of the stories.

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
So I'm not even gonna get into game backs because
I'm like, how have you never mentioned this movie before?

Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
Just the title game box one point?

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
Oh magical goodness. Yeah, his stories though, that's what was
David Lee Roth coming home with his roommate.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I get.

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
I mean, obviously just to do blow, but if you've
got that much coke, then what are you going to?

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
Somebody else?

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
I still got a limo, and exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
It was probably like an Awards show night, and like
everyone else went home and.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
He was like, I keep going, Let's take a limo
and let's on somebody. He's in a tuxedo.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
He must have been coming off of like the Grammys
or something. And everybody else went to sleep, and he's like, well,
I got the limb until five in the morning.

Speaker 5 (01:03:52):
So let's go to some random apartment in Hollywood.

Speaker 8 (01:03:57):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Like where did he live? Why not go to David
Lee Row.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
You would think, yeah, very strength, and there's like forty
two people living in a van.

Speaker 5 (01:04:05):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
I mean some of the stories he had.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Are nine people in the studios.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
But I totally yeah, I know that, Like at that age,
like I didn't care, Like the idea where I slept,
I didn't care.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
I would just be like, oh, yeah, what are we doing,
We're gonna you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
If I like went on a road trip or somebody,
we would just sleep in cars on the side of
the road.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
I mean everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I would literally just be like, we wouldn't even think
about it, would just be like, well, we're going to
get to New Orleans by what two days from now?
So then we just sleep in fields, like.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Just like pull off.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
And then if you wake up and like cows would
be walking around you, and you just be like, oh right,
the only thing you worried about is if a cop
was going to like yeah, but it's so yeah, it's
just now I'm like if I don't have a bed,
that's man, that's so uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
But at that age, you just don't care. You're like,
I'll sleep sitting up him and Michael Penya. I love it.
I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
The stories are great.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
He's always been like such a you can tell nothing
about his success or anything has changed one bit of
who he was auring the time he was a kid,
like just true salt of the earth, nice guy. Yeah, well,
thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on

(01:05:14):
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com. And
we've got merch.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
In a world where your video games can kill you
and Daniel Fishell pretends she wasn't in a movie. We
give you game Box one point zero March.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
I can't back for us this trailer.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Oh my god, pod Meets Worldshow dot com will send
us out.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
We love you all, pod dismissed.

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Pod Meets World is nheart podcast producer and hosted by
Daniel Fischel, Wilfredell and Ryder Strong Executive producers Jensen Carp
and Amy Sugarman, Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo,
producer and editor, Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddie Moore, engineer and
Boy Meets World super Fanston Allen. Our theme song is
by Kyle Morton of Typhoon and you can follow us
on Instagram at Podmets World Show or email us at

(01:06:06):
Podmets Worldshow at gmail dot com