Nicole Eggert Meets World

With Season 7 on the horizon, it's time to prep with Bridget, the new boss of the Pennbrook student union, also known as '90s TV icon, and the definition of survivor, Nicole Eggert.

Nicole shares her journey from starring in Michael Jacobs's Charles in Charge to running in slow-mo on a very demanding Baywatch set. AND we learn about the shared bond, and new friendship, between Danielle and Nicole, two women who've recently battled Cancer.
Plus, we discover that Nicole wasn’t just meant for a one-off Boy Meets World appearance - she was originally planned as a recurring character! All that, and Blown Away chat, on an all-new Pod Meets World!

Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Will, I worked with Nicole Sullivan this.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Week Oh isn't she the best?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
My gosh. So you worked with her on Kim Possible. Yeah,
and you guys actually got to be in the room together,
right you, John DiMaggio and Nicole and Nicole.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, we were the three amigos for a long time.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And you and I were together at a convention in Austin.
And so when I got back to work on Monday,
I told her, I said, by the way, I was
in Austin this weekend with Wilfredell. And she just lit up.
She was like, Oh, isn't he the best? That's so fun. Oh,
and then she started telling me stories about the three

(00:57):
of you guys, and you know, just how funny were
and all of this stuff. And I was like, I know.
And then she goes, how do you know Will?

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Well, Will and I were on Boy Meets World together,
And I thought of you guys because she said you
were on.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Boy Meets World.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Oh my god, I said, finely.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
She said, to be fair, I've never seen Boy Meets World.
She said, I'm a little I'm a little too old
for it. She said, So I don't know anyone who's
on that show. But I it was just it was
so funny. But yeah, it was really great. I got
to direct her on Vamporina and she was an absolute joy.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So she's awesome. She's super funny and like you go
back and you watch some of the old Mad TVs
that she was on. Oh man, she was just killing. Yeah.
She's very very funny and uh, super fun to work with. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
So what was she on Kim Possible? I've never seen
she was.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
She go, she's the main bad lady, and so she
was Dracken, Draken's right hand, you know, who's supposed to
be the sidekick, but it's actually running the show because
because John DiMaggio's Drakeen is just such an idiot. And
she was Oh god, she was just she was so funny. Yeah.
So it was always because Christy Carlson Romano, who played Kim,
was at school.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
They said she that's what Nicole said. Nicole said she
was a teenager. So she was never with you guys.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Never with us. She was always there. We'd occasionally phone
patch with her, but rarely. And then Kim Possible might
arguably be the show that I was on that had
the greatest guest stars of all time that I never
got a chance to be. I mean it was like
Ricardo Montalbondjeane Smart, I mean, all these incredible people, Riders Strong.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
I was gonna say I did a few episodes, but
I did them from New York remotely, so I was
a loan in a room with no other actors and
I never watched the show.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
So still yeah, yeah, Elliott Gould played my dad. I mean,
like the most amazing cast and never got to meet
any of them. It was it was John Nicole and myself.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Why don't we do Kim Possible? Rewatch episode? Why don't
we watch an episode?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
The writer was on, I would love to I would
love to be let's do that as a place, play
brick that brick.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
He's like, yeah, rick or something like that was the
Bullie high school jock dude. I just remember going in
and it's like, so, how do you what kind of voice?
They were like, uh, maybe a slight keanu And I
was like okay, and they're like, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
Perfect, Oh my gosh. Basically mean the hired writer and
then said could you be a jock? Yeah, that's real
talent if you were able to pull out that's a
real talent again, I played a mega nerd. What are
the chances of that? Who's gonna tell him? I'm gonna

(03:50):
tell him.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I don't get. What's happening is I'm in my childhood
bedroom and here's ron.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Stap me, ron STAPs right here.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
He's also behind me right there. I'm trying to decorate
through himselves, not just pink Floyd posters.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
And.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Doul Well is trying to redecorate his childhood bedroom. So
there are toys. He'd be added toys.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, he brought to look right. You wanted to look good.
It can't just be Marilyn Monroe and fake grenade.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
You can't just have to fake grenade.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Okay, all right, what's it? Hey grenade?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Let's go in?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
No, I got it ready.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Welcome to vond Meats World.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm right or Strong, and I'm Wilfordell.

Speaker 7 (04:37):
Hey Wildcats, it's Bart Johnson. You may know me as
Coach Bolton from the High School Musical franchise. Can you
believe it's been almost twenty years since we first hit
the course at Oldiest High? Well celebrate. I'm sitting down
with some of your favorite cast members. Producers, dancers, choreographers,
and or to bring you the ultimate behind the scenes
look at high school musical So Wildcats join me on

(04:58):
my new podcast, get your head in the game, and
let's go back to where it all began.

Speaker 8 (05:01):
Listen to Magical Rewind on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Before Michael Jacob's co created Boy Meets World, putting three
young actors on a trajectory that would lead to a
weird rewatch podcast. More than thirty years later, he had
already berthed some of the biggest sitcoms on television and
some of the less big. He first broke out with
My Two Dads, a runaway hit with Paul Reiser, Greg
Evigan and a young Stacy Keenan. Then he ran into

(05:38):
some roadblocks with shows like Singer and Sons and The
Torkulsns or Almost Home If You're Nasty. And then there
was Dinosaurs, an absolutely unhinged puppet show that included one
of the most shocking series finales of all time. But
included in this resume of pre Boy Meets World programs
was the show that really put Michael on the map,

(05:59):
helping pell him into one of the most sought after
showrunners of his day. It was Charles in Charge. The
show ran on CBS for just one season, but found
a home in syndication for three years and over one
hundred episodes, putting our guest this Week on millions of
TV sets in the nineties and cementing her as many
of our listeners first crush. She was also seen.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Wait, I'm sorry, I'm stopping you right in the middle there,
and I never stopped you during your intros. But it
only was on a network for one season before went
his syndication.

Speaker 5 (06:32):
And then they recast it, so I think after the
first season only Scott Bayos. Wow.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So then everybody else leased the entire family.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
Like Willie Aim like all that none of them were
on the first season.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (06:43):
Yeah, as far as I know, that's the story is
that he comes back to be the because he was
like a manny right music, a Danny or whatever, and
the second season was him coming in. It was a
whole different family and he was surprised and then yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Find out more.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Sorry interrupting Danielle, but had had to figure that out.

Speaker 8 (06:59):
Geez.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
She was also seen on TJ Hooker, Who's the Boss,
Married with children and the time capsule of a movie
Blown Away, which I will ask her about today. But
many of you might remember her from a little worldwide
phenomenon called Baywatch, a show will watched for the compelling scripts, right.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, it's amazing. Absolutely. I didn't even find out it
took place on a beach until like season three.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
She played Lifeguards Summer Quinn from nineteen ninety two to
nineteen ninety four, a time of her life. She recently
unpacked for the documentary after Baywatch Moment in the Sun,
a film she also produced, and she still found time
to be an inspiration for women everywhere when she disclosed
her battle with stage two breast cancer in twenty twenty three,
documenting the ups and downs of her journey on social

(07:48):
media and on her podcast Perfectly Twisted. All this and
she appeared on an episode of Boy Meets World this week.
We are thrilled to welcome to Pod meets World. Love
Nicole Eggert. You everything, you look great, you sound great.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
You thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
So excited.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
I literally got COVID for the first time, the first
time ever.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Welcome to the club.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
It's like I've been on the outs of this club.
I was like, what are the protocols? Do I call everybody?
Or is this just like nobody gives anymore?

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Pretty much it's the latter, pretty much.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
How are you feeling fine? I mean, listen, it's like
I'm a mom. We we just like I didn't even
catch it or even think to test till like the
tail end of it, Like until I was like, why
is my nose literally trying to leave my face?

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Like like those of my eyeballs.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Were trying to like something off. So I before I
went in for an allergic reaction, I was like, let
me do it contest, and I got a positive. So
I was like, okay, so funny.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Well, welcome, like Will said, welcome to the Uh, it's
only five years. I mean you didn't.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
I know, I didn't think I was. I thought I
was immune to it. I was like, but you know
it got me.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Well, we are so happy to have you here with us.
We always like to start with people's origin story. And
I know you grew up in Glendale and so depending
on traffic, it's only a short or long trip to Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
And your mom was a talent agent, right, Yes, she
became a talent agent. Later I was born in Glendale
and then because that's where my mother was living and ooh,
she got pregnant out of wedlock, which I didn't discover
till way later too. That was still like such a
taboo in their eyes. And my dad was living in Hollywood,

(09:49):
my mom was living in Glendale, and he built a
home in Huntington Beach. So it's like when two years old,
I moved to Huntington Beach where, yeah, I had most
of my childhood there, and then coming up to LA
which that is not that's not easy.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
I also grew up in Orange County and that is
not a quick trip.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
No, especially when you're a kid and you're like there's
so many other what you think is important things to
be doing and sitting on the freeway. So that was tough. Yeah,
So I pretty early on I started getting an apartment
in Universal City and Studio City because I was like,
I can't do this drive all the time. This isn't fair.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
That makes sense.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, I wish the drive was from Glenville.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
That would have been significantly better. So did you start
in beauty pageants and then make your way over to entertainment?
How did that happen?

Speaker 3 (10:44):
That absolutely happened. And it's so crazy because I was
that kid that like would dig big holes and play,
you know, climb trees, and I just wasn't the beauty
pageant type. And my mom my parents were both immigrants
from Europe and they grew up during World War Two
and they were living in southern California and my mom

(11:09):
suddenly found herself a housewife and heard about these local
beauty pageants and was like, you, you're gonna do those. And
so the trade off was that we could go to
these venues and I would be able to just enjoy
a day at the pool because I was obsessed with
swimming pools. I still am. And that was the trade off.

(11:29):
I would do the beauty pageants if I got to
enjoy the pool.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
That's so cute.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
And so we did, and yeah, but I was like
not interested at all in these beauty pageants. Hated them.
And I won and I just kept winning, which meant
we kept going back. Right.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
You didn't realize that if you really wanted your mom
to stop this, you needed to fail with them.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Exactly. I tried.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
I tried my damnedest.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yet Yeah, little miss don't want.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
To be here, Yeah, little miss go brush your hair.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
And yeah, so I kept winning and I made it
to Miss Little Missus Universe, and Miss Universe at the
time was like this big televised network show and and
I had my first television appearance and then the phone
started ringing and my mom was like, and we're going
to do this, and that's that's.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
How I'll be getting How old are you at this
point or four or five years old? Yes, she even
really remembers.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Universe Petite Division at age five. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Oh, in all fairness, that was a way easy year
that you won.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Let's be honest, the competition wasn't that.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Oh my gosh, Okay. So soon after you win, you know,
Miss Petite Universe, you're starring in commercials by age eight,
and you're in movies with Cheryl Ladd and Jacqueline Bissett
and Candice Bergen. Were you having fun once you started
doing commercials in TV or did you feel the same
way you did about pageants?

Speaker 8 (13:03):
No?

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I actually had fun because, and I'm sure you can
relate to this, like as a kid in doing commercials
was so fun because you got to see all the products.
At least for me, I seeing all the products early
and like getting your hands on them, especially the toys,
and like I did a ton of Mattel, you know,
So I like had all the barbies and to me,
that was just like amazing, just the most amazing thing.

(13:28):
So and I didn't really know any different, Like I
didn't know I was supposed to be, you know, in kindergarten.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Were you in traditional school at it at the time.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, yes, in Huntington Beach, And so we would go
back and forth. And it wasn't until I was, you know,
had a series regular that we got pulled and I
made the definitive choice to move because I couldn't. You know,
people don't understand what kids go through with school work.
And then that transportation on top of it, that commute

(14:03):
was just too much. So yeah, I was going back
and forth and back and forth until about thirteen years old.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
You're right, that is a lot. No, I loved it.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
I loved it. I was like I didn't have to
be in school. We got to just like hang out
and play with toys, and to me, it was just
I was having a good time.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Do you remember your audition for Charles in Charge?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Well, the thing is is that I didn't really audition
for it because I had auditioned for Alberton so many
times for so many shows, and he had always said,
we're going to find something for you. We're going to
find something. And when Charles in charge came across his desk,
he called and he said, Okay, I think I have
the show. This is the show for you. And so

(14:49):
then I met with Michael Jacobs and then yeah, and
the rest was sort of history. So it was sort
of Alberton had his eye out for it.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Okay, he knew he wanted you.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, I'd already done all the weird things Alberton would
ask you to do, like headstand in audition when you
guys are younger, so you didn't go through that process.
But Albert, like you would audition for everything that crossed
his desk, and he would he once he already knew
what like you're acting, he would have you just do
weird things like can you do a headstand? Can you

(15:21):
do a handstand? Can you like? It was just the weirdest.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
He was very He was a bizarre guy.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
And so I had gone through, you know, fifty of
those auditions already, so we were well exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
He had already checked off on your headstand, your hand handstand,
and your acting. You were good to go.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Yeah, I'd done all the weird bits all. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
So when you got the role of Charles in Charge?
Because in Danielle's intro, so I'm the television junkie of
the group. And was it two different shows? Was Charles
in Charge something for one season? And then it changed
and they recast it for a second season? Now, were
you on from the Pie or how did the show change?
Because I didn't know anything about this. I thought it

(16:03):
was just one show the entire way through, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
No, it was a network show that did one season
and was canceled and syndication was becoming, you know, the
new thing. So that's it was. It was their hand
at doing a syndicated run, and so they recast everything
and so we away. They run in a new family
and it was the Pembrokes and then it was the Powals,
And yeah, they just made this switch. It was ironically

(16:28):
the same thing that happened with Baywatch. And that's how
I because Alberton got me involved with bay Watch and
we made that crossover because they were a syndicated show.
I mean, they were a network show. Did one season,
got canceled and wanted to do the syndication route and
came to Alburton and he said, Okay, well let's do it.
I'll help you and use Nicole and we'll do a spinoff.

(16:49):
And we were going to do like a nine to
two one zero type of thing at the beach. And
that's how I got rolled right into Baywatch from Charles
in Charge. So yes, it was this formula they had going.

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Speaker 1 (17:33):
Now, do you remember feeling a lot of pressure about
Charles in Charge, Like feeling that there was just a
lot of pressure on your shoulders? Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
You know, interesting because at that age you kind of
I didn't really take on that kind of pressure of like,
this is a show now that they want it to
be a success. It failed once they wanted to be
a success, and I didn't really feel that kind of pressure.
I started it right around the first day that I
was supposed to start high school, so it was sort

(18:17):
of that was more on my mind as a young teenager,
like am I making the right decision to go and
be on a show rather than go have the high
school experience? That was more of the pressure that I
was feeling.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
And looking back on it, now, do you think you
made Do you feel like you made a good choice,
or do you feel like you missed out on a
high school experience?

Speaker 3 (18:40):
You know, I really kind of lived with no regrets,
and I wouldn't be where I'm at if I didn't
make all of these And it turns out Charles in
Charge was really a great and a really horrible experience
for me and for a lot of the cast in general.
So you know, there's that part of it. But again,
would I change it? I don't really live like that.

(19:01):
I kind of think we take everything that we messed
up and we learned from it and it makes us
better and smarter and more whole.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Well, we didn't none of us met Michael until nineteen
ninety three. Can you tell us what your memory of
working with Michael Jacobs was like, We're curious if he
was ever any different than the Michael we knew, or
if he was always the same Michael.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well interesting because I you know, when he was very
high energy, always like the high energy was there. He
wasn't as involved in Charles and Charge as he was
Boy Meets World. He sort of was there in the
beginning set it up, said how he wanted it to
go and flow and gave us all a lot of
direction and then sort of left it in everybody else's hands.

(19:49):
And not until I met him again for Boy Meets World,
and I felt he was a little bit more. I felt
like and it might have been the timing too, and
that particular episode, because I also looking back at it
leading up to this, there was a lot of a

(20:10):
lot of changes maybe happening on the show. I mean,
correct me if I'm wrong. You guys were there and
he was saying a lot of things to me and
at me, and I really didn't I couldn't understand what.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Like, what do you want to follow?

Speaker 3 (20:23):
I had a heart, eye struggled. I couldn't follow, and
I was hearing him and I wanted to understand him,
but I ended up just really feeling confused, and my
part that was supposed to be an arc on Boy
Meet's World got cut really short because he's like, you're
not giving me what I want. And I was like, yeah,
I'm really struggling to understand what it is you want

(20:43):
for me. And it was making me just uncomfortable in
the role, to be honest, because I felt really lost.
I was like, I didn't have creative like license at all,
and I was trying to be what what he what
I thought I heard him saying, but I couldn't and
it just it was really like it was just a

(21:06):
failed a failed attempt for me. So I had a
lot of disconnect with him. On when it was Boys
Meets World Wars Charles in Charge, I think that I
was I was giving him what he wanted with that
character and it was fine. Everything was like smooth sailing.
So it was two very different experiences with him.

Speaker 5 (21:24):
So was he not show running Charles in Charge? Was
he not like their every note session and oh wow?

Speaker 3 (21:30):
No no, no, not hands on like that at all.
Only in the beginning the first couple episodes and then
he left.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Who took over?

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Well, it really was Al Burton was like the guy right.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Did you have any sort of creative control in Charles
in Charge? Like, I know you were a teenager, but
did you feel like you got to have a hand
in storylines or in character development or did you really
leave that to all of the adults. I felt like
they did.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
The writers did a really great job of watching run
throughs and letting us do some ad libs like letting
us be free in it and letting us be our
just goofy selves and either running with it or getting
an inspiration from it. I felt like it was a
really happy medium of but they didn't want us going
too far off script, Like I felt like I watched

(22:25):
you guys on Boy Meets World and I was like, oh,
they really kind of have a little.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Bit more room where I definitely did. Yeah, will definitely
hit the room.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
And I found that fascinating. I was like, oh wow,
And it was so kind of alien to me because
I was like, that's we weren't. It was much more
like the timing had to be like this, and once
we decided on what the jokes were going to be
and where they were going to land, they really wanted
us to just keep it there and Scott Bayo and
his father Mario really wanted a timely schedule and really

(22:57):
wanted to be out of there by a certain time day.
So it was very like, you know, don't put this up, Yeah,
to say your lines, to do what's written and what
we decided on and get it.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Where did they have to be? Yeah, where were they going?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I mean they wanted to time them off. I think
they just wanted out of their is all. I really kind.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Of honestly love this. I think this is great. Next
the next job I have, I'm going to be like, listen,
I can only work until two. We're going to have
to have this wrapped up by two pm. I've got
places to be. Yeah, I kid you not.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
I could you know. They would say if we got
into the series, he would say, I want to be
done by lunchtime today, Let's have this like done by lunch.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
I was like, oh god, well we in all fairness
we had that too, as long as lunch was one
am exactly. So yeah, we were we were final. I
think one of the other reasons that I was given
a little more leeway when you were there, especially is
because we it was seventh season. I think by that
point we knew that, like we we hadn't even been
if memory serves, you were in kind of the first

(23:56):
half of the season, and we weren't even picked up
for by that point the full twenty two. For season seven,
we got picked up I think for thirteen, and so
we thought we were done, and I think by that
point they were kind of like, yeah, go have fun.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
So I think it might have been that kind of
vibe too a little bit. It was a little bit
of senioritis for us on the set, where it was
kind of like, let's play all right. This part of
the script is more of a guideline than anything else,
because at that point, if they were going to fire us,
they were going to fire us. So I think it
was more that vibe you walked into too. But I
didn't know that you were supposed to be an ARC.

(24:30):
That would have been great because I remember there was
good chemistry between the three of us. I thought I
didn't remember you struggling with the role at all. I
remember that you and myself and Matt Lawrence. I thought
the three of us were working really well together. So
to hear that you were supposed to be on more
than one episode is amazing.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, I think they wanted it to be a character
in the show, and yeah, that didn't happen, And yeah,
I had a great time with you guys, Like yeah,
in fact, you guys were my saving grace. I was
struggling at home, Like personally, I was just starting a
really ugly, like custody battle with my daughter. I had
a one year old at that time, and you know,

(25:07):
things were just crazy in my personal world. And then
I had Michael just like you're not giving it to me,
You're not giving it to me, and I was, and
you guys were just so amazing on set that it
was like, yeah, I probably would have lost it. I
think I would have combusted if it wasn't for you
guys having being so relaxed and so fun and so
friendly and so welcoming and just all those good things.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Well let's well, we're also just a huge fans. I
mean we because it's like, you know, as as actors
around the same age, we'd obviously seen your work, so
we were like, oh, we get to work with Nicole.
So we were psyched that you were coming on the show.
So there was that kind of vibe too, where it
was like, oh, this is going to be great. We
can't wait. So, yeah, you hid that very well. That
that I guess you weren't vibing with the character and

(25:49):
Michael wasn't because I don't remember that.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
We haven't gotten to the episode yet in our rewatch,
it's a season seven episode called picket Fences. Can you
refresh our listener's memory and ours? Because I don't remember
the episode because we're not there yet. What was your
character on Boy Meets World and and what was the storyline?

Speaker 3 (26:09):
So she was the chancellor's daughter, Bridget Murphy, and she
shows up in the student's cafe and it's like, who
who are you, guys? I'm your new boss, and she
sort of lays it out. She's like nepotism. My father
is the chancellor, I'm your new boss. You're gonna kiss

(26:31):
my blah blah blah blah kind of thing and kind
of starts there, it ends there.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, I thought maybe I didn't remember it because I
had a heart out at too. I wanted to be
done by lunch and I just had to get out.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Danielle was was a little miss Universe that week.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
The Division, the Division exactly, so she was doing that.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Man, that's so funn.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, I mean what makes me laugh too, because you
guys say the beginning and it was like it was
episode ten and these days like that's so that's just
such a throwback to those days, like episode ten was
like the first half.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah, right exactly. Now it's like you get four episodes,
so for the entire season, Like wait a minute, what
what's going on?

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:21):
So, uh, twenty two a year, twenty six a year
was crazy, that's so interesting.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
And yeah, you're right that full that's a full setup
for more than one episode. You don't do a full
setup like that only to be in one episode. Yeah, yeah, it.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Was Yeah, I just I wasn't. I wasn't doing it
for him, and he was like, you're out of here,
and I feel like, also if i'm if I'm not mistaken.
There were some other people because there was another storyline
going on, and I can't remember exactly, but maybe it
was like an apartment somebody looking for an apartment, and
maybe there were other characters being introduced into that Subka story.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
That's going to be oriented Hanga looking for an apartment. Right, look, that's.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
What it is, Okay, that's that's picket fences. That's why
it's called picket fences is because you're looking for your
white picket fence. This might be the one where you
move into the really horrible, like terrible apartment and you
meet the other single mom who's there. Yeah, could have
been it. Yes, that's okay, So that's what it was. Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, bells are ringing. And in Michael's defense, I think
he was trying to introduce a lot of new characters
in that episode. There was a lot he was trying
to get.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's what you do with three episodes left of your
entire series, just jamming as many characters as you pop.
It's episode ten of the last thirteen. Were doing, let's
introduce thirty five new characters.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
Well it's funny because Will earlier you said, you know,
we were probably feeling comfortable or like we didn't care.
But I bet you Michael was feeling a lot of
pressure because I remember he was still angling for a
season eight.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, you know, we were all kind of like ready
to leave and we were like.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
As actors done, but I feel like he was actually
still gunning, like we can keep this going, right, let's
not an end. Let's not let it end here, you know,
and huh.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, does anybody know after Boy ended how long TGIF lasted?

Speaker 1 (29:10):
No, No, I don't either, but.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I mean it wasn't on for another ten years. It
was like TGIF kind of folded not too long after that, right,
I don't know. I think I don't know. Somebody's clacking
away and looking.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
At up right now.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
I'm sure, I'm sure. Well, Boy Mee's World is known
for having quite a long and illustrious guest star history,
but while researching Charles in Charge, I was really surprised
to run into two names that you guys had as
guest stars, Paul Walker and Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan did
two episodes. Do you remember them being on the show

(29:44):
or not? Now?

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yes, I remember Paul very clearly because we were all
the same age. And you know, when you're on a
show like that and you have a guest star, you
guys are all crammed into the tutor room for hours
and hours on end. I believe I want to say
Meg Ryan was on the like maybe the original the network.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Version, so you didn't work with him? Yeah? Yeah? What
was Paul Walker? Like? What do you remember? Sweet kid?

Speaker 3 (30:11):
You know, just a sweet, normal, very like I think
he was from OC as well. Yeah, I think he was, yeah, right,
and just so felt just like such a normal, down
to earth and obviously before he was the Paul Walker
just cute, cute as could be, so cute. Yeah, I know.

(30:32):
And I was sitting there and I think he was
brought on as my younger sister's love interest, and I
was like, she always gets cute, why did she get him?

Speaker 2 (30:44):
By the way, the original run of ABC's a TGIF
programming ended September eighth, two thousand. Wow.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Okay, so Boy Meets World one in March or something
of two thousand and pretty much was over.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
It was like right at the end. Yeah, and the run,
I guess began September twenty second, nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Oh you know what, the series finale of Boy Meets
World aired on my birthday, so May fifth of two thousand,
so just a few months later.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
There you go. Yeah, so it didn't last much longer
after us, so they would have had to move us
off the block to put us somewhere else to get
a season eight.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
So yeah, wow, he was in a pressure cooker.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
I mean he really was, right.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, so you mentioned that Alberton then moved you from
Charles in Charge basically right into Baywatch, right, Yeah, did
you have any reservations about joining that show? What were
your what were your thoughts going into that?

Speaker 3 (31:33):
You know, it was interesting because I was looking forward
to doing the spinoff of it. I didn't go into
it thinking what if I end up being a lifeguard
on Baywatch? Right, so you know, the naive Nicole didn't
think about that part. And I was leaving to go
to Canada to shoot a handful of films and then

(31:54):
I was going to come back and start Baywatch. I
knew that my wardrobe was coming, my hair makeup was coming,
so also very comfortable. He also put Pamela Anderson, who
I had known she was on Charles in Charge and
around the set a lot because she dated Scott so
and I knew David Charvay already, So it felt very
comfortable going into this into that, and I kind of

(32:14):
didn't put a lot of thought into it. I was like,
kind of, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
And then when I showed up on set, I kind
of dawned on me. When you know, fittings were just
this red bathing suit, and I was like, where are
the rest?

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Jeez, oh man, where's the rest?

Speaker 3 (32:33):
And then the show immediately took off and it hit
and it hit number one show in the world, and
then they were like spin off what they were like,
this formula, this is what's working, this is where we're staying.
And I was like, whoa damn.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Curiously, you just kind of touched on it with starting
to work out. Aside from having to quote unquote look
good or look the part, how physical was it to
be shooting a show like this all the time?

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Well, it was a little bit. You know, it is
running in the sand, It's like, and we're not running
in slow mocean, you know, contrary to everybody's belief, you know,
and they do they do dump you out off a
barge in the ocean, and you do have to keep
up and at least try to make like you you
know what you're doing. I mean I jumped off piers.
I would climb up, you know, up the ropes to

(33:22):
get back up the pier, like we were really in
the trenches. And I remember the first day on set
they had me and I was a rookie trying out
to be a lifeguard, and they had me and they
would use real, actual lifeguards as atmosphere all the time,
and we were in a race for tryouts and I
was thrown in with them and they were like.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Keep up, keep up, and I'm like vomiting.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
I was like throwing up, like trying to run into
the waves with these people, and I was like, there's
just been a terrible mistake. I don't know if you
think I'm an act, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I don't. I lay on the beach. I dumped under
a few waves.

Speaker 5 (34:03):
But even just the work, like the going from a
multi cam, which is like you're in a sound stage,
you rehearse all week and then they bring in an
audience to a single cam alone, must have been a huge.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
On a beach with the ocean, and I mean this
is a massive thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
I mean I've done lots of single camera shows and
movies and stuff in the past, So that wasn't that
wasn't so daunting. But the weather, like you think the beach.
I grew up at the beach. I love the beach,
but we're shooting winter months, like oh, you're freezing, and like,
good luck trying to find a dry towel on that set,
Like you're freezing. They're like get out. We can see

(34:38):
the rain drops on the water. You know, it's not
just like all it's cracked up to be right, And
the overcast days for lighting were the better days.

Speaker 6 (34:47):
So it was just.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
It's tougher.

Speaker 8 (34:50):
It was.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
It was harder than expected.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Did they not give you any proper training before you
started shooting, Like, hey, we're gonna try to give you
some lifeguard lessons? Nothing kind of on the fly.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
It was like on the go, it was it really.
I think they got better at it as time progressed,
but they were still feeling out like what is this show?
Because it went from this network show that was much
more It wasn't so fluffy, It wasn't you know, so
video MTV video asque. It was much more like lifeguards

(35:26):
as in police it was. It was just so much
more structure, conservative show, and they were sort of feeling out.
I was very much a guinea pig of feeling out,
like how serious are we taking this as them being lifeguards?
But they did want it to be, you know, correct,
so they would help us like as we were going along,
and I think as they went down the line, they
started training people and working with newcasts coming on a

(35:49):
lot better but no, I didn't have any prior training.
It was really on the on the go.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
We had Kelly Packard on the podcast recently and she
talked a lot about the pressure of the stars of
Baywatch for keeping their weight, and it sounded pretty rough.
I know it was already difficult for just being a
woman in the nineties was difficult, but I can only
imagine when you're wearing a bathing suit week after week.
This must have been very hard. Was that your experience?

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yeah, I mean is it's a lot of pressure. And
I think especially when Kelly came on after the show
was such a success and you saw the bodies and
you knew what you were walking into, I feel like
that would be so much more pressure us going into it.
There really wasn't a guideline and it was like here
we are, and you know, we're just doing this.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Luckily, I was so.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Young that and I was considered curvy. Yeah right, and
I look back and I'm like, where, what right?

Speaker 1 (36:51):
What's going on?

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I mean so much so that they gave my character
an eating disorder and and yeah, we had a five
pound clause that they could weigh us. Didn't want us
going above or below five pounds of our weight. But
I do, in hindsight think that that was also a
protection to make sure that there weren't that nobody was
getting too thin. I didn't have that problem. I was

(37:13):
more like, stay under, stay under, and so I you know,
I did start to do some working out on the
beach and you know, go for extra run since we
were there and the sand and do things like that.
But when you're that young, it's not that hard.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
It's much easier.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
You know, I had it. Yeah, it's much much easier.
But Yeah, as the years went on, I think the
pressure for the women had to be intensified.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well, a lot of this comes up in the recent
documentary After Baywatch, which you appear in as well as produced,
and similar to our journey here on the podcast, you
had to deep dive into your youth on the screen.
What did you learn from that experience?

Speaker 3 (37:52):
God, it was interesting. I just was learning so much
more about the show as it went along, and you know,
being and the producer on it, I didn't want to
focus so much on myself because I was such a
small you know, it was in the beginning and it
was weird and my story. We worked on it for
five years, and so much changed, like the pandemic happened,

(38:13):
then I got a diagnosis and all of these things,
and so my storyline kept changing. So I really kind
of put that into like the back. I was like,
we're going to deal with that me later, But it
was really diving into everybody else and just learning and
really more interesting learning how that show affected their life,

(38:35):
like their personal life. And Jason Simmons, for example, who
was gay and he had to hide it, and he
would have paparazzi, you know, following him and trying to
catch him making out with other guys or being with
other men, and so the women on the show would
rally around him and pretend like they were in relationships
with him to you know, to hide this for him.

(38:57):
And just hearing and learning all of these things is fascinating,
just in heartbreaking and heartwarming and all of the fields.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I bet. I want to talk to you also about
a movie that I'm sure comes up with fans a
lot more than you ever expected. Blown Away. It is

(39:27):
a nineteen ninety three erotic thriller with the Corris Hayman
Feldman and you play a rich girl who thinks her
father killed her mom. It is a cult favorite, a
lot of signature nineties sex scenes. What memories do you have?

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Wait, there's an era I'm sorry, there's an erotic thriller
with the Corris This is a thing.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, really, yes, it is a cult classic.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
What well, I mean obviously watching that, but what a
strange sentence to hear the nineties erotic thing with the Cory's.
I never would have suspected.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
What are your memories of making that movie?

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Okay, Well, so when you asked me, like going into Baywatch,
you know from Charles and Charge. So we had blown
Away in there, and that was much more on the
top of my mind than Baywatch because that was in
the near future. So I was doing that and a
cheerleading movie with Corey Haim, all these things in Canada
that were so like opposite each other. But that was

(40:28):
scary going into that. If I'm going to be completely
candid and honest and open now and I feel like
we finally the truth is out there, I can finally
like speak about this and it's okay. But going into
that movie with those two at that time and where
they were in maybe their addiction and their careers and
everything was frightening and yeah, and it was that was

(40:53):
a wild, wild experience. It was, you know, and a
lot of that, A lot of the sex scenes started
becoming very improvy, and it was like, wait, what's going on?
And being kind of feeling alone is like a young
woman on set with all these men and these things happening.

Speaker 9 (41:08):
It was.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
It was a really growing learning moment for me of
when to go wait, yeah, you know, slow down, stop.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, yeah, there's no intimacy coordinator or anything along the
lines at this point. This is it was like the
wild West and back back in the day with stuff
like that, Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
And you know, you'd have maybe some of the actor
disappear in their trailer for hours and then come out
and clearly intoxicated, and you're like, what am I gonna
do with this? You know, right before a sex scene?
Just it was it was a lot. It just it
was a lot.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
And I still looked at it as like, wow, that.

Speaker 8 (41:46):
Was a lot.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
And at this point you're I'm assuming you're over eighteen,
and so was your Did you have any sort of
guardian or anyone on set that you could go to
outside of most likely an entirely male producer staff, you know.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
Not really because it was shot in Canada. The Canadians
are really great about having someone on set checking and
you know, and so there was sort of that, but
it still isn't a time where we women, we weren't
really speaking up a whole bunch. And I just come

(42:24):
off a show where I was being sexually abused, you know,
behind the scenes, and now it's sort of like there's
sort of this running theme of like abuse and sexual
abuse in my life and the movie is really supposed
to sort of border on that, you know, but she's
sort of the sexual abuser maybe in the movie. If

(42:44):
there's abuse happening, it's just it's a very very murky,
very murky time and era, and it was a weird
time to speak up about anything. And yeah, it just
was weird. No, I felt very kind of alone. I
was kind of alone on a ship out there by myself.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
You mentioned the sexual abuse on the Charles in Charge set.
If you felt comfortable going to somebody, who would have
been the person you were you should have gone to?
Would it have been your mom? Was your mom on
set with you? Did you have a studio teacher? How
were you left so unprotected?

Speaker 3 (43:25):
So Charles Charge is an interesting dynamic for me because
because the sexual abuse was going on and it was
very apparent, and if it wasn't apparent that the abuse
was happening, it definitely was obvious that I was getting
extra attention. So I wasn't always everybody's favorite person. Like,

(43:46):
to be completely honest, I wasn't. I wasn't the favorite
person because I was favored by the star of the show,
and so I didn't really feel like I had a
lot of allies there.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
And so this is this is happening, and you feel
like you're on an island because it's like you're also
being singled out because.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
People are mad you being sexually abused.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
Uh. And still I still feel that from some of
the cast, and yes, that's exactly true. It's like, oh,
well you you got more, you know. And it was
sort of this cast of like they would count their
lines dialogue and who had the bigger part, and I
was like, I don't understand anybody that does that to
begin with, and god forbid I had more dialogues or like,

(44:32):
it just was this. It was kind of a it
was toxic all around and the other two children Alex
Plancy has spoken out about it and myself as an
adult looking back now, everybody was suffering a form of
abuse and so it made for a very uh, very
strange dynamic and a lot of hostility and feelings, and

(44:56):
so I don't think that there was really anybody that
you could go to. And this was way before me too,
And I'm being told if you say anything, everybody loses
their job. You know, people go to jail. Like you
can't this is it absolute no. So it was this
thing of like, now this is something I have to
deal with and just keep it moving and we got

(45:18):
to be out of.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Here by too.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
I mean, it's it's also such a I mean, I
want to say, impossible scenario to be in as a
teenager and then as you you know, you you stop
doing Charles in Charge, you're still a teenager. Then you
go into doing Blown Away and you have your again
dealing with stars who now have addiction issues, and you

(45:44):
as a as a young person, it would be you
would be a real anomaly to actually know how to
address and to see clearly all of the wrongdoings and
to be able to say like hey, I would like
to speak up and say stop or I'm not comfortable
with this. It's like we all grew up knowing that

(46:07):
the people who worked were the people who were easy
to get along with, the people who you go with
the flow, take direction. Well, regardless of how strong or
a sense of self you have deep down, we were
all groomed to be people pleasers on sets.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
You bet, and not to speak bad about other cast Right,
remember those days where you were told, no, matter what's
going on, you guys are as the kids, you guys
are fighting. No, you are a family.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Now you're a family. You're a family.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yes, you're a family. I mean, we have talked about
this a lot on the podcast. How many people we
did not realize benefited from the culture of secrecy and like,
well we don't talk about that. Think about how many
times you heard, well you don't talk to anybody about
how much money you're making. You don't talk to anybody
about it. It's like, oh, wait, actually that only helps you.

(47:03):
It doesn't hurt us for us to talk to each
other about the things that are going on. If anything,
it unifies us and helps make us stronger. But in general,
there was just a you know, yeah, very secretive, very pride.
It's just the nineties were a real not so great time.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
It's the matter. Yeah, very systematic. Speaking of that, going
into bay Watch, it was supposed to be a Favored
Nations and I had to sign the non disclosure that
because I was making more. But if I was ever asked,
I had to say it was Favored Nations, like shit
like that it was.

Speaker 8 (47:40):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
And then in going through everything I went through and
then getting on Baywatch and it was not received well
in the press, although the ratings were there and we
were being called bimbos and everybody said, like, how did
you walk away from the number one show in the world.
So me giving you a little background of like what
led up to this was my moment of saying, no,
I want off of this show. Now I'm being called

(48:03):
a bimbo on top of it all right, I'm already
feeling all the feels and crazy in the turmoil, and
now I'm publicly being called a bimbo. I was like,
I just need out, And that was my moment to
just step away. And I wasn't going to say anything
publicly and there was no platform for it and nobody
was going to listen anyways. But I was able to
take remove myself and just take time away and just

(48:26):
go live and rebel and try to figure you know,
all of this out.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
So you come off of Charles in Charge, which was
that experience, you go to Blown Away, which was that experience,
and then you come to Baywatch where now you're being
called a bimbo. Was there ever a point where you
were like, what the hell am I doing in this industry?
Why am I even here?

Speaker 3 (48:45):
That was the moment that was it, because up until
then I had done good work, like I worked with
George Cooker or Michael Chapman. I had done something else
with Meg Ryan, and my resume was good and solid,
and I'm on, you know, a.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Trajectory, and I was happy.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
And then Baywatched, after all the things I was going
through personally to now be publicly being called bimbo, and
I went into it. I cut all my hair off.
I cut it short to sort of go against any
kind of sceneo type like that. I was like, what
would a young girl wanting to be a lifeguard, what
would she look like? Well, she wouldn't have really really

(49:24):
long blonde hair, she would have you know, manageable hair,
she wouldn't wear makeup, just all of these things. And
I tried. I went into it and producers were a
little pissed off that I showed up with, you know,
a bob. But I felt like I was making character
choices and and it just none of it. I couldn't
make anybody happy at that point, do you know what
I mean? Like, the producers were pissed I didn't have

(49:44):
the long hair, still being called a bimbo in the press,
and I just I was like, yeah, enough, like I
need a break.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, something else you and I have in common. The
club no one wants to join, but once you're in it,
the people that are in the club or some of
the best. You and I both have dealt with breast cancer,
and you have been such a helpful and wonderful advocate.
You've been very vocal about your journey and sharing all

(50:15):
of the updates about the choices that you've made with
your health care. How are you feeling now and where
are you in your treatment journey?

Speaker 3 (50:25):
So many loaded questions from there. Well, as you know,
it's not something that you get a diagnosis, You do
treatment and then life goes on. That's what you're in
it forever. This is a forever thing, which you know,
when I got my diagnosis. Everybody kept saying, oh, in
a year from now, this will be behind you and

(50:46):
you'll be on your life. Okay, that's the biggest croct ever.
So I'm I'm on a lot of treatments, some targeted treatments.
I'm being tested monthly. My treatments are behind me. I
still have surgeries ahead of me next month, which I'm
excited about. I really took my time with that route

(51:07):
because I just didn't know what was the right choices
for me, and I kept meeting with doctors and getting
so many There's just so many different opinions and options,
and I really I'm somebody that needs to like sleep
on it. So I took a year to really like
listen to everybody, digest it all, and like it's a
big decision because you can rush into these things.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah, you can just.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Follow the protocol and then you're it's this whirlwind of
stuff and then you're like, wait, what did I just do?
What just happened?

Speaker 1 (51:35):
You know, if you mind me asking did you have
a lump back to me to remove? And you did
chemo and you did radiation right, because like I know,
for me, I asked if I could delay a surgery
by like two months because I had episodes of TV.
I wanted to be I had plans to direct, and
I was like, well, can I just wait until October?
I mean it was only like two or three months.
And they were like, we do not recommend that you

(51:57):
wait two or three months to make a decision about
this because it's cancer. We don't know what cancer can
do in two or three months. So when you were
able to take a year, is that did you already
have some surgeries?

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Well, so I wasn't able to have a lumpeck. To me,
I wasn't even able to have a mess ectomy because
the cancer was too big. It was there was too much,
so I needed to do the chemo to shrink it down.
Then they removed it all, and then the radiation, and
so that was dealing with the problematic side. And then
I said, okay, you know, let me do all this,

(52:30):
let me get through it. And then I really spent
a lot of time trying to detox and it's still
trying to detox my body from all that terrible stuff
that we put into its treatment and trying to deal
with the menopause side of it that also gets thrown
at you, and there's just so much out there, and
there's just so much information to be had that isn't
given to you by regular general practice practicing doctors. Right

(52:54):
that my on colleges has no idea of anything to
help with anything except my key protocol. You know. It's
so I I just have really been exploring everything, all
the supplements, doing all the things, trying to make my
bring myself back to life because my body I really
went through it, really and I know you did too.

(53:16):
It's just it's chemo is Oh, it's a beast, and
you know they threw the strongest ones at me. And
once you do it, you can't do it again. So
it's like I need for this not only to be
effective for now, I need like for this not to
come back exactly. How do we How do I learn
how I got here? Because they say not to think

(53:37):
about that, but I'm sorry, I'm going to think about
that because along in my preventative treatment here, I want
to know what I was doing that got me here,
if anything, And of course there are and what choices
can I can I also make in my personal life
and my daily life that will help not bring me
back here? So I really just dove into that, and

(53:59):
I'm just always at the doctor. I'm so sick of it.
I go in every month and then I get a
Zolodex treatment, and then I have to come back for
the next week to get blood injections because my white
blood cell count gets really low. So I have two
good weeks out of every month. The other two or
i'm there, I'm at the treatment facility, so it's really

(54:20):
all consuming.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
And then, like you said, even in those two quote
unquote good weeks, you're still dealing with menopause symptoms. Yes,
so even when you're feeling good, you're still not really
feeling that great.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
You got it. That's that's actually one hundred percent true.
And yeah, so that's just and I spend all of
that time feeling that I'm feeling good, trying to learn,
you know, educating myself and testing all these things and
talking to doctors, and so it's just this ongoing thing
for me, and I just want to have all the information.
God forbid, anybody else I know gets diagnosed, my children

(54:57):
get diagnosed, if I ever get diagnosed again, and I
just want It's something that I wasn't just gonna put
behind me. It's something that I really it hit me
hard and it's something that I needed to embrace and
understand more and you know, realize like how did I
get here? Because I felt like I know how I
got here. I know, I know what it is, and
I just want to make sure that I don't go back.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Wow, Well I was in touch with you. We have
texted and been there for each other on surgery days
and you know, symptom checking, and we both had not
so great recoveries from our lymph node removals, and we
we were like.

Speaker 8 (55:37):
What is this?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
What is going on?

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Another thing nobody tells me about, right, like nobody prepares
you for it.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
We're like, okay, we're going to go in, we're going
to remove the cancer. Well we're gonna have to test
some lymph nodes. And you think, okay, no big deal.
And then you're like, that recovery is terrible and that
scar and that incision and now also it's hard to
have your limph fluid drain because you're missing lymph nodes
and so you were swelling. It's it's delightful, but it
was nice to have you to talk to and to

(56:08):
be there for each other and literally everyone in the
breast cancer community is the same way. They hear someone
else has been diagnosed and give her my phone number,
you know, have her reach out to me. Let's talk
and we share doctor information and things that we've learned.
So it's like I said, it's a group nobody ever

(56:29):
wants to join, but once you're in it, you're gonna
meet some of the best people ever.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, you really do. And how are you feeling.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
How is I'm doing? Well? I'm done. I finished my radiation.
I've I've finished active treatment, but I still have my
you know, I'm taking tamoxifen every day and so there
those side effects come and go and have new ones
pop up, and I have to find ways of managing those.
And but I did have my first clear mammogram just
this past June, so exactly, you know, one year later,

(56:59):
now my mammogram is clear. So now it's just the
trying not to have anxiety on the in between. You know,
It's like I was I when I walked in to
have my mammogram, I was like, here's the spot where
last time I was here it was not so good news.

(57:19):
And you know, thankfully now they give you your results
after you've had breast cancer. They give you your results
right then and there. You don't have to like go
do they wait three days? Which is nice because I
walked in and I was just like, if they don't
tell me real soon, I'm gonna just be sweating for
three days. But they told me right then and there.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Well, as somebody who deals with anxiety all the time,
the easiest way to get rid of it is just
tell yourself you can't have yeah, like, oh, I just
I'm gonna stop being anxious.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
It's just that.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
It's over.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, so they actually call it anxiety exactly.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
I could imagine.

Speaker 3 (57:59):
I have seats, tea scans and MRIs that's what I
have to do those every three months, and we do
blood markers once a month. But I have to wait
for my results. I'm not getting them immediate.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
It's yeah, well those MRIs and cts probably yeah. Yeah,
Well I wish they would. I wish they would give
them to you.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Just ye, that would help so much, it would.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Well.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
You mentioned that you have two daughters, Dylan and Keegan.
Uh have they how have they been for you during
all of this time? And what is your really what
is your overall relationship with like with your girls.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Well, my oldest lives in New York, so you know,
she didn't have to actually witness a lot of it
like my young one did. But they're just they're supportive.
They they bring me to a place of taking me
outside myself too, because it's like you know, when your mom,
you it gives you purpose and it keeps you from

(58:55):
maybe feeling sorry for yourself or you know, it's like
you have stuff to to and you have this role
to play or be and you just life is so
much bigger than yourself when you're a mom, right or
a parent, And so they just really gave me a
sense of like responsibility to get healthy and to remain

(59:16):
healthy if nothing else. They have done that the most
for me and just really sort of looking at me
to see how how I'm going to handle it right,
And so it's this moment of I have to show
them that, you know, you how you handle it? How
do you roll up your sleeves and handle this and

(59:36):
not crumble? And it's given me a lot of motivation.
It's really kind of been my my motivator and and
really just giving me my purpose and and having a
young one, I you know, I'm an unpaid uber driver.
Let's be honest. She's going to be fourteen next week. Actually,

(01:00:00):
so she's you know, twelve, eleven and twelve, and it's yeah,
I have to be a mom.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
There's lunches to be made, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Rides to be given and things to do, which it's
such a good distraction.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Mom.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
It sucks that you're going through this, but I have.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
To be at the Yeah, it's really it's like, kid,
are you are you gonna be able to get us
at three? Yes? Yeah. But she's been great because she
she has to go through it emotionally too with me,
And so there were there were moments of like in
the beginning when there would be like I would get overwhelmed.
I don't know if this happened to you, but I

(01:00:38):
would get overwhelmed or over stimulated. We did you do chemo?

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I did not have to do chemo. Yeah, game changer,
I know, I know. It's it's literally the biggest blessing
of my situation was I did not need chemo. I
can't even imagine, No, I really can't.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
So there's these moments of like feeling overwhelmed in public,
like sensory overload was one of my side effects, and
so I would look at her and she would say like,
are you okay? And we would have we had this
moment early on where she said, I don't know what
to say or what to do, and I said, it's okay,
like neither do I, Right, I just need to sit,
like let's just sit and hug and be quiet. And

(01:01:16):
we sort of learned it together like that, and you know,
there's no there is no strength. There is nothing stronger
than you know, a good hug from your children, you know,
or it's just you know, sitting there, quiet and just
an understanding of okay, this is so weird. And all
I can say is this is too much right now

(01:01:37):
and we're just going to sit and we don't have
any answers and we don't have to. And there was
just it was powerful.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
What a yeah, yeah, what a blessing that you had
her to be able to like you said, like, no,
no medicine like a hug from your kids. You know
it's true.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
That's yeah. Well, before we let you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Go, I want to talk to you about your podcast,
Perfectly Twisted. I was recently a guest. Why don't you
tell us about that? And and what has it been
as meaningful for you as as our podcast has been
for us?

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
It has. I I wasn't so sure it was gonna be.
I was like, I don't know what I'm going to
talk about for an hour every day, and I don't
know if I want to talk for or every week.
I don't know if I want to talk that much.
So I got into it, and I really wanted it
to be a wide variety of topics and whatever I
was feeling like talking about that week, which has been
beneficial for me because it's hard for me to stay

(01:02:29):
on track.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
It's hard for me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
I'm Danielle, Danielle, she keeps us on job. I don't
have that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:40):
That is not me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
So yeah, I get a lot of joy and I
get to talk. It's been sort of a social life.
It's been a catch up, it's been a learning experience.
It's it's been a lot of things for me, and
I love it. I absolutely love it. And I love
that I'm not tied to one subject. And I love
that it's uncensored and we can talk about whatever and

(01:03:04):
there's no there's no boundaries and it's such freedom. Wow.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
I remember when you reached out to me and said, hey,
can you be a guest on my podcast? And I
was like sure, And immediately I thought, Okay, she probably
wants to talk about our cancer journeys. And I said great,
you know what do you what do you need to know?
And she was like, Oh, we do enough talking about that.
Let's actually let's let's talk about let's talk about other stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:03:24):
And I was like, so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
I would I would love that. Let's just have a
normal conversation that doesn't involve, you know, cancer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Well, don't you feel like that? Some days you really
want to talk about it and learn about it. In
other days you look like I don't want to hear
another word about But.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
There's more to my situation than this thing that happened
to me. Well, finally, this year marks thirty years since
the finale of Charles in Charge. Did you realize that? Yeah? Yeah,
well we ask this of a lot of our guests.
But if you could go back in time and tell

(01:04:00):
young Nicole on that set anything from your future self, now,
what would you tell her?

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Well, I'd probably tell her to boss up a little
bit more. I tell her to make a few more demands,
because you know, you you could have it. I would
have her speak up, you know, and feel comfortable, find
find somebody. Like you were saying, who would be that person?
I don't know that I was even you know, able
to pinpoint like who that person would be. I think

(01:04:31):
I would help guide her. There is to like, you know,
to that, like, you know, speak up for yourself, stand
up for yourself. And yeah, I mean there's not much else. Yeah,
there's not, you know, because everything else was pretty great.
Yeah that's what's so weird. So a lot of it
was pretty great. I had, I learned a lot, I

(01:04:51):
had a great time. But I guess I would help
guide her into finding a safety.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
I would add too that, you know, when just to
tell her, like, you're a survivor, like not just we
hear the word survivor now and we think very much
directly connected to cancer, but just in general, it sucks
that you have to be a survivor. I wish you
didn't have to survive the things you've had to survive,

(01:05:17):
but you have. You are a survivor, and you have
continued to find new versions of yourself and become a
different person and grow and become better every year, and
no matter what's been thrown at you. You've survived it
and been a flower in the.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
So I appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
I appreciate that. I really appreciate.

Speaker 8 (01:05:38):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
I have a lotus flower on my back because they're
a beautiful flowers that grows from mud.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
It's funny that you say that, because I have I've survived.
I've survived, and I feel like all the survival things
I've been through got me to cancer and now I
want to be a Thriver right, Like I'm done. I'm
putting like that survivor era behind me and I want
a Thriver era.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Right, And that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Thank you so much for being here with us, Nicole.
We would love to have you back on when we
get to your episode in season seven, when we get
to pick at Fences, we'd love to have you come
back on. Maybe you can do a recap with us
where we'll watch the you know, each one of us
will watch the episode and then we can talk about what,
if anything we remember specifically about the weeks. But we'd
love to have you back.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
I would love that. Thank you for having me. It
was love lovely seeing all you too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
It's just great, great to see you, thank you for
spending your time with us today, and we'll see you
again soon.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Bye. Thanks bye.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Man. Who she really has She was really at the
forefront of a lot of, you know, nineties horror stories.
There are there are obviously tons of stories, both positive
and negative from that decade, and she really was at
the forefront of like some of the worst of them.

Speaker 5 (01:06:54):
Yeah, and yet is not like I wish I could
go back and never do it again. She's like, I
that was my experience, and yeah, there weren't. There weren't
many other options at place, like it just kind of
being an actress in the mid nineties. Yeah, it meant
you kind of had to put up with something.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Yeah, that's not just an actress. I mean I talked
to Polinsky about, you know, because I've known Alex for
many years, and I talked to him about his time
on Charles in Charge. It just wasn't a good apparently,
just really toxic place all the way around.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
And imagine, I mean, like at the end, she said,
you know, and it just sucks because a lot of
other stuff was really great. It's like, you know, it
didn't she went she lived through some horrible stuff and
it didn't even taint the overall experience of her life
during that time. It was just like, man, it's too
bad I had to do that, because the rest of
it was all pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Yeah, And she said that too her She's like, I
don't live in the past. Like I can't. I can't
live in the past. Gotta that's made me who I
am today, and I got to look forward.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
And I love it. I love the idea that she's
like that survivor era is behind me and now I'm
in Thriver Era.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
I love Era.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
I love it out so much. Well, thank you all
for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World.
As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets
World Show. You can send us your emails pod meets
World Show at gmail dot com. And we've got merch.
We don't hear it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
We don't hear anything.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
You running to the bay watch music. We can't hear
the music.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
It's no, it's too loud.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
I think in the life it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Must be too loud. Can you turn down the volume
a little bit?

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Oh, it's so good? Can you sing it? Because everything's
slow motion? Nothing? Oh my god, it's just it's a
David Hasselbob, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Pod Meets Worldshow dot com will send us out.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
We love you all, pod this mest Pod Meets World
is nheart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfredell
and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman,
Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton

(01:09:13):
of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at
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