Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney Thorne Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And Daphne's Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Good Night Later, another Melrose minute. So you guys at
home don't know this, but we have one of our writers,
Chuck Pratt, coming up as a guest. And one of
the things he mentioned when we talked to him is
that when Heather started on the show, she didn't want
to play a bit because she'd been doing that on Dynasty.
So they had to sort of rewrite it to make
a Manda nice obviously in the beginning.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
So what we know now just for a very brief
time at least can be nice for a second.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think you called it a switch and bait or something. Yeah,
They're like, okay, you're not a bitch, You're just switch.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
So she starts off really nice and as we know,
So I wanted to ask you, guys, how you felt
about your character in Melroe's Place and how you changed
or other shows, Like did you start a show as
something and then as the show went on you became
a completely different character? I do.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I think I have a lot to say on the
subject because I came in, like, you know, kind of
not knowing that it was a long term character anyway,
but I also was super focused on like the youth
of her whatever. And then there was a big long
stretch of time that I wasn't on the show, like
the well, the rest of season one, and then I
came back in season two and had to like pick
(01:23):
up there and and kind of you know, discover what
these new storylines were. And it was she came in
as the problem in her sister and Michael's marriage, right,
Sydney came in as the affair and like just sort
of mischievous, troublemaker person. But in the second season, in
the second season, but over time, like there there it
(01:45):
was hard for me to like maintain, wait a minute,
how old is she? And like what how sophisticated is she?
And is like then she started doing all these like
the blackmailing and the d and the canniving and just
the evolution of that and trying to trying to say,
how do you find like that same person in there,
like that consistent thread and that same person and figure, Okay,
(02:07):
if she's what nineteen years old, eighteen nineteen, how does
that kind of person like age and develop and like
we're watching this on camera like over these three four seasons,
and that was sort of always in my mind, like
is this even making sense? Is this even tracking? And
like I felt like I had to find just a
couple things to latch onto to make it always make sense.
(02:29):
And those things were like Sidney always felt not enough,
not she felt less than her sister. That that was
like her easiest competition to go, oh, I just want
to be like her or better than her something, you know,
like that jealousy thread was consistent, you know, sort of
drove a lot of her actions. But even when it
(02:49):
got to be like insanity, I'm like, wait, can I
still justify this? Like is this still tracking?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yes? And it was still the same character.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It was hard. It was hard to keep that thread.
And then I do think that after a while, you
just go, Okay, I'm just going to do.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
My best Hereio, I'm just going to do script by yeah,
my own reality right now.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
This is just where we're at. And plus we're in
double up, so I really have no idea.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, they asked us. One of the fan questions was
did we ever push back? We couldn't, right, No.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
There didn't There was never. Yeah, I was saying we
didn't ever have time. I never, you know, thought I
thought there were so many writers and so many people
the studio and everyone that I didn't think I would
have a say. Well, it wasn't welcomed at all. It
wasn't like an invitation. No one ever says to you
on a show an ensemble, hey, if you have any ideas,
let us know with ten people never had.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
One of the things that Chuck will say when you
guys hear that episode is that he's never had a
show with faster turnaround. Yeah, like they were, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Thirty time scripts a year.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
It was so fast they didn't have time. So if
we pull that thread and say I don't want this
to happen, that might affect the next ten episodes, right, yeah, right.
And it was also as the show goes on, like
I started with Allison, Midwest kid trying to do well,
and then I have an affair with the married man,
and then I'm drunk, and then I'm on, then i'm
and you know, I won't leave the apartment when it's
blowing up.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
All this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
But it was also fun, right, you don't want to
play nice girl from the Midwest for five seasons. Like
part of it was oh no, I have to do that.
And it was like, all right, let's try it. Like
it was. It was great. It was almost like an
acting class because you just had to do it. There
was no time. You didn't have to debate and think,
and it's not like you're reading a play and you're like,
this is my characters through line. It's like, all right,
(04:27):
I had to do so many things that terrified me
on that show.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Did you have to do that as in TV? Because
there's no end to it. You don't know if it's
going to end in a couple episodes at the end
of the season or keep going. So the writers, you know,
when you say like a Midwest girl or how we
all came into something, that's who you were when it started,
and then adventure happens, and then life happens, and then
Mal's this crazy apartment building that you're in and then
(04:50):
it just happens and you have to, you know, make
it work. It doesn't all have to make sense. Especially
on Malos's place. You heard chah it around bottles of wine,
coming up with whatever we could come up with they're
not going well.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Or Midwest Girl.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, but like you're trying as an actor to say
you just wanted to stay on some sort of rail.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
You want to ground it for yourself. You want because
because here's the thing, as crazy as it was, you're
trying to find some element of truth. Otherwise it doesn't
make any sense. So you're trying, especially if it's a
serious like I had a couple of serious storylines and
I was like, oh, like I was trying to and
it was you can't. If it's something that's a serious storyline,
you can't laugh at it, right. So it's not like, oh,
(05:37):
this is light. It's like this is real and I
have to bring this some gravitas even though it's so
we did hold in such a ridiculous way.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I mean, I always played for the drama. That's the
thing is. I kept hearing back then, you know how
Chuck said they didn't like the word soap, And I
remember I never thought it was a soap. I didn't
know what people were talking about.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
I would do.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Interviews for magazine and go, this is not so Not
that I thought I was too good to do so,
but I'm just saying I had never thought about it
as that, and I always played it for the drama.
And I think as I look back, and I see
how Joe really had so much drama put upon her
(06:15):
and put upon her. I think, you know when a
writer and actor that's a symbiotic relationship. They pick up on
what they're seeing when you play the scenes, right, and
so they're writing to that, and then you're picking up
on what you're reading and you're going, oh, I can
bring this, and I think it kind of like morphs
into a thing together.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, but you started, so Joe starts she was married
to this wealthy man in an abusive relationship. She comes
here to start over. She starts relationship with Jake. So
that's sort of what we know about her coming in.
And then what's the craziest leap you had to make
as an actor for Joe? Do you remember the craziest leap?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
I mean, I'll answer the first question that you actually
initiated the beginning of this, which was she was strong
when she started, right, and then she became so weak.
I got so tired of all of the victimization that
they did of Joe, and I remember fans saying this
during it, and since you know, like God, she was
(07:14):
so tough, she was this tough girl. What happened and
I'm like, that's a good question. Maybe I should have
said something, because I did get tired of that. You know,
they're literally I know you guys didn't watch a lot.
You know, we're all working on twelve hour days. But
I had like so many different men take advantage and
put her in a bad situation and you know, all
(07:37):
this stuff. What was the worst one, Well, the most
extreme was, you know, she falls into this thing with
Reid who's like a drug running a drug runner with
that boat, and I ended up like blowing him away
after he like kidnaps me and kicks me down.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
And super violent.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
It was so violent. Yeah, but I just Daphne as
an actor, like love the direction, you know, like bunding
him and trying to get out and looking like wow.
But it doesn't mean I want to just be like
beat up all the time or like you know what
I mean. And I love the payoff of blowing him
away off that boat and he goes flying over and
but so that was very far fetched. But I guess
(08:17):
what I'm saying is that is a way that I
wish that my character hadn't gone so far in that
directed to be such a victim. I wish that she
would have been stronger. I would look at you guys
and say like, well, not so much Sydney. But I
would look at like Alison and and Amanda.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
They have these.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Strong scenes back and forth. You know, she's running a company,
she's like standing up to her and I would just
go like that would be so cool.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Oh that's so funny. But you loved like the the
gun toting version of Joe of like being able to
stand up for yourself and doing that. It's like, I
hate that stuff. I would like the comedy like I
want to and they wrote it to me and I
but I also like, like what you say, like when
you have to have a scene that's real, like when
(09:02):
you have to have a scene like like no, she's
got real feelings under there, Like she like that Sidney
tended towards the like goofy or like you know, the
all the goofy stuff that she did, but also like
there were those opportunities to tell like a heartfelt story
that you had to have her actually be a real
person and be real. I liked those things, but he
(09:23):
did not like the things like you're talking about like
actiony stuff and I hate it's so interesting how people
like just sort of are drawn towards other you know,
different things. And and but like you said you had
to take Alison to the place you said things were scary.
Was it the times when you were really being vulnerable?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And it was a mixed bag, Like I keep thinking
about when Alison was an alcoholic, and it was so
much fun for me to play because Alison finally got
to do all the stuff she'd never done because she
was so so she was like that sort of out there, angry,
ballsy saying I remember, I remember one time she pulled
the tablecloth out from the dinner, right. That was really fun.
But I was a sober alcoholic at the time, right,
Like we've tried. I turned a year sober my first
(10:04):
Dan Melrose play. So for me, it's like I wanted
to treat it with with how it would be authentically
and I'm doing this soaproper version of it. So it
was fun to play, but I also had this awareness
of oh, it's like I wanted to get into the
truth of it. And there was some of that too,
like they remember do you remember like she hit the
kid on the bike? Oh, I mean that was like
(10:25):
that was a moment of this is the stuff that
can happen, Right, that was the real gravitas, but so fun,
but I wanted to treat it with seriousness, so I
was kind of a it's it's interesting, like you were saying,
like you love the punching, hitting, but you didn't like
her being a victim. So it's interesting as we're going
through it, Like some of the most fun things to
play are the hardest to play, like when when Alison
(10:47):
is high and you lose custody of your child, like
that was an exciting scene to play, and how awful
and how challenging and how difficult. So sometimes it's both, right,
like the hardest end up being the most most challenging. Right,
it's interesting, and most challenging are also usually the hardest.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
It's so so as we wrap this up, it's gonna
be so fun to have Chuck in here. I mean,
he was the longest writer and executive producer on the show,
and he did come from a decade of writing soap operas.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He's written so.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Great so he thinks like that and like how the
what's that thing? How the soup is made? He was
in the room, you know, like I can't maybe there's
you never know, it's coming up next.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, and he will have him back to you because
a man to see him.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
He has a lot of many stories.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I have a feeling it was like a ten percent
of his stories you told today.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, there's so many more I.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Know, and that's that's going to come up soon. But yeah,
we've we've been having so much fun lately. It was
so great to have Heather in.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, so great to have Heather.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
More to come.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
We're going to do recap next.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
We got to keep our recaps.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Watching this with us. It's so fun.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It's so much fun to watch.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Melrose is getting juicy, all right, thanks for turning into
another Melrose minute soon. That kids still the place. Thank