Speaker 1: This is let's be clear with Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: Everyone, This is Shannon Doherty and today I am joined
Speaker 1: by very special guests. My friend Holly Marie comes. Hi.
Speaker 2: Holly, Hi, how are you going?
Speaker 1: As usual? So full of energy? What some people don't
Speaker 1: know is that we knew each other before Charmed.
Speaker 3: How do people not know that? I don't know they
Speaker 3: weren't paying attention.
Speaker 1: I know, but some people don't know.
Speaker 3: They didn't watch TMZ very much.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 3: Wait, this was before TMZ.
Speaker 1: It was so how did we how did we meet?
Speaker 3: Are you saying you don't remember?
Speaker 1: I'm quizzing you?
Speaker 3: Oh, but I didn't know there was going to be
Speaker 3: a test.
Speaker 1: There's always a test.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is this is a long string of events.
Speaker 2: So my first husband, my first mistake, was friends with
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Dean Morgan some of you may know his name,
Speaker 2: and he was dating Lara Flynn Boyle at the time.
Speaker 3: So Lara was actually.
Speaker 2: The first friend I had in La when I moved
Speaker 2: there to do pick offensuits, and Lara knew Rox Sanna,
Speaker 2: Roxanna knew you, and Charlie was in there in the
Speaker 2: middle somewhere. So when I was no longer friends with Lara.
Speaker 2: Then I became friends with Rexanna, and then I became
Speaker 2: friends with you, and then Roxanna became upset that we became.
Speaker 1: Friends, and well, really the story is like you met
Speaker 1: me and you were like, I don't need any other friend,
Speaker 1: but Shannon.
Speaker 2: That was the distinction.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, really it was the only joy.
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't need any of these other people.
Speaker 1: With her multiple personalities, she covers all of them. It's
Speaker 1: all good.
Speaker 2: So and so then I became I became Charlie's daughter's godmother,
Speaker 2: and then I got fired because of the first husband,
Speaker 2: my first mistake. She in like that situation, and then
Speaker 2: you got hired as that godmother. It's all very twisted.
Speaker 2: If you think about.
Speaker 1: It, it is. It is really twisted. So we all right,
Speaker 1: So right.
Speaker 3: I was nineteen Oh god, that.
Speaker 1: Means that means I was twenty.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I that means I had like a momentary lapse where
Speaker 2: I'm like, what am I thirty nine now? Oh? No,
Speaker 2: forty nine? So that means that was thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think there's enough time in the
Speaker 2: day to go through all of this.
Speaker 1: That's all. It's a long, long, long time it's a
Speaker 1: long journey, right, So we hung out, we did all
Speaker 1: of this stuff, and when when Charmed came around, I remember.
Speaker 2: Seeing a lot of stuff here.
Speaker 1: By the way, I know I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: Charmed real quick. We can always back track. We well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, hold on, no, no, right, no, because
Speaker 1: you said you said first mistake a couple of times,
Speaker 1: which is really funny because I think we paralleled with
Speaker 1: mistakes through out our friendship. You know, you're on your
Speaker 1: third marriage, right I am, aren't you? But so far,
Speaker 1: so good? Well, no, I mean my third is ending, right,
Speaker 1: So okay, here's here's one of my favorite stories about
Speaker 1: Holly that I want to tell all of our listeners.
Speaker 1: It is that hollywould often stay at my house because
Speaker 1: of my first mistake. The first mistake was no bueno,
Speaker 1: and she needed a little bit of safety and protection
Speaker 1: and and I supplied it along with my German shepherd Elfie,
Speaker 1: who was like shits and three trained and cray cray
Speaker 1: and loved Holly, and she kept people away from the property.
Speaker 1: Let's just put it like that. She had a couple
Speaker 1: of encounters with the first mistake that didn't go so
Speaker 1: well for him. And so Hollywoold walk around the house
Speaker 1: in overalls with a tool belt and she would fix
Speaker 1: everything in the house that needed fixing. Like I distinctly
Speaker 1: recall looking at her and saying, it's so weird that
Speaker 1: there's not a lock on my bathroom door, Like what
Speaker 1: if I have a guy over and I need to
Speaker 1: use the restroom, they could just come in, Like that's
Speaker 1: not okay. And the next thing I knew, I heard
Speaker 1: like hammering and there was a lock on the door.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is so cool.
Speaker 2: I was handy your projects.
Speaker 1: You were very, very very handy. Yeah you uh yeah
Speaker 1: you you fixed everything in my house. I actually need
Speaker 1: you to.
Speaker 2: Something next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a couple I don't need fixing.
Speaker 2: Do you have anything that needs to be put together?
Speaker 1: And you're cheaper and funnier than a handyman, I think.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: I mean, I jumped a Charmed and I was obviously
Speaker 1: off of nine O two and oh. I was very
Speaker 1: trepidacious of working with Aaron Spelling again and getting involved
Speaker 1: because they burned me really badly on nine O two
Speaker 1: and oh, and I was probably carrying around a lot
Speaker 1: of resentment and anger still, but absolutely, you know, working
Speaker 1: do mall rats like doing different projects, you know, pretty chilled.
Speaker 1: And Holly, I picked you up right and we were
Speaker 1: in my car and she saw like this script sort
Speaker 1: of thrown in the backseat.
Speaker 2: That's how much you looked at it. You saw spelling
Speaker 2: just through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. I saw Aaron spelling. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going down that path again, no, thank you.
Speaker 1: But you saw it and you were like, have you
Speaker 1: read it? And I was like, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: And I said, actually, this one is pretty good. You'll
Speaker 2: you'll probably like it. And you said, no, it says
Speaker 2: Spelling on it. And I said, I know, I understand,
Speaker 2: but if they sent it to you, that means they
Speaker 2: want to work with you on it and it might
Speaker 2: be a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I read it.
Speaker 3: And then you had your meeting with Aaron coming to
Speaker 3: Jesus moment.
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't really a coming to Jesus moment.
Speaker 3: It was for him.
Speaker 1: It was for him like you just walk in and
Speaker 1: it's as if nothing happened, right, I mean for him,
Speaker 1: that's how he how he conducted the meeting was it
Speaker 1: was like, kiddo, let's do this project together. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be great. And I was just like, do we want
Speaker 1: to talk about everything that happened in the past. Do
Speaker 1: we want to talk about that you fired me and
Speaker 1: didn't even have a discussion with me, and like all
Speaker 1: this stuff that transpired on nine o two zero and
Speaker 1: how you know that was just an ugly situation. But no,
Speaker 1: he didn't really want to discuss any of it. He
Speaker 1: just wanted us to move forward.
Speaker 3: He was moving on.
Speaker 1: But you know, you were right. It was really well written.
Speaker 1: Constance Burge did an amazing job. It was supernatural, but
Speaker 1: like it had darkness to it as well, and it
Speaker 1: was funny to a certain extent. And it was like
Speaker 1: the relationship between the sisters was so powerful and so great.
Speaker 2: It was funny by accident, Like it wasn't supposed to
Speaker 2: be funny. Anything funny happened was totally my accident.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But then it worked because you know, the circumstances
Speaker 3: were so beyond reality that to have those moments of
Speaker 3: humor or humanizing moments helped it a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were Aaron offered us different roles. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm jumping ahead once again. So he wanted me for
Speaker 1: Piper for your role.
Speaker 3: Yep, And I had auditioned for Phoebe, which was painful.
Speaker 1: Yes, and we sort of were like, let's switch this around.
Speaker 1: Let me be the older, let you be the middle.
Speaker 1: He didn't believe that we were old enough to play
Speaker 1: those characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was Actually we were the appropriate ages for
Speaker 2: the other characters that we preferred.
Speaker 1: Right, And we preferred them because they were like Proof
Speaker 1: felt more authentic to me. She also felt like a
Speaker 1: different character than Brenda, which was really important to me.
Speaker 1: Like Brenda on nine o two and zero was such
Speaker 1: a she had so much like teenage angst and made
Speaker 1: so many mistakes and was kind of selfish and self
Speaker 1: serving in her own way, and Prue was the antithesis
Speaker 1: of that. Right. She was all about her sisters and
Speaker 1: all about self sacrifice, which I really liked as far
Speaker 1: as a career move and for me personally, I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to play a character that seemed to look
Speaker 1: frazzled or like the Phoebe character, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: a little on that immature cusp. I wanted to play
Speaker 1: like a very solid, strong woman who put her sisters
Speaker 1: above everything else. Why did you want to play Piper?
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just felt I definitely couldn't be the youthful Phoebe one.
Speaker 2: I don't think I was that youthful when I was youthful,
Speaker 2: and so Piper was just far more appropriate for me
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 3: And she was a handful. It was you know, it
Speaker 3: was a challenge.
Speaker 1: Right, which I think is the thing about the two
Speaker 1: of us always is that we kind of like challenges.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I don't want to be bored.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of our mistakes.
Speaker 2: All of them.
Speaker 1: Were like, well that's a challenge. That one's a challenge.
Speaker 1: We can change him. I don't see red flag red
Speaker 1: flags everywhere, no problem.
Speaker 3: You've got a discount on red flags today.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, I mean I think that like Piper,
Speaker 1: I just remember reading the script and when you were like,
Speaker 1: I want to play Piper. I thought, this actually makes
Speaker 1: sense because you would bring your sort of you have
Speaker 1: like a dryness to you, which I love, like that's
Speaker 1: my kind of sense of humor is a little dry,
Speaker 1: little dark, super witty, clever. And yet they're back then
Speaker 1: not saying that it's like this now. Back then there
Speaker 1: was like there was something naive about you personally and
Speaker 1: very like still very trusting regardless of your mistake, you
Speaker 1: were still very trusting and soft, and it was a
Speaker 1: It was a good casting call for you to be
Speaker 1: Piper because you were able to bring the vulnerability to her,
Speaker 1: the negativity to her, and along with like your dryness,
Speaker 1: your eye rolls, which you know you're now famous for apparently,
Speaker 1: you know, you brought a character that I personally felt
Speaker 1: when I read the script was kind of two dimensional,
Speaker 1: and you really made her three dimensional, Like you gave
Speaker 1: her so many different layers and so many different colors.
Speaker 1: You brought her to life, I think in a way
Speaker 1: that not even the producers or constans could have could
Speaker 1: have seen coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, Constance was tough too.
Speaker 2: Remember she she based the characters on her sisters, and
Speaker 2: so she was trying to hold me to what she
Speaker 2: had created. And I was like, you got to give
Speaker 2: me little leeway here, you gotta give me a little
Speaker 2: It was tough to make everybody happy. You know, the
Speaker 2: network was against me, only erin, and you wanted me blackmailed.
Speaker 3: You blackmailed the network into wanting me.
Speaker 1: We'll go into that story. So who was the network
Speaker 1: WB or CW at that point, it was still the WB. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the WB so I was already committed to the project,
Speaker 1: and Erin and I made a calculated decision to take
Speaker 1: only Holly for Piper and another girl, Dana for for Phoebe.
Speaker 1: So we go to the network. I'm sitting in with
Speaker 1: the network. The girls come in individually and read off of me,
Speaker 1: and it's really like, I love telling the story. I
Speaker 1: hope you like it as much as me, because I
Speaker 1: just think it's such an interesting take on Hollywood and
Speaker 1: sometimes the closed mindedness of people and someone like you,
Speaker 1: like persevering and proving everybody wrong, which I love. But
Speaker 1: so you came in and you read, Dana came in
Speaker 1: and read, and the network, you guys went out of
Speaker 1: the room and the network looked at me and they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: she just doesn't have like that it factor. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what are you talking about? Like you know
Speaker 1: that like charisma, that like like when you walk in
Speaker 1: a room, Shannon, like everybody takes notice. And I went, whoa, whoa, WOA.
Speaker 1: That's because I'm now who I am thanks to nine
Speaker 1: oh two and oh thanks to a network giving me
Speaker 1: a chance, thanks to Fox Network saying like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: hire her for Brenda. It's because I was on the
Speaker 1: cover Rolling Stone magazine, like, you give this girl this
Speaker 1: part and she's going to do all of that. They
Speaker 1: were still sitting on the fence. Erin and I walked out,
Speaker 1: and I remember that you and Dana were standing in
Speaker 1: the parking lot and Erin and I kind of like
Speaker 1: walked away from you guys, and Aaron goes, kiddo, what
Speaker 1: do you want to do. I'll fight for Holly. And
Speaker 1: I said, she does it, or I don't do it,
Speaker 1: and Aaron goes, I'll back you, and I went great.
Speaker 1: So we had our Piper. We did not have our Phoebe.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I believe the term the actual term was star quality.
Speaker 2: She doesn't have the star quality that you do. And
Speaker 2: that one stuck with me for a while, and I
Speaker 2: know exactly the person who said it, and she actually
Speaker 2: called me years later to do another pilot after Charmed,
Speaker 2: and it was a pilot.
Speaker 1: It was six women mistresses, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: And I said, are you trying to kill me? And
Speaker 2: she goes, no, absolutely not. She goes, I think you're
Speaker 2: the perfect person for this project. And I was like
Speaker 2: why and she goes, because I know you'll deal with
Speaker 2: all of them really well.
Speaker 3: And I was like, God damn it.
Speaker 2: But it didn't get picked up obviously anyway, I think
Speaker 2: they picked up dropped a diva instead.
Speaker 1: Right, So then you know, we they to cast this
Speaker 1: girl out in New York. Lori Rahm, who was wonderful,
Speaker 1: loved her. She fit in perfectly. She brought some something
Speaker 1: like she was quirky, right, like she was quirky, but
Speaker 1: took everything very seriously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she was primarily a stage actress before this,
Speaker 2: and it kind of showed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I enjoyed her, but she ended up quitting.
Speaker 4: She did, and after we got picked up, and then
Speaker 4: they filled her part with Elis Milana.
Speaker 3: It was actually right in the middle. We found out
Speaker 3: right in the middle of.
Speaker 2: The TV Guide shoot that she wasn't coming to the
Speaker 2: shoot and we didn't know why, And we found out
Speaker 2: later that she was a member of a particular church
Speaker 2: and the church didn't like that she was playing a
Speaker 2: witch on TV and basically told her she would go
Speaker 2: to hell.
Speaker 1: Listen. I not the decision I personally would have made, clearly,
Speaker 1: but I do respect her for, you know, putting her
Speaker 1: faith in her values first, and.
Speaker 2: I couldn't argue with it. You know that nobody could.
Speaker 2: They just kind of went, Okay, that's you know, now
Speaker 2: what do we do? So that's why that TV Guide
Speaker 2: shoot there's like there's us on each side and they
Speaker 2: just dropped to listen to the middle of the photo shirt.
Speaker 1: What a time period mm hm and charmed. It was
Speaker 1: like a you know, it was I sort of looked
Speaker 1: back and think like that first season was sort of
Speaker 1: the best season to shoot as far as everybody getting along.
Speaker 1: Sure I felt, you know, I mean compared to season
Speaker 1: two and season three for me, season one we were
Speaker 1: all still like new working together and feeling things out.
Speaker 1: There were obviously things that you know, we didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: all agree on, Like I didn't think it was important
Speaker 1: to move to a studio lot so that we could
Speaker 1: have a commissary. There were just a few of those
Speaker 1: things where you were like, okay, you know, I look
Speaker 1: at season one a lot and say, wow, we were
Speaker 1: getting our feet under us, Like you see the stay
Speaker 1: improvement from season one to season three, season three being
Speaker 1: my favorite season, and just like the growth like with
Speaker 1: our writers and I think even the growth with like
Speaker 1: our acting, and we settled into our parts a lot
Speaker 1: more and felt a bit more of a freedom. Certainly
Speaker 1: in season three, I can't. I'm not going to talk
Speaker 1: about the other seasons because I was there, so why
Speaker 1: would I. But like, you know, you and I had
Speaker 1: so many arguments with the producers about our clothing, about
Speaker 1: our hair, Like they wanted to control every single aspect
Speaker 1: of us. We could not. We had zero freedom.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean, well that's Aaron's thing too with
Speaker 2: the hairstyles, Like we were not allowed to change our
Speaker 2: hair for the first I think six episodes, Like it
Speaker 2: couldn't even they didn't even want it to be up.
Speaker 1: You had to establish your hairstyle and keep it that
Speaker 1: way because he felt that that's how an audience became
Speaker 1: familiar with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how they identified with the character. Was a
Speaker 2: big part of the.
Speaker 1: Hair, right, And listen, I maybe he's right.
Speaker 2: It's a formula, for sure, it's a formula.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like to think that people are identifying
Speaker 1: with the character because of what we're bringing to it
Speaker 1: and our performances, not in the physical.
Speaker 3: All right, well one would hope, but right, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you work that hard and those hours
Speaker 1: you're working seventeen eighteen hour days, it's nice to think
Speaker 1: that it's because you're talented and people are connecting with
Speaker 1: the character as opposed to like your hairstyle.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the job is to create a human, a
Speaker 2: whole human. It was a little tighty. It was a struggle.
Speaker 2: We were struggling to prove ourselves. We were struggling to
Speaker 2: prove ourselves to the network and all of it. I mean,
Speaker 2: we could keep talking about it where we could just
Speaker 2: reboot the reboot.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about episodes. We're not We're not getting
Speaker 1: any of that promise you that is for the rebate.
Speaker 2: I want to ask a question, are you excited about
Speaker 2: your new endeavor?
Speaker 1: You know, after I recorded the first episode, I said
Speaker 1: to Chris on the phone, I was like, who needs therapy?
Speaker 1: Like there's something very cathartic about doing a podcast, and
Speaker 1: especially I think when it's like my type of podcast,
Speaker 1: where you're you're unpacking your life, you're basically, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at everything and in real time going oh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I was at fault, maybe I did this, maybe
Speaker 1: I did that, or maybe this person needs to take responsibility.
Speaker 1: I think it is giving me and going to give
Speaker 1: me in the future everything that I would be spending
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty dollars an hour for absolutely, so
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about that I'm saving money. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: bought a new pair of boots today because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I saved saved money on therapy, So I like it
Speaker 1: so far. I also love the fact that, like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in sweatpants and slippers.
Speaker 3: Absolutely can't beat it.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting question. I don't think anybody's ever asked
Speaker 1: us this, And like you and I do a lot
Speaker 1: of convince together and fans get to ask us questions
Speaker 1: on the panel and they're usually you know about like
Speaker 1: certain episodes like what would you say? The similarities are
Speaker 1: between us and the differences between us because people really
Speaker 1: look at us as like sisters, So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting question similarities.
Speaker 2: We definitely have the same sense of humor, Like when
Speaker 2: we did the travel show. We could entertain each other
Speaker 2: and we don't really need other people really don't. I
Speaker 2: don't know. We were just always terribly compatible. I mean
Speaker 2: I basically lived with you and Rob for quite a while.
Speaker 3: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Rob feels about that still to this day, but we
Speaker 2: sort of ate the same, We traveled the same, we
Speaker 2: hated people, the same gun bar fights the same.
Speaker 4: Made the same mistakes, right right, right, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: we just had, you know, very similar personalities.
Speaker 2: It's different, you know, we've come from very different childhoods,
Speaker 2: but we're just very similar. We do holidays the same,
Speaker 2: and there's not a lot of people I can say
Speaker 2: that about.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah. I think one of my favorite trips of
Speaker 1: ours that is actually not in the travel show is
Speaker 1: when my parents, you and I went to Ireland.
Speaker 2: That really should have been the travel show. I know
Speaker 2: what we were thinking.
Speaker 1: I should have. The network didn't want to pay for
Speaker 1: the whole you know, overseas trips. But that was definitely
Speaker 1: one of the most fun vacations I've ever had. Just
Speaker 1: you and I like walking around Ireland and sneaking out
Speaker 1: of castles so that my parents sensius sneaking out. I. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: they were watching us from like their tower room, and
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 3: Of age people, we were still.
Speaker 1: Of age, and we got caught because one of the
Speaker 1: castles was you had to take the little the castle ferry.
Speaker 1: But we got back too late. Oops, how did we
Speaker 1: get back?
Speaker 3: We had to call a guy who knew a guy
Speaker 3: that had the thing that.
Speaker 2: Came across the moat thing and we that were too
Speaker 2: loud coming in apparently, and your mother was up and
Speaker 2: your mother was waiting, and it still feels terrible, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it really does.
Speaker 3: Was very upset with.
Speaker 1: Me, she was, she was upset with us both. She
Speaker 1: was like, it's dangerous. Two girls got we were And
Speaker 1: meanwhile we just went to like the neighborhood pub.
Speaker 2: We went to the pub like as one does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we had a blast, like hanging out with
Speaker 1: all the Irish people and trying to mimic their accents
Speaker 1: and getting to know them and you know, hearing like
Speaker 1: the story of Ireland from people who actually live there.
Speaker 3: There's some great photos from that night.
Speaker 1: Do you have them? You have to say, I do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I actually don't have that many photos from Ireland, but
Speaker 1: I need some. I recently realized that I do not
Speaker 1: have nearly as many photos as I thought I did,
Speaker 1: like just saved up over the years. I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened unless unless they always included like a boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I was mad and like break them up.
Speaker 3: They're probably in storage somewhere.
Speaker 1: I have found like some photos where it's like ripped
Speaker 1: in half, so I know that there was a guy
Speaker 1: that I was dating next to me in the photo,
Speaker 1: but I've now ripped him out of the photo. But
Speaker 1: I apparently really liked how I looked in the photos,
Speaker 1: so I didn't want to just throw it out completely,
Speaker 1: which is hysterical. There's quite a few of those. And
Speaker 1: then I have to like try to backtrack and like
Speaker 1: by my outfit to figure out who was in the
Speaker 1: photo with me, like fashion determined who I was with. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had Ireland, so we're similar. How are we different
Speaker 1: besides like our childhood.
Speaker 2: You drive a lot faster than I do.
Speaker 1: I'm an aggressive driver, Yes you are.
Speaker 3: You're a lot how do I say, not like a
Speaker 3: neat freak. But you're much more tidy.
Speaker 2: Then I am. Yes, I do admire your drive, though
Speaker 2: I can see keeping things in order.
Speaker 3: Yeah, see that.
Speaker 2: That wood thing behind her has to be at a
Speaker 2: certain diagonal on the counter, and it cannot be five
Speaker 2: degrees this way or that way.
Speaker 3: It has to be this way that one right there.
Speaker 1: Just say when I place things, yeah, I like them,
Speaker 1: Like I take my time placing stuff in my home
Speaker 1: and because it's my sanctuary, right it's where I feel
Speaker 1: the safest. So if I've spent you know, months just
Speaker 1: looking for the right piece, and I then spend hours
Speaker 1: figuring out exactly where it goes and at what angle,
Speaker 1: and somebody comes in and moves it, it tweaks my
Speaker 1: brain a little bit. But I'm not OCD. But I
Speaker 1: do like things very much in order. I'm very very
Speaker 1: like you know.
Speaker 2: If you had to look to check to see if
Speaker 2: it was right.
Speaker 1: I did, I'm like craning my neck on it is
Speaker 1: it right?
Speaker 2: So that that I will say, you're much more okay
Speaker 2: with diagonals and angles where I have to have everything
Speaker 2: straight or drives me insane. I will be OCD about
Speaker 2: that this bag is crooked. I'm gonna straighten it. So
Speaker 2: you you were happy just putting like furnitures and desks
Speaker 2: on angles, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Just like, I should do that only because everything else
Speaker 1: is straight lines. Like I'm not the person that enjoys
Speaker 1: a lot of arches and any of that. Like my
Speaker 1: house is, as you know, it's very square or rectangular,
Speaker 1: straight straight straight lines. So then I like to soften
Speaker 1: those straight lines by moving furniture at like a slightly
Speaker 1: off kilter angle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that tweaks my brain I think we're
Speaker 5: both I wouldn't say that we're germophobes, but I do
Speaker 5: think we're both very conscious.
Speaker 1: Of that, trying to be sure, Oh we're going for
Speaker 1: how we're different. I think from my point of view,
Speaker 1: those differences have become less as you've gotten older.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, No, I blame you for everything exactly when
Speaker 2: I tell people to fuck off. Now, I'm like, that's.
Speaker 3: Shit, is fult. I don't know where that came from.
Speaker 1: You know, you're one of many who blame me for everything,
Speaker 1: So it's all good. I've heard it a lot lately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think like in the beginning with Charm,
Speaker 1: for instance, you were much more of a people pleaser,
Speaker 1: a producer pleaser. You had your thoughts, you had your opinions,
Speaker 1: but you were far quicker to acquiesce than I was.
Speaker 3: Oh definitely. I mean I barely made it there, so
Speaker 3: I had to be like, okay, sure.
Speaker 1: But then you started finding your voice for me. Your
Speaker 1: voice really started becoming much more strong in the third season,
Speaker 1: like you were gaining it in the second season, but
Speaker 1: by the third season, I felt like you had your
Speaker 1: voice and you were willing to use it, you know,
Speaker 1: for the good of the show, like it was always
Speaker 1: about improving and better scripts or you know, people actually
Speaker 1: showing up and doing their job and not complaining about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was very important to me and I
Speaker 2: don't know how. I mean, it always was to both
Speaker 2: of us. It was always very important and even to
Speaker 2: elstit in the beginning, because here we were these like
Speaker 2: you know, these child performers coming out of those trenches,
Speaker 2: trying to have some sense of normalcy as grown ups
Speaker 2: and wanting this not to fail. You know, we had
Speaker 2: that in common in the beginning that we all wanted
Speaker 2: this to be good and wanted this to be sort
Speaker 2: of like our foray and to being grown up actors
Speaker 2: and to be taken seriously. And that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: a tough jump for kid actors to suddenly, you know,
Speaker 2: be able to do this and be suddenly women. You know,
Speaker 2: because we were still young. We were surrounded by a
Speaker 2: team of men aside from Connie. Really in the beginning, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we had something to prove for sure, and
Speaker 2: so by season three it's like you have to believe
Speaker 2: in yourself. You have to find your footing or you're
Speaker 2: going to just constantly look like you don't know what
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 1: And we cared like we cared about the work. We
Speaker 1: cared about what we were putting out there, and we
Speaker 1: cared about like you and I were always like towards
Speaker 1: the beginning, we were like, yeah, well we'll stay here.
Speaker 1: We may be exhausted, we may be tired. The crew
Speaker 1: wants to go home. We want to go home, but listen,
Speaker 1: if we don't have it, we don't have it, We'll
Speaker 1: like stay and we'll get it because we cared about
Speaker 1: what was going on that screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and very dedicated.
Speaker 2: And I don't know where that came from necessarily, but
Speaker 2: it was just, you know, a dedication to making it
Speaker 2: right and making it well.
Speaker 3: And it's a work ethic that I I don't think
Speaker 3: you can really manufacture.
Speaker 1: It is work ethic, and it's it's work ethic along
Speaker 1: with being grateful, right right, I think that we were
Speaker 1: both always very grateful. Gratefulness does not equate to not
Speaker 1: having an opinion. You can still be grateful and look
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, this script is not great,
Speaker 1: let's do a polish on it, or you know, this
Speaker 1: doesn't feel natural to me, this relationship on this show,
Speaker 1: like between these two characters, isn't working. Like, you can
Speaker 1: still have an opinion, but be grateful for being there.
Speaker 1: You just want your opinion valued and heard right and respected,
Speaker 1: even if it gets rejected at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: As long as it's respected and heard, it's okay.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Many times, you know, and I've been I've been accused
Speaker 2: of taking the show too seriously at times, and I've
Speaker 2: been accused of being too involved at times.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There were times that I watched dailies every day and
Speaker 2: I would call the editors and go, why did you
Speaker 2: use that take and not that take? Like I was
Speaker 2: overly involved at a certain point, but it just made
Speaker 2: because it mattered to me.
Speaker 3: I didn't want it to suck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean we both always talked about like
Speaker 1: the Comparison, a sort of practical magic, which was one
Speaker 1: of our favorite movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a great book. It was my one
Speaker 2: of my first favorite books.
Speaker 1: I remember we referenced that movie a lot on occasion,
Speaker 1: a lot, and on occasion to our producers and to
Speaker 1: our writers, like, okay, look at how they did this.
Speaker 1: Particularly I think with the like CGI. Yeah, because our
Speaker 1: CGI was.
Speaker 2: It was limited, limited, rid of time it was what
Speaker 2: we could afford at the time, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was not great, but I mean
Speaker 1: it was pretty successful. Like I think everybody was kind
Speaker 1: of I think the network and spelling people, they were
Speaker 1: all like, wow, this actually like premiered well, and it
Speaker 1: kind of kicked off well, and then like the audience
Speaker 1: fell in love with the concept and fell in love
Speaker 1: with the characters and the sisters, and we were able
Speaker 1: to connect people in a way that they weren't connecting before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big It was a big premiere
Speaker 2: for the WB at the time, and I remember Aaron
Speaker 2: saying it was the first time they had gotten a
Speaker 2: full season pickup so early. The first season went pretty well,
Speaker 2: and that was the only time that that happened, because
Speaker 2: every season after that they sort of made us wait
Speaker 2: for it and we never knew if we were going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: Canceled or not.
Speaker 1: For me, the way that things were on nine O
Speaker 1: two one zero and like standing up for myself against
Speaker 1: all the men, and I think that got carried over
Speaker 1: into Charm to a certain extent because it was still
Speaker 1: the same group of producers, right, and it was still
Speaker 1: producers who they started getting a little bit better about
Speaker 1: pretending to listen, but they weren't really listening. And whenever
Speaker 1: I would say something that was constructive about trying to
Speaker 1: improve the show or about my character, they would kind
Speaker 1: of like go uh huh uh huh uh huh uh
Speaker 1: huh and then smile and walk away. And then I
Speaker 1: remember that like my attorney or my agent or my
Speaker 1: manager would always get a phone call being like, you know,
Speaker 1: Shannon needs to stay in her lane, and you know,
Speaker 1: she's an actress and that's her job, and she can't
Speaker 1: tell us how to run a show. And I was
Speaker 1: always like, my god, like when when do things become collaborative?
Speaker 1: Things were very collaborative with like Kevin Smith and Maul
Speaker 1: Ratz and a bunch of the other other things that
Speaker 1: I did. So going back into this situation was spelling,
Speaker 1: it was like, so things haven't really changed that much,
Speaker 1: like they're not evolving with the times. And and I
Speaker 1: will say again that we were We were definitely ahead
Speaker 1: of the time of like the women's movement that has
Speaker 1: happened in the business. We were sort of pushing for
Speaker 1: our voices to be heard. We were you know, rebelling
Speaker 1: against like the patriarchy, if you will, like the men
Speaker 1: who just wanted us to stay in a box and
Speaker 1: wear skin tight clothes with our boobs hanging out and
Speaker 1: you know, keeping our hair a certain way and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Like we were sort of already pushing
Speaker 1: up against that and saying no, no, no, we have
Speaker 1: a little bit more to offer than all of that,
Speaker 1: So let us bring everything that's within us to the show, Like,
Speaker 1: let us be the creatives and the talent that you hired.
Speaker 1: You need to trust us at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which wasn't by design though, it just happened organically,
Speaker 2: and I think the fact that we knew each other
Speaker 2: from before and we kind of stuck together and creatively
Speaker 2: we wanted more, and we wanted better, and we wanted
Speaker 2: more realistic portrayals of women. You know, there were just
Speaker 2: sometimes where like the dialogue just didn't sound right. It
Speaker 2: didn't sound like a person our age would talk like that,
Speaker 2: so it needed to Well it was because you know,
Speaker 2: I'm forty five year old, fifty year old guy was
Speaker 2: writing it. So it was like, you know, it had
Speaker 2: all of that happened organically. I don't remember ever feeling
Speaker 2: like we were being a pain in the ass. You know,
Speaker 2: it's it's I couldn't have done it any other way.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have just been a puppet, like that's just
Speaker 2: not in me.
Speaker 1: But I definitely looked back on all of that and think,
Speaker 1: you know, we we were some of the very first
Speaker 1: trailblazers in sort of petitioning, if you will, for women
Speaker 1: to have a voice that actually mattered in a male
Speaker 1: dominated business and certainly in a very male dominated set
Speaker 1: with producers who were used to things being done a
Speaker 1: certain way and keeping their actresses, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: in a box.
Speaker 3: We were show ponies for sure. We were show companies.
Speaker 3: And I think people get confused when they see so
Speaker 3: many women writers un charmed and say, well, there were
Speaker 3: women behind the scene, but there wasn't for us. The
Speaker 3: only producers we got to see were spelling producers, which
Speaker 3: were all men. And you know, the writers had a
Speaker 3: writer's room that was all the way in Hollywood, very
Speaker 3: far removed from us, and they didn't get to visit,
Speaker 3: They didn't get out much. That room stayed in the
Speaker 3: erin spelling building by design, and you know, there wasn't
Speaker 3: you know, women writers on set aside from Connie. And
Speaker 3: you know, eventually we saw how that went too you know,
Speaker 3: she was pushed out creatively, financially and in all the
Speaker 3: ways of the show that she created based on her
Speaker 3: own sisters by the group of guys.
Speaker 1: I also don't remember that many female writers in the
Speaker 1: first three seasons.
Speaker 2: That's because they never got out of the building and
Speaker 2: you know, they just didn't get to visit a lot.
Speaker 3: And also the problem.
Speaker 2: Was is that Brad did a polish on every script,
Speaker 2: so it didn't matter if we had like a great
Speaker 2: script from Daniel or Zach and Chris. It came out
Speaker 2: feeling hearing sounding the same because Brad did a polish
Speaker 2: on every script. And I was like, how many times
Speaker 2: am I going to say, We're screwed? Every time there
Speaker 2: was a We're screwed, it was Brad Kern.
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, we're talking about the showrunner, producer,
Speaker 1: Brad Kern, who was an interesting fella, illustrious. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was such a fascinating letter from him that at some
Speaker 1: point I'm going to read on this podcast. It's just fantastic.
Speaker 1: It was after I was gone from the show and
Speaker 1: him experiencing that show without me and a deep, deep
Speaker 1: apology letter of like oh my god, which you know,
Speaker 1: is great. You're like, okay, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: hear it after the fact. You want to hear it,
Speaker 1: you know, you want to be protected in that moment.
Speaker 1: So going back to like us as women, I think
Speaker 1: it was also, you know, three women on a show
Speaker 1: supposed to, you know, in its own way being ensemble,
Speaker 1: but I was cast. You know, first, the show was
Speaker 1: originally sold to the WB based on me, so obviously
Speaker 1: that's all that's going to be there. That's just natural.
Speaker 1: But once those like magazine covers started happening, and you know,
Speaker 1: one person is being asked and the other one isn't
Speaker 1: or you're And I experienced this on nine in two
Speaker 1: zero as well, with like the cover Rolling Stone, and
Speaker 1: everybody was super mad at me because I did the
Speaker 1: cover Rolling Stone and didn't request everybody else. And I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, it's cover of Rolling Stone. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying no to it. And I kind of felt that
Speaker 1: it didn't kind of feel it was happening of the
Speaker 1: the competitiveness was kicking in. And I'm not saying with you,
Speaker 1: I'm saying with Alyssa and myself that there was a
Speaker 1: lack of female support. Oh yeah, And I personally was
Speaker 1: never you know, I've had the same publicis for I
Speaker 1: don't even know how long Leslie Sloan and you know,
Speaker 1: she could come on the podcast and be like Shannon
Speaker 1: never cared about somebody else getting a cover, Like it
Speaker 1: just wasn't like in my wheelhouse. And I actually, even
Speaker 1: though it was supposedly good for my career, I we
Speaker 1: were working so hard. I was like, like, to then
Speaker 1: go on your weekend and do a photo shoot was
Speaker 1: kind of a nightmare to begin to with. But there
Speaker 1: was a competitiveness with Alyssa. I heard that she addressed
Speaker 1: it in her book. Obviously I'm never reading her book
Speaker 1: because it's sorry, not sorry, so right there, you know,
Speaker 1: it tells me like you're not freaking sorry, like why
Speaker 1: have you mentioned something in that case? And there was
Speaker 1: also competitiveness about you, which was really interesting of you know,
Speaker 1: trying to pull you away from me, and that you
Speaker 1: know transpired in that second season, and it was I know,
Speaker 1: for me, it was an incredibly rough season. You know,
Speaker 1: you were going through health stuff. You were in the hospital,
Speaker 1: and my dad had been as you know, in and
Speaker 1: out of the hospital NonStop, and hospitals scared me to death,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, waited twenty four hours after your
Speaker 1: surgery to go and then it wasn't even easy for
Speaker 1: me to get in. I was like being told I
Speaker 1: couldn't even get it by like Alyssa and her mom,
Speaker 1: like they were blocking people from seeing you. And at
Speaker 1: the time you didn't know. And I remember you texted
Speaker 1: me and were like, dude, are you gonna come to
Speaker 1: see me? And I could feel like you're you know,
Speaker 1: your pain of feeling like I had abandoned you, but
Speaker 1: I also felt like my anger at the situation of
Speaker 1: not being allowed to come see you, and like how
Speaker 1: a sort of family had like swooped in and caused
Speaker 1: like this sort of weird divide between the two of
Speaker 1: us that then continued throughout season two where I think
Speaker 1: I cried every single night of season two. What is
Speaker 1: your take on season two? Because it was really interesting
Speaker 1: and even go like broad strokes.
Speaker 2: Watching season two. I like season two because I feel
Speaker 2: like we were more ourselves than anything. I agree, but
Speaker 2: you know, there was a lot going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: I think it was pretty obvious that you know, I
Speaker 2: was raised by teenage parents.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a big.
Speaker 2: Family, and so you're right when a family swooped in
Speaker 2: and tried to be, you know, basically adopt me. It
Speaker 2: was very seductive for me, and I also wanted, you know,
Speaker 2: I wanted everybody to get along. I wanted the show
Speaker 2: to be successful, and that was part of that. There
Speaker 2: were no angels, there were no demons. We all had
Speaker 2: bad days, we all had good days. We all could
Speaker 2: have behaved better at certain points, but there was a
Speaker 2: lack of awareness of a bigger, broader picture of just being,
Speaker 2: like you said, grateful to have a job and to
Speaker 2: be doing something that we liked, and to be in
Speaker 2: a position of power to do something that we liked
Speaker 2: was not something that happens easily or normally or routinely.
Speaker 1: Well, we are out of time for today, but there
Speaker 1: is so much more I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: guys about, So everyone, please join me next week for
Speaker 1: part two of my interview with Holly Maray Combs. Until
Speaker 1: next time,