MELISSA & JOEY: Q & A with Melissa Joan Hart

Recently I had the pleasure of participating in a press conference call with Melissa Joan Hart. She was great. She discussed the upcoming second season of Melissa & Joey, her family, career and everything in between. What a Nice Girl she is. I can’t wait for season 2 of Melissa & Joey!

Moderator:      Are there any surprises we can look forward to this season of Melissa & Joey?

M. J. Hart:      There are some surprises. I don’t know how far I’m allowed to say. Last season ended with a bathtub falling through the roof. So the beginning of the show starts off with a few episodes about the construction and the family living on top of each other.

Mel has a little fling with the cabinetmaker, played by Bren Foster, but then there is some stuff that happens at the end where Joey falls in love with a Russian colleague and there’s quite a little romance that goes on there, and that’s an arc. We have that for a few episodes. So Mel has to put up with this Russian chick in her house. But in between that, there are really just a lot of fun, standalone story lines that happen and some great guest stars. This season it was really about keeping it light.

Moderator:      Can you tell us some of the other guest stars we’ll be seeing this season?

M. J. Hart:      Yes. Bren Foster, I think he’s Australian and he’s in one of the first few episodes. Christine Lakin comes back for a really funny episode. She played my friend in one of the episodes last season. This season she is looking for a sperm donor and happens to want some of Joey’s stuff. That’s my favorite episode of this season coming up, the sperm donor episode.

Debi Mazar plays a great character. She’s like my—I’m thinking about reelection and she is my coach, my reelection campaign manager. So she is—it’s an episode called “The Knockout” and it’s pretty funny. She and I met on the set of Dancing with the Stars. I really like bringing in a lot of these people that I’ve worked with before. That’s one of the fun parts about being Executive Producer is finding talented people all over the place and being able to work with them.

Moderator:      Both you and Joey Lawrence are directing this season. How does that affect the way you prepare for the episode?

M. J. Hart:      It’s just a lot more work. I’m trying to remember what my episode was even about. It’s just so much prep because you’re involved in every step of it along the way, even more so than just being an executive producer. It’s a very collaborative effort always, but when you’re the director you get so nervous. It’s like, “What if Joey doesn’t want to listen to me? What if Taylor won’t go where I tell her to? What if they don’t like my ideas? What if they think I’m terrible? What if I don’t say enough?” So it’s always hard being an actor and talking to other actors, but I think that other actors kind of respect an actor’s director more so than a camera director because you’ll get help with your acting. It’s a lot of work. When you’re acting, it’s Monday to Friday. When you’re directing it’s like a three to four week process.

Moderator:      Having a background as a teen actor, do you think that’s given you a better insight into working with Taylor and Nick on the show?

M. J. Hart:      It’s funny. Joey and I both—they both respect us a lot, which is really nice. Teenagers, you never know if they’re going to totally rebel or be willing to learn, and they’re both really willing to learn. They really want to be in this business for a long time and they see what we’ve been able to do and they have shown that they really respect us. So it’s nice because we feel free to be able to tell them, “When you do this or you do that be careful,” or, “Watch out on social networks.”

They come to us sometimes with advice too, “What should we do with our career this way or that way?” And Taylor and I have become very, very close. She turns to me sometimes for boy advice and she baby-sits for me once in a while, which is really nice. So it’s a great little working relationship.

Moderator:      Have you guys ever shot a scene where you couldn’t stop laughing? Like you just kept doing bloopers?

M. J. Hart:      Yes. We’ve had a few of those. We use iPhones on the set and sometimes we snap pictures with the iPhones. And then other times we have to pretend we’re looking at the phone and turn it to each other saying, “See look. See the message,” or whatever, but there’ll be a stupid picture on the phone and it just makes us giggle and it’s always hard to pull it back.

I think there is an episode coming up where Nick had to eat a lot of junk food from the vending machines at school, as a school project for Taylor to write about in her blog. There were snowballs and all this stuff on the set. He was trying to eat but he was just so disgusted by all the food he had to eat. There was a lot spit takes in that one.

Moderator: What challenges will Mel be facing with the kids this season?

M.J. Hart:      Well they’re getting older. There’s an episode where Taylor tries to befriend the new girl that she sees at school because she was the new girl last year. So she’s trying to be the good person by bringing this girl into her circle and trying to befriend her, but realizes that not everybody wants to be popular or liked or taken under someone’s wing.

There are a few episodes about relationships. Nick has a little girlfriend who we adore on the show. She’s been back and forth a little bit, Holly. She pretty much tortures him. So there are a few episodes with her involved.

And Taylor has a few episodes where she’s got a romantic guy with her. The one I directed with her and—what was the actor’s name? Anyway we’ve got these great little teen actors on the show and one of them plays her boyfriend for—for a few episodes—and there’s a nice little story line that happens with her and that relationship and us giving her relationship advice and stuff like that.

Moderator:      What do you admire most about Mel?

M.J. Hart:       She’s really determined. She thinks she’s got the—when she thinks she’s on the right path or she thinks there’s a mission to accomplish she will get to it. She will finish that mission. She is one of those women that is determined and has her convictions and sees things through, but she does it in a really silly, funny way.

Moderator:      Last season ended when you kissed Joe when you left his apartment and then it really wasn’t addressed in the rest of the episode, and then he moved back in. Is that going to be something that is addressed this season?

M. J. Hart:      No, once we moved back in together I think the whole idea was that we realized we can’t have a working relationship and—I think the idea behind that was that when we were thinking about living separate lives we could maybe date, but the fact that we’re under the same roof kind of trying to raise these kids together, again, doesn’t leave much room for romance. So that got left behind in season one.

We both believe, and I think the network and the writers are behind us on it, we’re fine with hinting at it once in a while and winking at the audience a little bit like we know we should be together but it’s not going to happen. When you get these characters together a lot of time it sort of kills the drive of the show. It kills the funny. And part of the funny part of this show is that they’re idiots that they’re not getting together, but at the same time it works for them. You want that sexual tension, I think. It really drives the show.

Moderator:      Is there a particular scene that you had with Joey, as you think back over the past few episodes that really stands out as one of your favorite highlights since working on the show?

M. J. Hart:      There have been a few. I mean the season ender in season one was pretty great. There’s a scene in his apartment and we’re eating Chinese food and there’s that moment where we could kiss. We might not kiss. We’re sharing Chinese. It’s dark. There was that—that was a nice moment.

But the ones we really like are the ones where we’re just bickering endlessly, and it’s that fast paced, quick, cutting humor. There are a few scenes I can remember in the kitchen around the island, in the season coming up, where it’s just—I think one of the ones I’m thinking of is the sperm donor episode where we just are tearing into each other. I’m picking on him. He realizes he was wrong or vice versa a lot of the time, where one of us is just kind of poking at the other one. And it’s that fun, fast comedy that you don’t really see that often anymore.

Moderator:      Do you and the cast do improvisation on the set? It seems like there are a lot of chances to do so.

M. J. Hart:      We do. That’s what’s great about doing the live show too. We shoot live on Friday nights, which I’ve never really done before, but it does really help because you get to try out different jokes in front of the audience. You do three or four takes and you try out a few different jokes and see which one gets the biggest laugh and then hopefully the editor will use that one. It’s fun to be able to sort of improv that stuff. And sometimes one thing will happen that’s totally authentic and natural and they’ll use it in the episode, which is wonderful.

Moderator:      What would your dream casting be for Mel’s infamous sister?

M. J. Hart:      This season you meet her mom. And Chris Rich plays my dad in a few episodes, which he’s fantastic, so much fun. We love having him on. He’s just kooky funny. But, I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I just don’t know. It would be so tricky because she has to be a little bit older than me. She has to look like the family. She has to look like the kids because they’re her kids. So it would be really tricky. I think it would be fantastic to even go out and to a casting and find a new talent. But I don’t know. I’ll have to give that more thought. Sorry I can’t give you a name right now.

Moderator:      You have been a successful teen/child actor with Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. And you made the transition to being an adult actress, which a lot of teen stars find difficult. What has been the secret to your success with that?

M. J. Hart:      I’m actually in the process of possibly writing a book about that because I don’t really know what that recipe is. I think that a lot of the balance and success in my life comes from my family. It comes from my mom and my dad and my siblings growing up, and now from my husband and my children and putting that always as a priority. Having that as my balance, as my sort of gage of where to go with my life.

But as far as my career, I think it’s just been that at a young age growing up on the East Coast in this business I did a lot of auditioning. It was pretty cut throat. There was a lot of competition, and if you weren’t the best one for the job there was someone right behind you to do it. So you had to work really hard. And I think that I learned that if I want longevity I’ve just got to stick it out. If I want a career in this business and I don’t want to transition and do something else, then I need to stick with it. Keep auditioning. Keep meeting people. Keep reinventing myself, finding great characters to play.

And that’s where producing comes in as well. I started producing at the age of 17 because I wanted to have some control over the projects I was putting out there and the characters I was playing. So producing has definitely helped. And then also transitioning to directing. I wanted to be more creative and found directing. So that’s been a great outlet for me as well just to keep me in the business. I don’t necessarily always need to act. I just love being on a set.

Moderator:      Is there an aspect or a quality about your character on this show that you enjoy playing the most?

M. J. Hart:      I love that she’s a mess. She’s a big hot mess and I love that because every other show I’ve played the characters have sort of been really put together and, you know, they’ve been careful with their choices and sort of always been the grounded centered ones of the show. And this one I like that my character gets to be an absolute disaster and has to get her way out of—It’s kind of like I Love Lucy. She’s constantly getting herself in a mess and having to figure it out, and I love that.

I love being able to be selfish and silly and just a little exaggerated. I love being able to wear really high heels and not be able to walk in them very well and use physical humor as well as the words on the page to make people laugh.

Moderator:      When you watch TV with your husband or with your kids can you tell us any sort of shows that you like to watch together?

M. J. Hart:      My husband and I like to go through seasons these days of shows. We did Friday Night Lights together last summer, and it just was amazing for us at night to put the kids to bed and just stay up watching episode after episode of Friday Night Lights in order. But now we’ve just gone through all the seasons of How I Met Your Mother and we’re currently trying to figure out what our next series is going to be. I would like it to be Dexter, but I think he wants to do another comedy. So we’ll see who wins that battle for the next one.

But with the kids, they’re into Transformers and Avengers and all these shows that are on The Hub right now, but we still try to keep them tuned to Disney Channel and do things like Little Einsteins. I’m trying to really keep them tuned into the baby shows, especially since we have a new baby coming. I want to keep it soft and quiet around here.

Season 2 of Melissa & Joey premieres on Wednesday May 30th at 8/7c on ABC Family.