They've known each other since they were 4 and now familiar faces Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence, who practically grew up on television, are playing the adults taking care of the kids in a new sitcom. Jacqueline Smith reports.
Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence are playing grown-ups, after spending their lives growing up on television.
Hart, best known for her roles on Clarissa and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, met her co-star Joey Lawrence, best known for playing Joey Russo on Blossom, at auditions when she was about 4 years old.
"Ron Howard was teaching us how to ride bikes for this audition, and my other girlfriend Soleil Moon Frye was there, and we all became friends. Like we all just hung out as 4-year-olds and learned how to ride a bike. I didn't really. That's why I didn't get the part, I think. Joey got the part," she laughs.
The pair would go back to their respective states - Lawrence to Philadelphia and Hart to New York - but would meet up whenever they were going for roles in sitcoms.
"We actually buried a time capsule together on Nickelodeon when we were 16, I think, or 17. And he was dating Jennifer Love Hewitt at the time. I thought that was pretty cool. So finally here we are finally getting to work together, and it just feels like we've known each other all our lives," Hart says.
The fact that they are playing eponymous characters is more of a branding exercise than anything else, with the network hoping they will bring their long-standing fans across to the show, as well as attracting a few young ones.
They play a pair of accidental caregivers. Melissa, is an ex-party-girl, Paris Hilton-sort who grew up hanging on the coat-tails of her father, a senator. Turning 30, she decided she didn't want to be known as "the daughter" for the rest of her life so became a politician herself. But when her sister ends up in jail and her brother-in-law flees, she finds herself responsible for her teenage niece, Lennox (Taylor Spreitler), and a pre-adolescent nephew, Ryder (Nick Robinson). She can't cope, so she does a Britney Spears and hires a manny.
Lawrence has children of his own but says he couldn't ever see himself coping as a full-time manny, like his character.
"No. I'm sort of anal and a little obsessive-compulsive. So I clean up a lot at home. I have two little girls running around. It's like a disaster zone everywhere they go. So I find myself cleaning up, and I try to help out with the household duties as much as I can because it drives me nuts if it's not done."
Lawrence hopes that his portrayal of Joey will somewhat "man-ify" the profession.
"In the past, maybe it was a job for men who were not guys' guys. This is a guy's guy, you know, who's got to change light bulbs and cook. He's actually a good cook, which I think is kind of cool, I think. I mean, I actually like to cook. I think guys that cook are cool. And then he does things he's not used to doing, like laundry. He's folding, like, the delicates, and he doesn't know how to. It's kind of like if you took Bruce Willis and threw him into a domestic role."
The character Joey is also very educated, but lost his job working for a Bernie Madoff-type during the financial crisis, and took the nanny job out of desperation.
Lawrence says he loves the way the show uses a single camera, and has a fast, laugh-a-minute rhythm that is reminiscent of Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends.
Sitcoms have struggled in recent years, but he thinks audiences are still drawn to characters they can identify with, and root for.
"We were in a pretty dark place about a decade ago, where it was Who Wants to be a Millionaire? nine times a week, you know. Not that it's a bad show, I think it's got to be something more creative than just giving away $10 million, in my opinion. I think that we got away from characters and got into more about, you know, what's the catch, what's the set piece, what's the big spoof of the week?"
While the characters Melissa and Joey are not based on Lawrence and Hart (both are married with children) it transpires that the actors share more than their names with their characters.
"It's so weird. We have these weird parallels in our lives - he's like a neat freak, and I'm just like a slob. You know, so he's, like, 'Why don't you put a little lipstick on?' and I'm, like, 'Why don't you not put on so much deodorant?"' says Hart.
And while they bicker like brother and sister, Hart says she has found a brilliant business partner in Lawrence and is only pleased they finally landed a part in a sitcom together.
"It's almost like we're girlfriends. We're, like, 'No. Shut up'."
LOWDOWN
Who: Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence
What: star in Melissa and Joey, in a new TV2 sitcom.
When and where: Saturday, 5pm on TV2
- TimeOut
