Exclusive: Original ‘Melrose Place’ Stars Reminisce & Chat About New ‘Rewatch’ Podcast ‘Still the Place’
Cults. Blackmail. Baby stealing. Stripping. Going blind. Even a violent death in your wedding gown. These Melrose Place ladies have weathered it all, and they’re ready to talk about it in their new iHeart podcast “Still the Place.”
For almost a decade (1992-99) Courtney Thorne-Smith (who played Alison Parker), Daphne Zuniga (as Jo Reynolds) and Laura Leighton (the infamous Sydney Andrews) captivated audiences with their characters’ drama-fueled lives as residents of TV’s most popular apartment complex — 4616 Melrose Place.
Zuniga, Leighton and Thorne-Smith will dish weekly about the show that made them famous on “Still the Place,” a Melrose Place Rewatch Podcast, distributed via iHeartPodcasts.
So what took these ladies so long to revisit this cultural phenomenon? They sat down with us to share their insights.
“That’s a fair question. But sometimes you need to take this long to have it be just the right time,” Leighton tells us. “Twenty years after the show might not have been the right time to do a podcast but 30 years after really feels like a fun trip down memory lane.”
“It wasn’t even in my consciousness,” Thorne-Smith adds, until a friend called her and said she dreamt of a rewatch podcast. “I thought that sounds fun. I texted Laura and Daphne and they said, ‘That sounds fun.’ And then we had a meeting that week, and it was done the next week. It was just like the world agreed. I guess it’s time, and here it is, and here we are, and it is super fun.”
Every Monday the trio will gather to discuss an episode (they’re starting with the pilot and will go episode by episode, season to season), sometimes inviting other cast members into the discussion.
The first episode, which is available now, is an introduction to the show. Next week they will each watch the pilot the night before and then gather to discuss it.
“We’ll go through it, but in the midst of going through the scenes and the storylines it’s also us adding ‘Can you believe your hair! Those belts around the jackets. The bright colors that Rhonda the aerobics teacher (who was played by Vanessa William) wore,” Zuniga explains. “It’s the behind the scenes, but also our own memories, and we hope that that really resonates and is something that the audience wants to do with us, so they can remember their time during the ’90s while they watched the show.”
Melrose Place Was the Originator (OGs) of the Watch Party
“The idea of watching something in person with your friends is part of the nostalgia and beauty of everyone’s memory of Melrose Place,” Leighton shares, as this was long before DVRs and cellphones.
“I think that people in college and just out of college watched it with their friends. When people recognize me they approached me like a friend: ‘Oh, my God! You were a part of my college experience,’” Thorne-Smith shares. “I think that’s why it’s had such long legs.”
“We will talk about behind the scenes of shooting, remembering what you know, what that scene was like to shoot. But then also, our personal lives,” Zuniga informs. “Our friendships are going to deepen, cause we lost touch for a long time as everyone had their families, and you move on, and you have other work and stuff. But we’ve stayed in touch. …Spending every week doing this and making self-discovery I think, is going to be really cool, because we were very young. I was 30. Laura was in her 20s. We were very young.”
On the Melrose Place Script That Made Them Cringe
“I think there’s a lot of ‘Oh, thank God, I don’t have to do that,’” Thorne-Smith laughs. “I’m sure they felt that about me, too. Whatever ridiculous thing you had to do that week — you just had to put on your big boy pants and do it.”
“My initial entry to the show was that this character was immediately going to stir things up,” Leighton says. “I got to be the bad girl. I was a little nervous about that, even just on a personal side, like what would my parents think? Or maybe my grandparents if they might watch it, what would they think? … I think arguably, I might have had the most fun of any of the actors on the show, because I got to have so much fun with that character, and I got to have a little bit of extra wiggle room … But it was difficult. Sometimes you get the script, and you go ‘Wait. I’m a stripper now. Stripping? What?’ Stuff like that was a little bit hard to digest.”
“We would often drop our jaw on what was coming next,” Leighton sums up.
“It was a great place to get over your ego,” Courtney Thorne-Smith adds.
Where to Listen to the First Episode of “Still the Place”
The first episode of Still The Place is available now and will drop Mondays. Will you be following along? We will be so stay tuned for any fun revelations.
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Volume 1, Issue 8
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