Ladies of ‘Melrose Place’ announce rewatch podcast
Actresses Courtney Thorne-Smith, Daphne Zuniga and Laura Leighton are headed back to “Melrose Place,” but not in the way you’re thinking.
On the 32nd anniversary of the nighttime soap, the women revealed on the KTLA 5 Morning News that they’re revisiting old episodes for a rewatch podcast titled “Still the Place.” The podcast is produced by iHeartPodcasts.
On July 8, 1992 viewers were first introduced to the Aaron Spelling soap that took place in an apartment complex full of scandal.
“I remember that day on ‘Melrose Place,’ we were this new cast and we all felt so excited and people were like ‘Who are you? What are you doing?'” Thorne-Smith recalled. “Eventually, after some bumps, we ended up being big!”
The three women are prepared to look back at some of the craziest storylines the show covered.
Zuniga’s favorite was when her character, Jo Reynolds, had a baby.
“My baby that I had that got stolen then I got it back. Then Kimberly/ Marcia Ross was, I think, breastfeeding it?” she laughed.
“I was in a cult and all sorts of nefarious blackmailing,” Leighton chimed in.
Thorne-Smith remembered the busy filming schedule along with the chaotic storylines, which sometimes lead to some major confusion.
“I remember we shot so many episodes a year, we shot 32 episodes a year, at some point we would be shooting six episodes at once broken down into two crews. I remember Daphne and I had that storyline, in the course of those six episodes we were best friends, I was helping her get her baby, I was stoned on the witness stand for her baby and I was like ‘Where are we? Do we hate each other? Do we like each other?'”
Fans can expect the three to cover everything on the podcast even off-camera scandals and stories.
“We’re going through each episode, scene by scene. We’re talking about our memories, we’re talking about the scenes themselves,” Leighton explained. “For us, it’s just been a joy to go back and see it again because it reminds us of all the things that we haven’t thought about in years, but there it is on the screen that we get to rewatch and watch with our podcast audience.”
Other cast members are also expected to be guests on the show to talk about their memories on the primetime soap.
Grant Show will be their first guest, which Thorne-Smith said is “super fun” as his character dated all the women in the series.
Andrew Shue is expected to appear on the podcast in the future. He and Thorne-Smith dated for a short time during the series. She said they’ll discuss their breakup and how producers were nervous it would affect the show, but “it was seamless,” she clarified.
Despite the drama onscreen, the women are great friends and even have a group text.
Leighton revealed that the objective of the podcast was to use it as an excuse to reunite with her friends and go down memory lane.
With such an iconic and successful television series like “Melrose Place,” some actors may find it a blessing and a curse as fears of being typecast loom in future projects.
“It always is both,” Zuniga said. “When it’s happening it’s very popular, you’re making a good living and there’s security in your life because as an actor there’s very rarely that and it’s also when you leave and you are kind of typecast for a while but I think that there’s always a pro and a con to it you just have to stay in the game and hope that things come around and get other opportunities.”
Thorne-Smith acknowledged that “times were changing” when the series hit the scene and the women were able to go on to other projects unlike sitcoms from decades past like “Gilligan’s Island.”
“I think it’s just a blessing,” she explained. “I worked a lot after that but it’s always ‘Melrose Place’ that people stop me about and ask me about because people talk about that time.”
You can listen to “Still the Place” wherever you get your podcasts.
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