Normally, This Would Be Cause for Concern

by Danielle Fishel

  Second, junior high and high school can be cruel no matter who you are. All those hormones, insecurities, and never having a clue if you actually fit in with your peers make for some pretty lousy humans wandering around their campus like they own the joint. Sometimes child actors are easy targets, because they aren’t there all the time, and it can be easy to make fun of the commercials, TV shows, or movies they’ve done. From ten to twelve years old, I did a few Mattel commercials where I played the live-action Skipper. She was Barbie’s younger, not nearly as cool, sister. “Skipper” became my nickname on day one of sixth grade, and outside of my circle of friends, I don’t think anyone knew my real name. Luckily for me, there are a lot worse nicknames (“Fish Lips” was another contender for me, but that one didn’t stick) so “Skipper” didn’t bother me. I kind of liked it.

  Finally, coming and going from regular school to set school can be extremely difficult. As a minor in California, your time on set is limited to ten and a half hours a day. About three to four hours of that time must be spent doing schoolwork each day. Obviously, regular school hours are quite a bit longer, so the education on set is usually done at a faster pace, and one needs to be incredibly focused. If you’re getting half of your education on set and the other half at your regular school, that means you need to be caught up to precisely the same lessons as the rest of your peers when you do attend regular classes. That means that you need to be getting your lesson plans from the regular school you are attending, which isn’t always easy. Teachers don’t have to have their entire year’s lesson plans mapped out at the beginning of the year. As a matter of fact, most of them don’t. They also don’t have to be understanding or supportive of your career choice at age ten. Some teachers and schools are incredible at being organized and doing everything they can to help out a child in that position. Some of them aren’t. Either way, that was a challenge I wanted to take on, because even though I loved being on the BMW set, I wanted to be at school every chance I had.

  I went to almost every high school football game and attended almost every school dance. I had to miss one dance because I got caught smoking at sixteen and my parents, rightfully, grounded me. (Man, my parents really didn’t miss a beat. I’m exhausted just thinking about how diligent they were.) I had a lot of wonderful friends and was completely boy-crazy. Honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about learning. Learning shmearning. Who could even think of talking about U.S. history when winter formal was coming up and I needed a dress? Who cared about math when that beautiful senior boy had just passed me a note in the hallway? Why did I need English when I speaked good already?

  My freshman year, I couldn’t have been more excited to go to winter formal. My mom offered to take me shopping for a dress at our local mall—the Topanga Mall. No, seriously. Our local mall was called the Topanga Mall because it was on Topanga Boulevard. But instead of going to the Topanga Mall for a dress, my mom and I decided to take a trip to super-fancy Rodeo Drive after work on BMW one day. Even though we didn’t live too far from Beverly Hills, we had never been there. We thought it would be fun to feel like Pretty Woman for a day. Not the pretty woman with pleather thigh-high boots, her tummy exposed in something that vaguely resembled a dress, and a horrible blond wig in a bob cut. We wanted to feel like the fancy pretty woman who wore a big floppy hat and white gloves and made those stupid, rude clerks feel like losers. Well, we didn’t really want to wear hats or gloves, and we certainly didn’t want to make anyone feel bad . . . You know what? I don’t think this reference is working. We just thought it would be fun to window-shop at a fancy place.

  While we were there, we walked into Jessica McClintock. This was the ’90s, and Jessica McClintock prom dresses were everything. All of the dresses were super-fancy and shiny and had fake gems all over them. Obviously, fake gems made me feel dizzy with excitement, and I had never seen dresses more beautiful. I was in love. I found a floor-length emerald-green dress on the sale rack and tried it on. It had a slit up one leg and fake gems all over the spaghetti straps. I felt like royalty, and I never wanted to take it off. I begged my mom to buy me this, at the time, ridiculously expensive $110 sale-rack dress, and she did. Screw 90210, my mom was cool!

  A couple of days later, we went shopping at the Topanga Mall for shoes to go with my luxurious gown. My mom spotted the most amazing high heels. They were black satin and had tons of thin straps that crisscrossed all over the tops of my feet. They even had ankle straps. I loved ankle straps!

  The night of my first-ever high school dance arrived, and my date looked so handsome at the bottom of the staircase in his suit. My dress fit me like a glove, my shoes were outrageously gorgeous, my hair was curled perfectly by my mom, and my makeup was flawless. My mom had invited our family over to take pictures of this momentous occasion in a girl’s life. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for me to make my grand entrance (well, in my mind, they were waiting with bated breath, so let’s roll with that). Cameras were out and pointed at the top of the stairs where I would be making my reveal. I came out from around the corner of the stairs and posed. I put on my best Madonna “Vogue” impression, arms in the air, hands turned out, with my face tilted slightly to the left and gently skyward. I was really milking this moment.

  One of my famous stair poses.

  Never once did I look down. I did, however, make a different but equally glamorous pose for every step. I knew that house well. I knew those stairs well. I didn’t need to look where I was going. About halfway down the stairs, I mentally prepared my next pose while I gently lifted my left foot to step down. In a flash, I felt my foot slip out my from under me. Internally, I panicked that the conservative yet sexy slit in my dress was going to rip, my heels were going to break, and this was going to be my first and last high school dance. In four-inch heels, I had stepped on a magazine that someone (fine—it was me) had left on the stairs, and I was going down. Hard. And fast. Did I mention hard? I hit every single step with an enormous thud. It sounded like an elephant had slipped on a banana peel. My curled hair was wrapped around my neck and stuck in my lip gloss. My legs were nearly in split position.

  When I landed on the hard floor at the bottom of the staircase, there was silence. One second of silence followed immediately by the roaring laughter of ten family members and my date. I picked myself up off the floor and tried to regain my composure. My mom was bent over holding her stomach from laughing so hard. I hoped her stomach hurt as much as my body did. My dress was unharmed, my shoes were still perfection, and my date still wanted to go out in public with me. I laughed about my clumsiness with my family to rid myself of my humiliation, and my date and I took some quick photos. We then went to the dance, where, despite my soreness, I managed to tear that dance floor up, in my humble opinion.

  If anyone knows what this costume is, please let me know.

  Years later, I was invited to a Halloween party at a gigantic house in Los Angeles. I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween, because I don’t consider myself to be a super-creative person. Coming up with a Halloween costume that is topical, funny, smart, and, for women, somehow ends up being “sexy” is a lot of pressure. I know people who start planning their Halloween costumes in May! I’d rather put a mask on and pass out candy to children while my dogs bark furiously at them and threaten to bite their tiny fingers off. That is a good time.

  For some reason, I agreed to go to this particular Halloween party. Because I felt pressure to be creative, I allowed myself ample time to shop and went out to pick the perfect costume on October 31. What? You’re telling me that’s the date of Halloween? Hmmm. Weird. Even with all that time to shop, there were hardly any good costumes left for some reason! I ended up picking an off-the-shoulder milkmaid costume.

  I think that’s what it was. I’m honestly not sure what I was supposed to be, and, sadly, I wasn’t any more sure as I was putting the stupid thing on years ago. Oh, well, I thought at the time, at least I’m comfortable. (No, I wasn’t even remotely comforta
ble.)

  Immediately upon arriving, my friends decided that we needed to experience the haunted house that had been built in the guesthouse on the property. Because I don’t like being scared, I mildly protested but ended up agreeing. I didn’t want to be the fuddy-duddy who ruined everyone else’s good time. (I mean, I’m already a Halloween fuddy-duddy because I hate wearing costumes, and I’m a fuddy-duddy because I use the term fuddy-duddy.)

  The walk to the guesthouse/haunted house was a bit treacherous, especially for someone like me who rarely takes more than two steps without tripping. The property was absolutely gorgeous and had winding stone paths that led people to all the different areas of the perfectly landscaped yard. The particular path that we were walking along was downhill. Because I’m incredibly tall at five feet one inch, I was wearing five-inch heels that had a platform of an inch and a half and straps that tied up around my ankles. They weren’t comfortable, and walking on flat ground was hard enough. Walking downhill in them on uneven stone was just plain stupid.

  There were people everywhere. I knew there were super-famous people surrounding me on all sides, but I rarely recognize people. I don’t know why or how that’s possible, but I’m not sure I would recognize most famous people even if they slapped me in the face—which has never happened, surprisingly. My friends, the horde of famous guests, and I were all walking gingerly down the winding path. Out of nowhere, I was on my face. I had stumbled over a portion of uneven stone and my ridiculous shoes had decided to fling me to the ground rather than break my ankle. Thanks, ridiculous shoes. Anyway, I was facedown on the stone, which up close was actually kind of broken. There were small stones and dirt and generally really sharp edges everywhere. My hands were cut up in a thousand places, and using my sleuthlike investigation skills, I deciphered that my lip was bleeding because I could taste blood. Oh, and it hurt like hell. Wasn’t I so smart to have figured that out with only those two minor and insignificant clues? I may be a klutz, but gosh darn it, I are a genius.

  While I was splayed out on the ground in a surprisingly ladylike way, I tried to decide if I should cover my face with my hair and run out of the party as fast as I could or just pray for an immediate death. My friends kept asking if I was OK and were trying to help me stand up while also not falling over themselves. I said, “I’m fine. Just let me sit here for a second.” What I was thinking was I’m fine, just let the earth open up underneath me and swallow me whole so I don’t have to stand up and make eye contact with another soul for as long as I live. I could hear jerky people laughing at me. (Just kidding—I laugh every time someone falls, and that doesn’t make me a jerk. It does? Oh.)

  Suddenly, I was scooped up in someone’s arms and hoisted into the air. Yes! My prayers had been answered, and I could hope that a fiery death was imminent, because that sounded so sweet right then. I looked at my captor and realized something horrific. He was terrifyingly handsome. Like incredibly, ruggedly, mind-bogglingly handsome. And he looked so familiar.

  He said, “Oh, my God. Are you OK? That was a pretty bad fall.”

  Laughing it off, I said, “Haha, yeah, it was. I guess. But I’m fine. Totally fine. Actually, can you put me down, please?”

  He looked at my knee, which I was also seeing for the first time. My fishnet panty hose were torn at both knees, and blood was running all the way down my left leg. My first thought was something like Please don’t bleed on this handsome man, Danielle, and my next thought was, Holy moly, this man is Ben Affleck. This handsome giant is Ben freaking Affleck, and you might bleed on him. He put me down and told me to be careful. And just like that, he was gone. As quickly as he had come to rescue me, not laugh at me (which I totally would have done if he had fallen), he was gone.

  I never met Mr. Affleck again. He probably wouldn’t remember me (please, oh please, tell me he doesn’t remember me), and that’s fine. I will forever remember him as the handsome man who rescued me at a party.

  I skipped the haunted house and went inside the party. I took my stupid fishnets off and cleaned up my bloody knee. I ate a few delicious chocolate-covered strawberries and took this now infamous photo.

  See that girl I’m with in the Poison Ivy costume? That’s one of my best friends, also named Danielle. She saw this picture, noticed the huge chunk of strawberry in my teeth, and laughed so hard she cried. She printed it out, and to this day, it is framed and on display in her home.

  TAKEAWAY TIPS

  • Ben Affleck is an infinitely better human being than I am.

  • My friend Danielle is an infinitely worse human being than Ben Affleck.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  AS SEEN ON TV

  Want to hear something that is crazy to me? I’ve been known as the character Topanga for twice as long as I’ve been known as just Danielle. For two-thirds of my life, I’ve been Danielle but also Topanga. That’s more than twenty years of living with an alter ego whom I couldn’t be more proud to be associated with. Topanga is smart, caring, devoted, funny, and a feminist. Playing Topanga in the early years of Boy Meets World is still, by far, the most fun I’ve ever had on a job. She was different from any other TV character and completely authentic. She was a little wacky, totally secure, and absolutely not fazed by what other people thought about her. I think she is a great role model for girls, and truthfully, she has always been a great role model for me.

  Somewhere during the seven years we filmed BMW, Topanga and I became more and more similar. It became hard to know what was definitively her and what was definitively me. As I said, I think Topanga rocks, so this was not a bad thing. It was only a bad thing when other people had a hard time deciphering who was who. That may sound silly, because most people understand that actors play characters on TV and they aren’t actually those characters in real life, but you might be surprised how many people forget that fact when an actor is standing in front of their face.

  During the fourth season of BMW, we filmed a two-part episode called “A Long Walk to Pittsburgh.” In part one, Topanga is forced to move to Pittsburgh with her parents. In case you aren’t a fan of the show, what the heck are you doing with your life? Just kidding. No, I’m not. Anyway, if you aren’t familiar with the show, it’s important for you to know that Topanga was deeply and madly in love with Cory. Cory was equally deeply and madly in love with Topanga, so this move from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was not going to be easy on them. They had never been apart. How were they going to make it? It was a very emotional episode for our fans (or, as I call them, friends we haven’t met who have incredible taste), and many people were distraught thinking about what this move meant for our characters and their relationship.

  During part two of the episode, Topanga shows up at Cory’s door, soaking wet after having traveled in the rain all the way back to Philly for Cory, her true love. When we filmed the episode, we played part one for the studio audience who were there to watch us film part two. We had just filmed part one the week before, so obviously, it hadn’t aired on TV yet. We needed the audience to know exactly what had happened in the first part in order to hear and see their natural reaction to part two. Because everyone loves a good surprise, the producers put up a huge black curtain to block the audience’s view of what was happening on set in front of them. I had to sneak around behind the set to get behind the curtain so no one in the audience could see me. When Cory opened the door and Topanga was revealed, looking like a wet rat, having traveled hundreds of miles to get back to her man, the audience let out the most amazing gasp. Thanks to that black curtain, they had no idea Topanga would be standing there. The gasp was immediately followed by a huge round of applause, and you can hear every awesome second of it when you watch the episode.

  Moments like that were never short of incredible, but our fans’ love for Cory and Topanga also made for some awkward run-ins with people in public. A few months after we filmed “A Long Walk to Pittsburgh,” the show aired on ABC. The following weekend, I was
at Universal Studios with my then-boyfriend. We were sixteen and having a great time walking around, eating, and holding hands—just enjoying being totally infatuated with each other. At one point, I looked up and noticed another kid about our same age glaring at me. He was walking a few paces ahead of us and kept looking over his shoulder, giving me the stink-eye. I think the kids today call it “throwing shade,” but I’m not cool enough to pull that off. I mentioned it to my boyfriend.

  “Hey, that guy keeps giving us dirty looks. Do you know him?”

  He replied, “Which one? Oh, that one? No. I don’t know him. Just ignore him.”

  After about three totally awkward minutes of homie throwing me shade (yep, just doesn’t feel right) and me feeling completely creeped out and confused, the guy spun on his heels right in front of us.

  GUY: Hey. What’s going on here?

  BOYFRIEND: What’s your problem, man? Why do you keep giving us dirty looks?

  GUY: Um, well, helloooo? I know who she is, but I don’t know what’s going on here. Who are you?

  ME: Whoa. This is my boyfriend, and we’re just hanging out here today. Just like you are.

  GUY: No! How could you? I just watched you come back for Cory in the rain!