Kristanna Loken Meets World

00:00:20
Speaker 1: I'd love to tell you a story about a radioactive cat.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Sweet. I already like where this is going?

00:00:26
Speaker 3: Is this?

00:00:26
Speaker 4: Where is this catwoman's origin story?

00:00:29
Speaker 1: Possibly? Well, yet the jury's still out. So we have a dog and a cat. We have a dog named Brunch and a cat named Bill. And Bill is about thirteen years old, and for the last let's say six ish months, he had been acting kind of acting differently. He was eating brunches dog food, and then he was throwing up and we were like, oh, it's because he's eating the dog food. He's not supposed to eat the dog food. So we'd give Brunch his food, and then when Brunch would be done eating, we'd pick up the bowl so that the wasn't just extra pieces of food in the bowl sitting out all day, and he was consistently waking us up multiple times at night to eat and just generally being kind of obnoxious. And then one day my mom came over and she goes, oh, my gosh, Bill has lost so much weight. Now Bill is a huge cat, like thirty pounds big, okay massive, So he can lose some weight and you don't really notice it because wow, he's a chonk and I love it, and so my mom goes, wow, he's lost a lot of weight. And I was like, oh, do you think So I go, yeah, I guess you're right. I guess maybe he has lost weight. So I said, Jensen, you need to bring him into the vet.

00:01:41
Speaker 5: So he does. He brings him into the vet.

00:01:43
Speaker 1: Turns out he has hyper thyroidism, and that means he's got a little tumor on his thyroid and it's making him hungry all the time, and it's making him agitated, and it's also what's causing him to be throwing up. It wasn't necessarily the dog food. So he said, okay, so what are our options and they said, well, there's a medica, a medication you can give him. It'say one pill twice a day and if it works, it'll be great. He'll feel better. And we were like, okay, that sounds great. So we get this medication. Jensen starts giving it to him morning at night, and wouldn't you know it, it works. Bill stops throwing up. He's feeling really good, he's he's gaining weight, he's back to he's just great.

00:02:26
Speaker 5: And then I swear it happened overnight. We look down at him one morning.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: And he is just covered in blood blisters just here missing, bloody, huge blisters, full of blood everywhere. Oh and he doesn't seem to be bothered by them at all. He's not itching, he's not acting any different. But we're like, oh my gosh, this is terrib Oh my god. So Jensen takes him back into the vent and I go, I hate to tell you this. I know it's working in every other way, but he's having an allergic reaction to the medication and you have to stop the medication. And so we say, so, what are our options and they said, well, not treating it at all, which means you don't know how long he's going to live. It's also kind of an uncomfortable, painful situation because he will he will Basically it'll feel to him like he's starving to death. He's going to be hungry all the time, and he's going to continue to throw up, and you know that's your one option, not treating it and he just dies, or you put him under or for the low low price of three thousand dollars, you can send in to another vet, a doctor in LA where they will give him one. It's like a radio isotope treatment. They inject him with something that's radioactive, and that radioactive business attacks the tumor in the thyroid, and with ninety nine point ninety nine percent efficiency, it will kill the tumor and he will no longer have hyperthyroidism. And then he will just live for however long he's gonna live, but hyperthyroidism will not.

00:04:09
Speaker 5: Be a factor in it. It's just gone. And I hear this, and I go, so, what exactly do they do? You send him there? They give him this treatment.

00:04:17
Speaker 1: They keep him for a week because he's literally radioactive after and he can't be around you.

00:04:24
Speaker 5: So we keep him for a week.

00:04:25
Speaker 1: And I go, okay, and it's wow, it's three thousand dollars. I said, okay, well, you know, I think it's worth it. I we have the three thousand dollars. We're in a blessed position to be able to pay that for our cat.

00:04:37
Speaker 5: Let's do it? Sounds great.

00:04:39
Speaker 1: We send him, We get daily updates, we're getting pictures, videos of him. Oh, he seems to be doing great. He's you know, he's gonna be feeling so much better after this. He's gonna be less irritated too, because Bill's kind of a jerk, and they're like, he's going to be less of a jerk after this. The tumors are irritating him. Jensen goes to pick him up after a week away, and I'm so excited. Yay, Bill's coming home. I'm telling the kids Bill's coming back today. Jensen picks him up and they go, okay, great. So now the last thing for you to know is that for the next twelve days, no one is allowed to be closer to Bill than an arms distance length away from him, except for one hour a day.

00:05:18
Speaker 6: Sause he's radioactive radioactive cat.

00:05:21
Speaker 1: Okay, so for one hour a day you can cuddle with your cat. The rest of the day, for twelve days you have to stay arms distance or more away from him, and then every day you have to clean the poop from his cat litter box and discard it in one of those big paint cans with a lid. You have to put the poop in there every day for twelve days because the poop is radioactive, and then at the end of those twelve days, you have to store that poop for three months at your house because you cannot throw away radioactive poop. Apparently Jensen then had to know all the details. Why, Well, it causes the Geiger counters to go off. At the trash dump, they test for radioactivity and trash trucks have like a two block radius, and so if they if the truck goes off, they then go search for two weeks. They send a special unit out to that two block radius, investigate who has a cat whose radioactive poop is this? And they will find you seven thousand dollars for sending radioactive poop to the dump. So anyway, I'm the proud owner of a no longer radioactive cat. We've been through the twelve days of hell. I am now the proud owner of twelve days worth of radioactive poop. It's living on my property. It says do not discard until June twenty third or whatever it is, and uh for the lolo price of three thousand dollars bills.

00:07:02
Speaker 5: So science right.

00:07:04
Speaker 3: I have so many jokes going through my head about so much of the story that I'm.

00:07:10
Speaker 4: Always I was wondering who was going to jump in that I saw a radioactive poop at coach.

00:07:16
Speaker 3: I have so so many from blood blister cat to radioactive poop to I store my own poop that way.

00:07:25
Speaker 2: I have so many jokes.

00:07:27
Speaker 5: I don't know that.

00:07:28
Speaker 2: I'm overwhelmed.

00:07:29
Speaker 1: I'm literally overwhelmed, and you can deliver them to me at them.

00:07:32
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna start.

00:07:33
Speaker 4: I'll start texting ten as our next free show chat.

00:07:36
Speaker 6: You take this material and digest it.

00:07:39
Speaker 3: Because it is just like the poop, which you can't digest for two weeks.

00:07:42
Speaker 5: That's exactly right. You'll get fine.

00:07:44
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I'm going to let that ruminate. I just like the poop in your garage.

00:07:49
Speaker 5: I just wanted you to know how much we love our cat.

00:07:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a lot of that's a commitment, man.

00:07:55
Speaker 3: God.

00:07:57
Speaker 5: Also, did I tell you he's thirteen? It's not right?

00:08:01
Speaker 2: No, exactly, it's not a spring Sea. I grew up with a cat named Bill. By the way, also had a cat named Bill.

00:08:08
Speaker 5: Oh was he ever a radioactive?

00:08:10
Speaker 2: He was not.

00:08:11
Speaker 3: I still have his poop, but that's just for personal use. But no, but it wasn't radioactive in any way.

00:08:17
Speaker 2: But that's just you know, it's fun.

00:08:19
Speaker 3: Okay. One of the jokes is gone. Thanks, so cross that one off.

00:08:23
Speaker 6: Excellent.

00:08:25
Speaker 5: Welcome to Bond meets World. I'm Danielle Fischel.

00:08:28
Speaker 2: I'm Rider Strong, and I'm Wilfordell.

00:08:30
Speaker 5: Oh boy, oh boy.

00:08:32
Speaker 1: This week, we're excited to welcome a season four guest star who not only wowed us during our recent rewatch of an Affair to Forget, but is also the only person to have appeared on Boy Meets World and to punt Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I will be honest, it would have been cool if William Daniels got to do that too. She is so bad ass that not only was she Sean's tough as nails and time dominating girlfriend Jennifer Bassett on our show. She would later become the ginoid t Robot in the two thousand and three movie Terminator three, Rise of the Machines, the former thief Taja in Mortal Kombat Conquest, an unholy mix of human and vampire as the title character in the film Blood Rain, and a criminal bounty hunter sent to Kazakhstan to rescue the first daughter from a blood hungry warlord in Mercy.

00:09:22
Speaker 2: She has my career.

00:09:24
Speaker 5: I know.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: If you also said she was a Jedi, that would have just been it.

00:09:28
Speaker 1: I mean, as if that's not enough, She's in the new movie Darkness of Man, alongside Jean Claude Van Dam and Sticky Fingers from the rap group Onyx.

00:09:41
Speaker 5: All this to say, no.

00:09:42
Speaker 1: Matter how many karate classes Will and I take, she would beat us to a bloody pulse.

00:09:48
Speaker 2: That's true.

00:09:49
Speaker 1: And not only would she reappear on Boy Meets World in season five as a ghost of girlfriends past for Sean, she'd also return for Girl Meets World as the same character, now as the surprise wife of Stuart Minkus, a rare easter egg that was actually worth it in the reboot, and now we are happy to be reunited with the toughest student at John Adams High, an actor who.

00:10:12
Speaker 5: Has done it all.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Meets World, Christanna Logan, Hey, so good to see you.

00:10:24
Speaker 7: Ah, Oh my gosh, it's so great to see you all.

00:10:28
Speaker 5: So great to see you too.

00:10:29
Speaker 1: It's normally when we do these interviews, we're sometimes seeing people for the first time in like twenty five or twenty seven or thirty years. But in this case, I was lucky enough to see you in Girl Meets World, so it doesn't feel like quite as long as a reunion for us. But so happy to have you here.

00:10:47
Speaker 5: Thank you for being.

00:10:49
Speaker 1: Twenty five years.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: Yeah a long time. Yeah, I'm a lot, Yeah.

00:10:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, I know. And I was thinking when I last saw you and Ryder, it was already nine years.

00:11:00
Speaker 5: Ago, right exactly. Even that's almost a decade ago, right, so crazy.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: So as we just went through in your intro, we ran down all of the incredible hardcore roles that you have been able to step into over the past twenty years. I mean, you are a bona fide action movie legend, truly, so thank you. With this in mind, do people ever bring up your role on Boy Meets World to you all the time?

00:11:30
Speaker 6: Really all the time?

00:11:34
Speaker 8: Yeah?

00:11:35
Speaker 7: I get feedback on Boy Meets World.

00:11:40
Speaker 8: Almost as often as some of the biggest projects that I've done. So I mean, congrats to you guys for creating such a cult classic. And can I just tell you that I rewatched some of the episodes, you know, to just refresh my memory, and you guys rocked. Like the show was awesome. I mean, I can see why it was such a hit. It was so cute, it was so well done. It was so heartwarming and funny and fun and playful and great life lessons and you know, it was just it was really special, So.

00:12:19
Speaker 1: You know, thank you for saying that, and thank you for watching some of the episodes. I know we asked you to watch your episode, which is just it was we were dying laughing.

00:12:29
Speaker 6: One of the best, one of one of the best episodes of It's ever so good.

00:12:34
Speaker 8: It was wild for me because I can't remember the last time that I've actually watched my early work, and to see young teenage Christanna, it was such a trip. I was like, wow, I really got a glimpse into myself at that age too, even though it was you know, it.

00:12:57
Speaker 7: Was a character, but there was a reason why, you know, we get higher.

00:13:00
Speaker 8: For these roles, right, Christota.

00:13:04
Speaker 5: The prowess you know, well, you were so confident.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: I mean you were very you commanded every scene you were in. You really felt just so much more in control than which is hard to do.

00:13:18
Speaker 4: As a guest star. I mean we talked about we watched it. I was like, the confidence with which you came in and like, just take over this episode. It's it's the only way the episode works is because you are like you know, and that's one of those things I'm sure our writers wrote and then they're just like, how are we ever going to find somebody to fill these shoes of it, and.

00:13:35
Speaker 6: You just nailed it.

00:13:37
Speaker 4: And the best part for me was watching it and realize you look like you were having fun too, like we all look like we're having fun, and I'm like.

00:13:44
Speaker 6: This is this was this was a good week.

00:13:47
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, thank you, No, it was.

00:13:49
Speaker 8: It was awesome. It was a really special time and it was great to reprise my role some it was, however, fifteen plus.

00:13:57
Speaker 5: No, I don't know, twenty or twenty to twenty years later, Yeah.

00:14:01
Speaker 8: And come back.

00:14:02
Speaker 7: That was such a trip.

00:14:03
Speaker 8: And you guys have done many different iterations of the show, right, various different spinoffs.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: Just just Girl Meets World was the only version. We're inching our way slowly to like elderly person's Home meets World. We're almost there.

00:14:19
Speaker 8: Home meets World.

00:14:20
Speaker 5: That's a nursing.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: Exactly do you remember auditioning for the role or did you have to audition?

00:14:27
Speaker 8: You know, it's funny, Danielle, because I was thinking of that. I was like, what was the process for getting that role? And I seem to remember an audition, and but other than that, maybe it was just like they found like the one person who was tall enough and moisterous enough, as Riders said, to fill the shoes. But maybe it was just a good fit.

00:14:54
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's perfect.

00:14:56
Speaker 1: It was so great, so to recap for anyone who's unfamili you played Writer's girlfriend who so badly wanted him to stop hanging out with his real soulmate Corey.

00:15:07
Speaker 5: Uh.

00:15:08
Speaker 1: Do you remember anything specific about taping the show that week or about rehearsals.

00:15:13
Speaker 5: Do you remember working specifically with writer?

00:15:16
Speaker 8: Oh? Of course. And you know the one that I was cracking up with the most was this this kissing move that hand who would I think it was like don d that was like smooth.

00:15:35
Speaker 2: I don't bet you. I'll bet you that was a note.

00:15:37
Speaker 3: I bet you that was a Michael Jacob's note like we need something, some kind of move to show.

00:15:42
Speaker 4: You and then like the nose thing we're doing like this little like weird.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:15:49
Speaker 9: I mean it might have been a note, but it might have just been me because I played a lot of as you can see them going forward in my career, physical roles.

00:15:59
Speaker 8: I mean, like you know, like that type of physicality, but like really so I do have a dance background, and so you know, maybe that fluidity or something reminded me of a dance move or I don't know, but you know, no, and you guys were all so great and funny. I mean I remember also too, like just sometimes trying to hold it together because it was so funny. It was so much cool.

00:16:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was one of the funniest episodes we've ever done. I mean, I think that's truly one of the funniest episodes we've ever done. Everybody bought into the premise and so it just worked everything.

00:16:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you could hear.

00:16:38
Speaker 4: The audience just increase the energy as it goes on. It's like, oh my god, once we get into the plot and the joke is there, Oh, it's just everything. Everything you guys, everything that you do is funny. Everything Danielle does, it's like we just keep getting laughs.

00:16:53
Speaker 6: It's so good.

00:16:54
Speaker 1: It's the writers were it was so funny, even from the table, So every time we saw it on its feet every run through, it was.

00:17:04
Speaker 5: Just this like raucous laughter.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: So it was it was one of those weeks where we were just all bubbling with how funny what we were doing.

00:17:11
Speaker 6: Was.

00:17:11
Speaker 7: That's great to hear, that's great to do.

00:17:14
Speaker 8: You know?

00:17:14
Speaker 5: Was that your first on screen kiss. No, okay, no, I'm sorry.

00:17:21
Speaker 8: To say a writer, it.

00:17:24
Speaker 6: Was all right, check you off the list for years, you know, all right?

00:17:31
Speaker 8: Fine. The first actually my my first kiss, and was in my first audition for As the World Turns, which I thought, wow, this is so easy, Like you go in my first audition, like you get the job. Wow, I love this. I love acting, you know, a little bit so pure luck. But I went into the audition room with a group of the producers and my love interest who was on the show at the time, who was Jason Biggs, And I didn't you know, Hey, I'm a farm girl from upstate New York. You know I can hang And in the middle of the audition we're supposed to have this moment, but he like really goes for it. You're the audition But anyway, so yeah, I ended up getting that job.

00:18:20
Speaker 7: But yes, Jason Biggs and I laughed about that years later.

00:18:24
Speaker 5: Oh that's so fun. I know I've never kissed in an audition.

00:18:28
Speaker 8: You probably can't now, you know.

00:18:33
Speaker 2: It's tough on Zoom to make out with it.

00:18:34
Speaker 5: It is tough on Zoom.

00:18:35
Speaker 2: You're exactly right.

00:18:37
Speaker 7: We would meet the intimacy coordinator.

00:18:41
Speaker 4: I think I have kissed her in an audition. I feel like that's really yeah. Yeah, when you're at like the final stage, like if you're at a screen test or a chemistry read.

00:18:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you were at an audition. Writer, this was some strange no, because you know, I'm actually thinking it was. It was with Christine lacoln who I had already kissed for another job.

00:19:00
Speaker 6: And then also.

00:19:03
Speaker 4: Abigail Spencer was down to the two of them for and and me and another actor for a movie. And I remember, yeah, we like actually made out for for our screen test.

00:19:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's you know about you.

00:19:15
Speaker 6: No, I didn't get the job, Christine got the job. Okay, you might ever look good?

00:19:20
Speaker 5: So there there you go.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: Now, Christna, you had already been on unhappily ever after and just shoot me.

00:19:36
Speaker 5: Did you like doing single camera work?

00:19:39
Speaker 8: You mean going from from like sitcom kind of exactly?

00:19:43
Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:19:45
Speaker 8: Yes, And actually I had done other like independent films and such single camera before, but I came to La really was it was like that dollar and a Dream kind of story where I had done some work in New York City and then I had they took me from New York and they brought me to La to scream test for Unhappily ever After, and that's when I ended up getting the job and staying. So I was just like really going with the flow and having fun of like, let me try this out, let me try that out. Oh that's cool, you know, and it just really went from there.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: One of my favorite moments in our rewatch of your episode of Boy Meets World was the scene where you and I were in the library and we give each other the very vapid phony high. It made me laugh so much, and I was wondering, do you remember, I said when we did our rewatch of it, that I don't remember there being any sort of even discussion about what that would be.

00:20:51
Speaker 5: We both just.

00:20:52
Speaker 1: Knew immediately what that hello to each other was, and I was wondering, do you remember if it said anything in the sco ripped about like giving us a direction about the type of high, or do you remember rehearsing that at all?

00:21:06
Speaker 6: I don't.

00:21:07
Speaker 8: I certainly remember that moment, but I think it was, yeah, just one of those kind of young high school things. Yeah, hi, yeah, hi, yeah.

00:21:17
Speaker 2: One interaction. Your entire relationship was laid out in that wood.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: We are going to pretend to be nice to each other, but we don't really like each other.

00:21:27
Speaker 5: And all we needed to say was high and he picked up on all of it.

00:21:31
Speaker 8: That other moment that was so funny that my mom even remembered today when I told my folks I was going to be speaking to all of you, and she was like, Oh, that's going to be so much fun. She said, there was that one moment, she said, I remember where the other actress looked up at you and was like, Hey, I'm talking to you up there.

00:21:51
Speaker 5: Yes, it's so funny.

00:21:53
Speaker 2: I remember.

00:21:54
Speaker 1: It's a it's a cult favorite line of people of people from that episode. Yeah, it's something that people really like. They think it was really funny. And I when we watched it, I was critical of my delivery of it. I was like, why did I say it like that? Why didn't I just deliver it more earnestly? But I put a spin on it. We were trying to remember if it was like a very specific.

00:22:14
Speaker 5: Line reading note I had been given.

00:22:15
Speaker 1: But people love it, and people also love the way it was delivered. They thought, so, you know, it's funny those things.

00:22:22
Speaker 8: That I think in that moment too, and you wanted to get through to me, and that's why you were trying to talk to me.

00:22:27
Speaker 5: Way up there, way up there. Listen to me, lady. You're keep ignoring me because you can barely see me, which is.

00:22:34
Speaker 1: Just a funny. It's it's very funny. So then you came back to Boy Meets World in season five for First Girlfriend's Club alongside Larissa o'leinik and Lindsay McKeon.

00:22:44
Speaker 5: Do you remember coming back for that season five episode?

00:22:48
Speaker 8: You know, it wasn't as clear to me as the first episode. Yeah, but in rewatching Man, there's some great stuff in there too, and Will you and I even have a little moment there.

00:23:02
Speaker 2: In the end, do we Okay, I haven't seen it, so we.

00:23:04
Speaker 4: Haven't watched that yet, so yeah, I'm so good. But I definitely yeah, it's a Bonker's episode. I'm like handcuffed. Oh yeah, I like handcuffed. It's like a full on on like.

00:23:14
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're handcuffed.

00:23:16
Speaker 10: And somehow in the end, like Will and I and the other actor and like two other girls end up together and Will kind of goes back and he like grabbed the handcuffs and ducks out the side.

00:23:28
Speaker 7: It's really what I know, you probably couldn't do.

00:23:31
Speaker 2: That now, right, So that's so funny.

00:23:36
Speaker 5: Oh man, I can't wait till we get there.

00:23:38
Speaker 2: I want to get there. I want to see that one.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: So before you came on to boy Meet's World, had you ever heard of the show? Did you know anything about it before you arrived on set for your episode that week?

00:23:51
Speaker 8: Great question, I'm I'm sure that i'd heard of it, but I wasn't that familiar with it. I love Wonder Years with Fred Savage, and I knew Ben was in the show, and I was looking forward to working with him, and and I knew people that loved it. But you know, then I got the first hand experience.

00:24:12
Speaker 6: Which better.

00:24:15
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:24:15
Speaker 1: So who was like you had a I think you had a pretty cool group of actor friends out here.

00:24:19
Speaker 5: Who was your crew?

00:24:21
Speaker 8: Yeah? So I had done this independent film, my first film when I was sixteen in Connecticut, and I worked with Justin Whalen, who played kind of my love interest in the movie, and legendary Ed Asner. Yes, Justin became my first on set boyfriend on my first movie. Because I didn't least any time there.

00:24:50
Speaker 4: None of us.

00:24:51
Speaker 3: You were watching together for a while because that's work, isn't that When we hung out when it was you and Justin and Jason Marsden was with so and we would all hang out together and go and do stuff.

00:25:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I remember.

00:25:04
Speaker 3: I remember hanging out with you more off the set than we ever did on the sets.

00:25:09
Speaker 8: We didn't really until that second episode, we didn't really have anything yeah this episode at all together.

00:25:15
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:25:15
Speaker 8: So then when I came when I ended up coming out here and getting the job and staying because I'm like, all right, if I don't get the job, I don't want to be just another blonde, out of work actress. I'm going to go back to New York and continue there. And then I ended up staying. So Justin and I then forged a relationship and you know, I together and stayed together for quite a while.

00:25:37
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:25:37
Speaker 3: Do you remember wearing Connecticut? I'm from Connecticut, so I'm just curious if you remember where you shore.

00:25:41
Speaker 7: It was Loomis Chaffey's School.

00:25:44
Speaker 3: Which is where my entire family went to school. My mom went to Chafee back in the day when it wasn't even Loomis Chafey. Then both my brothers graduated from was they shot a movie at Loomis.

00:25:53
Speaker 2: That's so funny. Yeah, we did.

00:25:55
Speaker 8: They did. It was called Prep and it was about a boys I guess it was just or maybe just in the movie.

00:26:02
Speaker 7: It was just a boys' school at one point, like in the sixties.

00:26:05
Speaker 3: No, it was it was Loomis was was the boys school and Chafey was the girls school, and they combined them later and became Loomis Chafee.

00:26:11
Speaker 8: Okay, gotcha, gotcha. So it was the director had written something I think loosely inspired by his experience there when he was younger, when it was just a boys' school and there was, you know, kind.

00:26:23
Speaker 7: Of a sixties racial.

00:26:25
Speaker 8: Thing going on and music bringing people together. It was cute.

00:26:29
Speaker 3: It was so cool he shot at Loomis. So we've talked about Boy Meets World. Great show, awesome, great, we all love it. Fantastic.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Can we please talk about Terminator?

00:26:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, let's get let's get into it.

00:26:40
Speaker 2: Can we please talk about Terminator? Boy Meets worlds awesome? But you were the Terminator?

00:26:45
Speaker 6: Please? Oh my cool?

00:26:47
Speaker 5: So cool?

00:26:48
Speaker 6: Thanks?

00:26:48
Speaker 8: You know what I remember when I came back to do Girl Meets World and I saw Danielle and Ryder and you guys said that you were so excited for me when I got the job, and I was so touched by that. I was like, oh, really, like somehow that was really surprising and prob to me. And so yeah, that was an incredible experience and opportunity. And I worked my butt off for sure.

00:27:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're like, in so much of it it's so physical, Oh my god, Yeah.

00:27:25
Speaker 3: So cool.

00:27:26
Speaker 8: It was. It was it was kind of the role I think that you know, in the beginning of my career, people sometimes didn't really know how to cast me because I'm five to eleven, I had a deeper voice. You know. There's even like a couple that I noticed, like references in the show then.

00:27:43
Speaker 7: Like my size and my voice and everything.

00:27:46
Speaker 8: And when this audition came around, I was like, oh, this is it. I just I just that none of the constraints mattered and actually worked to my advantage. And I had been such a fan of Robert Patrick in T two. I was just so blown away by his performance and you know, just his elimination of human qualities in them, who I actually got to work with years later. We has become a good friend of mine.

00:28:15
Speaker 6: Oh that's so cool.

00:28:16
Speaker 8: But yeah, I just I just knew it was going to be the right fit and and it was so it was it was really special. And then I got into the best physical shape of my life. I had a weight trainer, I had a nutritionist, I did Prabma God Israeli martial arts. I worked with a mime coach, weapons training with the LAPD. I put on about fifteen pounds of muscle mass, and I got my body fat down to that of an Olympic athlete. Yes, I really I really went for it. And you know a lot of people said, who is this young woman who's going to take on this iconic image of cinema history, you know, and I wanted to really prove to myself and to everyone that you know, I had it within me. And I think, you know, having the dance background and knowing the physicalities and knowing how to really work like from the inside out really helped overall with that job.

00:29:15
Speaker 4: What was the audition process like, did you have to do a fight scene to audition.

00:29:20
Speaker 6: Like besides reading lines? What was it like?

00:29:22
Speaker 3: Well, because there aren't really any lines, You've got like a couple of lines in the entire film, So how yeah, how are you?

00:29:27
Speaker 8: Yeah? There's a few. Most of everything is conveyed through physicality. So it was a very physical audition. It was probably about a ten audition process.

00:29:40
Speaker 6: Oh my god, hell.

00:29:45
Speaker 8: Oh, thank you.

00:29:48
Speaker 7: Yeah.

00:29:50
Speaker 8: And so it was a lot of like running and jumping and falling and getting up and looking and moving and you know, it was very physical. And Monathan the director would say to me once we got on set, you know, like just go do that terminator thing.

00:30:12
Speaker 6: Turn on the terminator. Yeah.

00:30:14
Speaker 8: You know, after all the physical training that I'd done within myself to really feel like I could embody that, and working you know with the mind coach and you know, working against different internal energies. I mean, some of it was very esoteric to really create the end result, but it was.

00:30:32
Speaker 7: It was a.

00:30:32
Speaker 8: Wonderful, incredible process. And then having the opportunity to really showcase the film on a worldwide stage like that, just you know, it's incredible.

00:30:43
Speaker 2: How long a shoot was it?

00:30:44
Speaker 8: One hundred days?

00:30:46
Speaker 6: Wow?

00:30:47
Speaker 4: And it was a gigantic film, like we're talking big budget.

00:30:51
Speaker 8: I remember.

00:30:52
Speaker 3: I remember one of the stories about that was one of the biggest set pieces in the film is the truck scene where the two trucks are going back and forth, and schwartzeneight you and and arnmed Swarzenegger fighting back and forth, and it went way over budget, and they said, we're not going to pay for this, and Schwarzenegger said, I'll pay for it, And he paid for the entire that entire section of the film out of his own pocket because he loved the scene so much that he refused to cut it. So they shot for what was it like, three or four days of just the truck scene, and it cost him millions of dollars of his own money because it's like, we can't we can't lose the scene.

00:31:23
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was, I was in a crane A cool Yeah, and it was the largest budgeted film to date when they made the film, it was two d and fifty million.

00:31:34
Speaker 5: Oh and yeah.

00:31:36
Speaker 8: When I read that chase scene, I mean it was just like I was turning page after page after paid. I'm like, it's still going. It was like a ten.

00:31:43
Speaker 6: Weeks of your life.

00:31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, did you drive the truck?

00:31:47
Speaker 8: Well, here's what they did.

00:31:49
Speaker 7: So they had switched the steering on the crane, the Champion crane, to.

00:31:56
Speaker 8: The other side, so there was a stunt driver on uh, the other side. But I was on the side where people would normally be driving on the west side. But a crane is totally different. Driving a crane is different than driving a semi.

00:32:10
Speaker 7: Truck, you know. So it was.

00:32:13
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was a really incredible experience for sure. Oh wow.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: I mean I can't I have to imagine, even with a resume like yours at the time, and how confident you were as a person being the new terminator in a movie of that size, that budget, that kind of world stage had to have been extremely scary and intimidating.

00:32:38
Speaker 5: How did you How did you keep it all together?

00:32:41
Speaker 8: How?

00:32:41
Speaker 5: What did you have? A therapist?

00:32:43
Speaker 8: Did you?

00:32:44
Speaker 3: Like?

00:32:45
Speaker 5: How were you? How are you keeping it all together?

00:32:48
Speaker 8: You know, I think I'm just one of these people that really thrives under pressure, Like I really enjoy it, Like I really love a good challenge. I love proving myself and testing myself and really seeing how far I could go. So it just felt kind of strangely natural for me, you.

00:33:11
Speaker 7: Know, yeah, yeah, wow, Later, of course, but.

00:33:21
Speaker 3: Just to I know that we could spend an entire podcast talking about this, and frankly I would love to because it's so in my wheelhouse. But being on such a special effects driven film. How much of the effects, I mean, it's a stupid question, but how much of the effects were practical, Like how much do you have to actually mime out while you were there compared to things where they're like, no, we just do that later by computer.

00:33:44
Speaker 7: It's a great question.

00:33:45
Speaker 8: And at the time Matrix two and then three, they'd shot them together, were coming out, and so we were really on par believe it or not, with them for practical shots and also special effects. But we shot as much as we possibly could practically at the time, because you know, you're just going to get something better someone's actually doing it. Of course, not to the nth degree where you're going to get completely smashed and beat up, but we really shot a lot of it practically.

00:34:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean back then that you had to too. I mean, like the technology what I mean now it's like in the Marvel Universe, it's.

00:34:29
Speaker 2: Just you're you're a you're an entering room.

00:34:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I feel like back then you still had to actually do it.

00:34:35
Speaker 8: Yeah, yep.

00:34:37
Speaker 1: And so from that time on, is then every offer you got for action movies, did you just became like the go to action movie star from that point on.

00:34:47
Speaker 7: Well, thank you.

00:34:50
Speaker 8: Yeah, I did a lot of action after that, and I think again because of of course the film and having the dance background and learning fight and stunt choreography for me was a lot like learning a dance.

00:35:04
Speaker 7: Routine, so so the body conditioning is different.

00:35:09
Speaker 8: You know, I found myself, you know, working with Tony Chang from a house of flying daggers and you know, doing wire work with the Circusolaid troop and I'm like, it's kind of a six foot tinker bell or something. It was these things, you know, we're exactly natural for me, but I did it. And you know, I think also just having a you know, you know, broad shoulders and an athletic frame, and you know, I'm an athletic person in general, like I'm an open ocean swimmer, I'm an avid skier, you know, I'm I'm an equestrian. I do you know long distance endurance. I mean I love kind of that excitement and extreme kind of sport background. So doing all that for me was exciting. And you know, doing a lot of you know, work with a fencing and weaponryue and you know, whether it's double bladed axes or swords, I mean, it's just cool.

00:36:10
Speaker 6: Don't you ever just look around and you're like, this is my job.

00:36:14
Speaker 4: I get paid to work with double bladed axes.

00:36:18
Speaker 8: So cool.

00:36:30
Speaker 1: So I know Will is also thinking this question, so I'm going to ask it for him.

00:36:36
Speaker 5: What's it like working with Jean Claude Van Dam.

00:36:40
Speaker 8: Jean Claude van Dam such a legend. I know we all grew up watching his films. Yeah, it was really an awesome experience working with him. He's very kind hearted. But I will have you know that in this film, I play his love interest and darkness of man, and uh, I don't do any action. Actually, oh, it is a Mune wab thriller with a substantial amount of action. I don't know.

00:37:18
Speaker 7: Maybe in part two there'll be a surprise there.

00:37:23
Speaker 6: He was great.

00:37:24
Speaker 2: Is this out yet? Is it coming out to?

00:37:27
Speaker 6: Wow?

00:37:28
Speaker 5: Exciting?

00:37:29
Speaker 6: That's awesome.

00:37:30
Speaker 3: There's nothing like a Van Damn movie. I mean, there really is nothing like a Van Dam movie. It's it's like a Cigall movie. They're all They've got this kind of just character to them that are so wonderful that.

00:37:40
Speaker 8: Really he really brings the action I mean for him, and I think, you know, being a kickboxer and having that kind of training. It's it'll be muscle memory for him forever. I mean because he was a champion. Yeah, so it's it's there and he's he's an incredible shape and yeah, just a really kindhearted individual.

00:38:06
Speaker 3: The video of him, have you guys seen the video of him between the trucks?

00:38:10
Speaker 2: Have you seen him with the splits, with the split splits?

00:38:12
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yeah, that rider?

00:38:15
Speaker 3: Have you seen this? No, So he's just there's two trucks next to each other, like two rigs driving next to each other, and they have these little platforms on him. He standing between the two rigs and then they slowly just start to pull out until he's just in a perfect split as these trucks are driving down.

00:38:29
Speaker 2: It's insane. It's insane. Yeah.

00:38:32
Speaker 4: I want to ask you about your stunt team because this is something that I'm always fascinated. Have you had a consistent stunt actor that you've worked with or a team that you've worked with.

00:38:42
Speaker 8: Yeah.

00:38:42
Speaker 7: Alisa Hensley is a stunt double that is.

00:38:48
Speaker 8: Not only an incredible talent, but a wonderful person and a dear friend. And she doubled me on T three and then it just kind of went from there. We worked together on various projects and you know, the Sun people that I've had the opportunity to work with, and I'm now so glad that there are awards to celebrate them for the final.

00:39:11
Speaker 2: Recognition Unsung Heroes.

00:39:14
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I mean what they put themselves through, it's like, you know, obviously they make all of us look good and they're really out there, you know, putting their lives on the line, and I mean I've seen so much that also goes wrong and it's it's just an incredibly harrowing job. So yeah, I've worked with just an amazing amount of talent in the team.

00:39:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like they they're the equivalent in politics of the speech writer, where it's like they do a ton of work, they take none of the credit. There's a there's like a rule where you don't take the credit. It's like it's not about us. But they're doing all the work, unbelievable and it's about time that they're they're getting their due, which is yeah, they're phenomenal.

00:39:58
Speaker 5: And you have a son thor right, I sure do, Yes, I do? And so how old does.

00:40:05
Speaker 1: He and do is he into anything in the entertainment industry? What would you want him to be. Does he know how cool it is that his mom is the terminator.

00:40:19
Speaker 8: Well, Thor is seven and three quarters, if you're okay right now, and you know, I don't really see him being in front of a camera. He's very different than me in that regard. He did get up on stage and do his school play a little reluctantly at first, but there and now he's kind of helping the other kids, so he's being a little more confident there. And you know, he sees pictures around the house, you know, where mama is half mama, half robot, but we haven't. I'm also kind of one of these parents, ironically, given my profession, who doesn't do screens with my son. So he has really kind of no idea. Like I tell him, I play pretend for my job and I create characters, and I described that to him and for his play it was. I was so giddy that I was actually like running lines with him, and then he starts giving me direction. He's like, no, Mama, no, no, no, you gotta gotta read it like this. So I think, of anything, he'd be a director, you know.

00:41:36
Speaker 5: So what was his school play?

00:41:40
Speaker 2: It was?

00:41:47
Speaker 7: It was It was a mash up and it was frozen of Oz.

00:41:54
Speaker 6: That makes sense.

00:41:55
Speaker 8: They did Pinocchia. You know, we've got to be very piece here. Okay, female Pinocchio.

00:42:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, female Pinocchio. Okay.

00:42:04
Speaker 1: Finally, almost thirty years since appearing on our little show and going on to have such a fun and rewarding career, what would you want to tell teenage Christanna back in nineteen ninety six.

00:42:20
Speaker 8: You know, I guess if I had to do it again, I've had a lot of wanderlust in my life, and I think.

00:42:31
Speaker 7: Things might have been a little bit different for me if I did.

00:42:36
Speaker 8: I did a mini series in South Africa, fell absolutely in love with the country. I want a house there. I became a permanent resident. Wow. I went on to produce and start in another film there. But I think perhaps if I hadn't spent quite so much of my time gallivanting around Africa, maybe things would have been a little different. But you know what, I got something. I got a lot out of that experience too, And I think we can all relate as getting into the business as a youngster, like there was a part of me that really needed that separation, Like I needed to be far away to my own reflection and grounding and perspective I think in life. So it was it was a balance. It was a trade off.

00:43:30
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:43:31
Speaker 4: I think there's so many actors that sit around in LA going to the gym and waiting for the phone to ring, you know, like you. I think it's great. That's probably helped your career. And though it took a lot of your time. I think living living for other places and other experiences that can only enrich enricher art artistry.

00:43:48
Speaker 8: You know that's true. Yeah. Thanks.

00:43:50
Speaker 6: How long did you live there?

00:43:53
Speaker 7: I had the home there for ten years?

00:43:55
Speaker 6: Wow, it's so quick. I've never been one.

00:43:58
Speaker 8: Of course, I had my my here in LA, but between jobs I would go there quite a bit. Wow.

00:44:06
Speaker 6: That's so cool.

00:44:07
Speaker 5: I know.

00:44:07
Speaker 1: And I love that big map behind you. I can I just you can tell you.

00:44:11
Speaker 7: Are I do.

00:44:16
Speaker 8: I'm like citizen of the world.

00:44:18
Speaker 2: That's amazing, amazing.

00:44:20
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being willing to come back and spend this time with us reliving some of those fun moments from that amazing two weeks. I guess we spent with you between season four and season five episodes. But you are such a cool addition to the Boy Meets world lore and legacy, and we have just we're honored to talk to you today.

00:44:40
Speaker 5: So thank you for coming back and spending time with us.

00:44:42
Speaker 1: Please give us a plug for your movie, tell us about the premiere May twenty first, tell us everything you can about that and where we can see it.

00:44:49
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, thanks Danielle, And I just want to say too, thanks to you guys, like it was only I can't believe when you say two weeks, because I felt like I really spent more time with you because you were such You've made such a lasting impact in my life and on my career and in my mind and positive memories. And you know you don't. You don't always have that on the jobs that you do, the people that you work with. So it's a real testament to the culture that you created on the show. So thank you for that.

00:45:21
Speaker 1: Thank you.

00:45:22
Speaker 5: I saw the movie there too, Oh yeah.

00:45:25
Speaker 4: You so yeah.

00:45:27
Speaker 7: So I've actually got four movies coming up.

00:45:32
Speaker 5: Come on.

00:45:34
Speaker 8: Darkness of Man is the Jean Claude Van Dam movie that comes out on digital May twenty first, and the trailer is available online so people can find that. Then I've got a film that I produced my company, Trio Entertainment called Bis and Virtue, which is an ensemble dramedy about two celestial beings that come down to planet Earth and impose this judgment day on about half a dozen people that find themselves in an undisclosed location.

00:46:10
Speaker 9: Night.

00:46:11
Speaker 8: And it's really a story about choices and for me during COVID, when we're all sitting at home steering our choices in the face, do you go there? Do you not go there? Do you see this person? Do you not see this person? It really impacted me. So I was inspired to make Vice and Virtue and how certain choices lead us down one path and other choices take us in a different direction.

00:46:32
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:46:33
Speaker 5: Cool.

00:46:33
Speaker 8: So Vice and Virtue will be out later this year. We're doing the festival circuit now. And then there's a film called Dark Night of the Soul, which is a survival film.

00:46:47
Speaker 7: It's kind of my one hundred and twenty seven hours.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: Oh so disturbing. So just did you do you cut off your army? You don't cut off your arm do you?

00:46:55
Speaker 8: No? But there are some there are some gruesome moments. Oh okay, Yeah.

00:47:01
Speaker 7: My character has a high position at the CDC.

00:47:04
Speaker 8: It's during a pandemic at the film, she gets into a car accident she gets pinned under the car. So it's inspired by a poem Dark Knight of the Soul, which essentially is about a person staring their dark knight in the face. Will do they have the will to survive and to pull through or do they feel like they've done all that they need to do and let themselves go into the next phase of So that is Dark Knight of the Soul with Martin Cove he plays My Father. And then last, but certainly not least is a film called No Address, and No Address is written by and directed by a dear friend of mine, Julia Verdon. Some of you may know her. She seems to know everybody and she got on a tour bus with a homeless expert. She went to seventeen different cities and interviewed people from the homeless community, and inspired from their stories, she wrote a scripted feature. There's also a documentary that's going to be coming out in tandem, and it's to really underscore the plight of homelessness in America and the crisis in which we are all facing. In la we have the largest in city homeless community, sixty thousand people. I mean, that's the size of the city in and of itself. So No Address is really a story about a handful of people that find themselves in their journey of homelessness and how we're all truly just a few steps away from becoming homeless ourselves. And so my character, I have a family, I have a son who's ten, and my husband played by Billy Baldwin, and it's you know, we are one of the vignette of our journey to homelessness. So No Address as well.

00:49:06
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for telling us all that sharing those with us.

00:49:09
Speaker 5: They all sound amazing.

00:49:10
Speaker 6: I want to I want to.

00:49:11
Speaker 2: See all foremost to thinking the same thing. I want to break it up.

00:49:13
Speaker 3: I think I want to go to the Homeless movie first because I think that's important.

00:49:16
Speaker 2: But then followed right by Van Dam because that's just it's Van Dam. So that's awesome. And yeah, yeah.

00:49:24
Speaker 1: Okay, Christana, thank you so much for being here with us. A joy to see you, and I hope to see you again. I hope it's not another almost ten years.

00:49:32
Speaker 8: No, I do too, and you know, it's it's been such a blast from the past. I feel like, you know, I didn't get to go to a high school and us as you all probably didn't either, you know, growing up on set. But I feel like this is like the closest I could have to it.

00:49:48
Speaker 7: So thanks for keeping this a lot.

00:49:51
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. It's great to see you, all of you.

00:49:53
Speaker 8: Great to see you.

00:49:54
Speaker 5: Thank you you too.

00:49:55
Speaker 6: Bye bye.

00:49:57
Speaker 5: Man.

00:49:57
Speaker 1: She's so smart and so cool and yeah, just like everything I want to be here.

00:50:04
Speaker 3: Oh man, it would be it's just Schwarzenegger van Dam. I mean, like again, if she's holding a lightsaber at one point, she's living my dream.

00:50:12
Speaker 5: It's just so cool, so cool.

00:50:15
Speaker 6: Yow.

00:50:16
Speaker 1: Well, I'm really excited that we got to reconnect with her and here that she's still still up to it. Like, man, the age has got nothing on her. She's still just being a bad ass.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: She's talked about open ocean swimming and long distance and I was tired halfway through all just the list of.

00:50:35
Speaker 1: The things that she does exactly. You know, we need to we need to get back to karate.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: Will Yeah, we do immediately.

00:50:43
Speaker 5: Thank you all for joining us for this episode of Pod Meets World.

00:50:45
Speaker 1: As always, you can follow us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your emails. Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com and.

00:50:52
Speaker 5: We have merch.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: I'll be much.

00:50:55
Speaker 1: Podmeets Worldshow dot com writer send us out.

00:50:58
Speaker 6: We love you all pods missed.

00:51:02
Speaker 4: Podmeats World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Danielle Fischel, Wilfridell and Ryder Strong Executive producers.

00:51:08
Speaker 6: Jensen Carp and Amy Sugarman.

00:51:09
Speaker 4: Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Taras Sudbach, producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World Superman Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Podmets World Show or email us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com