Actress Bonnie Morgan shared some ugly truths on the podcast “Pod Meets World.”
Early in her career, she was signed to play the lead character Topanga Lawrence in the show “Boys Meets World”. She spoke to podcast host and show cast members Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle about her experience on the show and how she felt when she was fired.
“I got three callbacks,” she said. “They kept bringing me back, and…every time the room was full of people. And, strangely enough, we used to talk a lot whenever I auditioned. Every time I came back, it seemed like the script changed a little bit because of the things we talked about.
Morgan felt the role deeply connected to him. Even the name Topanga “was out of my parents’ love history,” he said, “they were married in Topanga Canyon.” It was the best thing ever.”
But things were not rainbows and unicorns as the show progressed. She revealed that her agent told her that Michael Jacobs, the show’s producer, liked her for the role. However, there was apparently a “power struggle” and she was “caught in the middle of it.”
She arrived on set on her first day and immediately felt an elation.
She remembered that “all the adults with me were short” and described the table read as “fun”, but said things took a turn for the worse after that.
“Now, we’re barging in, and (Ben Savage) started biting into me. He would make faces and try to break me and it worked. At this point, I was getting nervous,” she recalled. “I couldn’t find out his name, opening line, Corey… and [director] david [Trainer] It was just like, ‘Get it together.’ I’m trying to pull it together. I pulled it together in fear, and Ben kept doing this thing to annoy me.
“At one point, I had a row. It was a sweet line, and David said, ‘I want you to say it more sweetly…’ So, I said it more sweetly, and he said, ‘No, I want you to say it more sweetly. Say it more sweetly.’ And he got really close to me, ‘like you’re saying happy birthday,'” she added.
She passed that test and went home feeling that things would get better.
The next morning, Morgan said the phone rang during breakfast. His father answered the phone.
“He just said, ‘What? You’ve got to be kidding. They fired you. You’re fired,'” Morgan recalled.
“The director said I couldn’t direct, which was something I was never accused of.
“My agent immediately hit back at him. My agent quickly realized that the director didn’t think I was pretty. I really didn’t think I was pretty enough. So, this meant that an adult man, a boss, could lie and tell me I was untalented because the fact was that he didn’t think I was pretty.
Morgan felt “broken” upon hearing the news, saying, “I don’t know a lot of adults who could do this.”
When the show eventually aired, she only watched the pilot when it premiered.
Morgan recovered and began her career, best known as “Samara”, in the horror film, ring. Danielle Fishel played Topanga on “Boy Meets World” for seven seasons.