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Let's Go Back to West Beverly High...with Tori Spelling (Part 2)

Published Apr 25, 2024, 4:00 AM

From the phone call that ended Shannen's run on 90210, to the burden of being the boss's daughter, Tori talks about it all.Was Tori really treated differently on the set? Did she have to fight for a raise on her own dad's show? What prompted Tori to finally stand up for herself?

This is let's be clear with Shannon Doherty. I just think that we were all young, and there's I don't think any of us would act like that now. I think all of us would look at the other and say, hey, are you okay? Right?

You know, yeah, you don't know to check in when you're young. It's just about you and your reaction, your experience, right. That is the moment that prompted everyone to be like, you know, meeting in the lady's room. No, it was like meeting in the dressing rooms. And everyone was like, this is it. You know, we're going to call Aaron and go into Paul Wagner's office and call him on speaker. And that is when they were like, we need It was like consensus everyone had. It was all in or nothing. And I said I'm not going in the office. But I agreed that it wasn't okay, So I did Yeah, whether I was physically there or not, I I did give in and say, yeah, I'm on board, but I'm not going into the office. I don't know in my way again me not standing up for what I believe in, or I didn't honestly know what was going on at that moment.

But still like, yeah, no.

Time, I was taking your back by saying I'm not going in. I won't be in the office present, I won't be on the call with my dad. But you know, they were really coming at me like what are you in and you have to say yes or no. We need everybody, you know, it's like a tally, like you know, it's like a trial.

I'm not gonna says, but I know exactly who is leading that charge.

It was a mail, wasn't that was coming at me. Mostly it wasn't a female. But Brian and I both didn't go.

No. Brian said he went, but that he specifically said to them, I just want to be on the right side of history, like I don't agree with this decision.

He did say that, but I don't remember him. I thought we both stayed in our dressing rooms and we said, you know, he was very he I was quiet. He did stand up to them, which was hard for him.

Hard.

He was young and he wanted to fit in with the with the guys and the elders, so that was a huge thing for him to do. But I remember him standing up and saying no, like he doesn't believe in it.

I think things would be very different now. And we all hang out now at like conventions and we get along and well, now a cast can't just go in and be like, hey, we want someone gone, and there's a thing called hr no. Yeah, yeah, it's much harder. And also, again we were so young. I was so young. I didn't know to let anybody know what was happening to me in my personal life, and I felt I was super embarrassed by it, and I felt very like cut off from everyone and isolated. So I take full responsibility for my part in it, one hundred percent. So I get it. I'm going to jump to something else real quick because I like jumping and then circling back. I don't know. I think it gives your brain time to like process. I was singing about this the other day, and it's funny because when I had Jason on, I meant to ask him, and then I didn't. I think I got scared. But I can ask you. I feel there's a whole thing now about pay discrepancy between men and women, and even if the female has a lot more credits, she's often paid less. She often gets billing underneath the man. And so I was really thinking about nine, and I was like, this again, where were my credits so interesting opposed to Jason?

Why?

Right? Because I did Little House, I did Our House. I was girls have Fun. Heather's like, I had a very successful career. I don't remember what Jason did prior. I think he did a Canadian show.

Correct, and then Sister Kate, which is what I loved him on NBC, a sitcom. I think it was only one season, right, with Stephanie Beacham, who ended up playing Luke's mom. But yeah, that's what I saw him on. I was like, oh, dad, he's so hot. He's on Peen magazines.

That was it, right?

Wow?

But he got first billing and I got paid more money. Correct, It's like wow, how But it was the era, which I think it was. That's why it's also so easy to blame a blame a woman, and back then that's so interesting, like oh, she's difficult, she's this, she's that, like you know, your dad's partner. Duke and I went round and round around like we. I did not like him, he did not like me. I thought he was a bully. I felt like he was I felt like he had no respect for women at all, and my personal experience with him, I felt like he constantly tried to intimidate me and you know, say things like your job is to say your lines and hit the mark. I don't want your opinion.

See, I don't know this part because growing up he was Uncle Duke. You know, I know him since birth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uncle Duke oh Man. But yeah, Jason was pretty much discovered. You had a huge, ginormous resume that everyone reckoned. That is, I never.

Thought that, right, Yeah, I don't think I didn't give a thought at the time. In the nineties, they would never write to two hander. They're always going to put the man first, right, as opposed to like, how about side by side like they do now.

Like you know, you see a big movie with two huge stars female male headlining, and they get billing together.

Oliverne Shirley did like two females. But if it was a man and a woman, yeah, wow.

I know.

Yeah, he was number one. You were number two.

Right. So what we're referring to is on a call sheet. They give you the call sheet the night before it tells you, you know, the scenes that you're doing. The next day. Every member of the crew gets it. The cast gets. It tells you what scenes you're doing, what time your makeup call is, and then what time your set call is.

And.

So it's always a big thing of who is number one on the call sheet. And I actually had this conversation about Charmed because I was always number one on the call sheet, but nine O two and zero Jason was number one on the call sheet. And again, nothing that I even thought of right back then. It's just because of the how far we as women have come, where we're now standing up for ourselves a lot more in our business and I think in other businesses as well, of women demanding equal pay and equal attention, recognizing that their work is as important as their male counterpart. That I really started looking at it and going, how did he get paid more money in top billion out me?

How was that? There was no I hate Brandon clubs like Hello, and because the one she instantly got said to be he was the quarterback, the quarterback, Whereas I think, did my dad coin that?

Yes, your dad coined it?

Or were you the fucking cheerleader?

Oh right?

I was like that's I was just like your backup answer.

Whereas probably had I been told I was quarterback, it might have changed dynamic on set and made me feel like I had to step up to the responsibility a little bit more, or everything could had just gone down the way that it did and it doesn't matter. You can't repeat history. But I found that to be a really interesting thought that's been popping into my head a lot, where I was like, God, things were so different back then.

I never thought of that one hundred percent. Yeah, And it's so shaming when you're on a call sheet and you're not number one. It's just kind of live your life based on those numbers, which is it's ridiculous do it anymore. It's just I don't know, I was like number eight or nine or ten or something, so I never was.

It was I'm going to tell you what you were, because it went Ja me, Jenny, No, it was Ginny, and then Luke. Right, it was Jenny. Then why a H.

Promised you Luke was number seven.

Because he wasn't on the Pilott. Yeah, so it was Jason Me, Jenny Iron, Gabrielle right, Brian Luke and then you Yeah. Oh so you got pushed to the bottom, probably because you were the producer's daughter.

And I was like, please make me number thirty on the cast list. I don't want any preferential treatment. Please just push me down.

I imagine, because you've mentioned it a couple of times, that being the boss's daughter, you didn't want preferential treatment. You wanted people to like you for who you were, or not who your father was, right, and that that must have left you without a lot of power in truth, because although people would think it gives you power because your dad is the boss, it's the opposite, the antithesis, because I would imagine that instead you're like, I'm not going to fight for a raise. I'm not going to do this. I'm not gonna because my dad is the boss, and I don't want it to seem like nepotism or whatever.

Right I'm a nepo baby, right man. I think that depends on the human. Like, I feel like there's a lot of people that would be like, yeah, I'm the boss's daughter, like cool, and that wasn't me. So I just wanted to fit in. I want it to belong. I I have this weird thing like I've always known somewhere deep down that I was talented, but it just got so blurred out in the mix of it because it was like I heard so much like well, she can't possibly be talented if her dad's the producer, which makes absolutely no sense. But it was so ingrained even back then, you know, it was just and you know what, I got to be honest. A lot of it came from when we started. There would be crew members very early on like oh, you're nice. I thought I was worried. I was like, oh, the boss's daughter's on the show, you know, just and they in passing. But those like stuck to me and I was like, oh man, what do I do? You know, I have to be perfect and no one can be perfect. That's why I was like, I have to be on time, I have to you know, be quiet, I have to be sweet, I have to agree to anything and everything. When did that sort of change for you where you felt like you could tell your agent, yeah, you can fight for a raise for me. Everybody else is getting raises and I'm not getting reasons and I'm being paid as a day player. Like when did it change where you finally believed in yourself enough or believed in your position on the show enough that you would prove in yourself enough where you could fight for.

All of that.

This is a tough one.

It would probably be after you left.

And why unless you know, you're like, I'll take herself because I hid behind you. I hid behind you for so many years, Like yeah it was I don't know. We were like a unit, we were a team, and you fought for yourself, you fought for everyone always, so I could just hide behind you and that would be fine, and somehow I would get taken care of. You know, they would. If I didn't like something I was wearing, I whisper it to you and you'd be like, no, no, no, I don't think she should wear this. Because I was scared to say anything, right, So I was your little mouthpiece. Yeah yeah, literally, like you took care of me, and so when you weren't there, it's like, well here you are, because no one else was going to take care of me.

So I had to. You had to strap on your boots and fight for yourself. I mean, that's correct.

I had to put on my strap on and be like, here we go, Phil, Is that what I said? That's what I said.

But that's actually great, I mean not great that I got fired, because that was really devastating to me at that time, not as devastating as Charmed, to be honest, like Charmed rocked my world. Like I still think there's part of me that's not recovered from that. But you know, I was young after, like I was like in my head, I was like, fuck these people, like are you kidding? And then I got mall Rats and I was like, on the better know like it didn't I didn't, and yet that was you know that also did nothing for me. Is Kevin Smith and I talked basically killed my movie career. But I so it's not good that I got fired, but I love that there was a silver lining in it, and that the silver lining was that you had to had to stand up for yourself, you had to find your own voice.

Yeah I did, And yeah, in hindsight, like I wish you had been there, but maybe I would.

Never write, maybe you never would have found your voice.

But maybe I would have and maybe it could have coexisted and you would have been my champion you always were, so maybe we would have risen together instead of someone had to go for someone else to right evolve. And I don't look at it that way, but I definitely like, you know, fight or ful, there was nothing else. You know, it was either I stood up for myself or just sat there and let everyone else rise after you were gone, and me just be number eight again. You know, yeah it can well, I guess number seven then right now, Luke always kept seven, right, you got moved up.

So for me, I started really seeing the change in you in like season two, and then it just kept on progressing because I think observing you, you seemed to have found your confidence in your acting and particularly in doing comedy correct and you started feeling a lot more free. And yes, there was a lot of encouragement around you if you can do this, but you know, ultimately you're the one who had to figure out how to believe in yourself enough. And it was really that's when I started noticing it, when you started getting very funny. You were doing the stuff that was kind of off the wall, and not that I would have been very scared to try, right, it seemed like a huge risk at times.

That means so much hearing you say those words.

This is gonna sound super weird. But when Amanda Bynes was younger, I remember watching her and like she's the man that movie right, and her choices, like her facial expressions, the choices that she made, so it was like, this girl's an outstanding comedy actress. And there's a similarity there in the sense of you had no you started having no fear about making odd different choices. I started already seeing that in you, starting at season two, where you just started feeling a little bit more comfortable and more settled into who you were, but also being the producer's daughter. Did you ever think that people were like sucking up to you because of who your dad was. Did you ever feel that cast or like anyone, not just cast.

I mean my whole life, I have felt that my dad's executive was like when I was young, I had like a lemonade and art stand on his lot at twentieth and I was selling artwork and I was like, you don't have to buy it, and he was like, yeah, I do. And I was like five or six, and it stood out to me. I was like, oh that okay, that's what's happening. Oh man, I don't ever want to be seen that way. So I was grateful because the cast, I feel like, embraced me right away. I never felt that with you guys, I mean obviously you and I became friends right away, but like the rest and it was like, I don't remember when it was. It was a defining moment where they were all like, oh, you know, someone needs to tell Aaron and they were talking about like you know, the producer, and someone needs to tell them we don't want to do this and da da dah, and they did it in front of me and I was like, Oh, they're talking. I'm one of the gang. You know. They're not like, oh God, don't say you know, it's sorry, it's your dad, or you can't listen. So that's when I realized. And it was always that way like it went on. But comedy wise, I mean a lot of that I owe to you because we You would always say to them like you wanted to do more stuff with me. I didn't have a voice, but you wanted. We were friends and we had a connection, good chemistry and to do more you know Brendan Donna stuff, which is why I went to Paris with you and like and that allowed me because you always allowed me that freedom. You would laugh out loud at me and I'd be like, you would encourage my comedy and my behavior, whereas you know with other cast members, I didn't feel as comfortable stepping out of your show. Yeah, so yeah, that's when I saw the Paris episode that was so that was my favorite. Why didn't we get to know to Paris?

So? I know, but but it was still fun. It was so fun shooting on that back lot. Oh my god, there was because we worked in warehouses that were converted into sound stages, so then all of a sudden, you and I are working on a real studio lot with like a real commissary. It was so much fun. I felt like our clothing was elevated because we were in Paris. And then when we were at the cafe and we both took the bite and this was your comedy that came out again where it was like what is it brains? And you were just like, you know, spitting it out, but in a much more like dramatic fun way. I didn't burst out laughing. I couldn't even keep a straight face at that moment. But yeah, those were probably my favorite favorite favorite episodes to know.

I found a photo the other day and it's literally were taking a photo of you and You're going like like that and your food in your mouth, and I'm like, yep, that's us.

That's us.

So that moment where I spla out brains, that was like our natural behavior in real life, like we were funny together and you know kind.

Of yeah, all right, well we have a lot more to talk about. We do, yeah, so much more. It's just gonna be a lot. So I'm going to say thanks, and I'm going to turn it over to your podcast, Misspelling, and we're gonna have a to be in charge. Now, yeah, you have to be in charge. I have another hour of this.

I get to dom you bring it on, all.

Right, you guys, thanks for listening. Now go listen to Misspelling.

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