Boy Meets World alum Trina McGee has been open about her time on the ABC sitcom, calling out a racist “Aunt Jemima” remark from a cast member and getting honest with the the cast about disrespectful behavior while on set. Despite the discord over the years, McGee was a welcoming presence when she joined the cast as Shawn Hunter’s girlfriend Angela Moore during the fifth season. While the actress played a teenager on television, in reality, she was a decade older than her teenage co-stars. Over two decades after playing Angela, the sitcom vet is now getting honest about the age difference as well as her first impression of her young co-stars.
Trina McGee opened up about first joining the ABC hit during a conversation on the Pod Meets World podcast with her Boy Meets World castmates. She mentioned that she auditioned three times for the role before finally doing a script reading with Rider Strong. At first, Strong apparently wasn’t sure the actress was a right fit for the role until after his first reading with her. While chatting with her former co-stars, McGee revealed that she found the Shawn Hunter actor to be “cute” and liked their chemistry during the audition.
But she viewed him and the others as kids because, as Danielle Fishel revealed, the actress was 10 to 11 years older than Rider Strong when she was cast as his love interest. Fishel wondered if hiding her age was a conscious or unconscious choice, prompting her co-star to say:
I never think about my age like that. It is what is, it isn’t a conscious choice. Michael [Jacobs] actually later said he thought I was older than what it was. I was about 11 years older than Rider. I gotta say please forgive me, people change, I was so into myself. I thought about, you know, I honestly thought about it in ways I could get ahead.
After the Angela Moore actress said her peace, Rider Strong remembered a major BTS moment related to her age. He recalled Trina hearing about an incidentin which a female guest star was set to portray his girlfriend, and it wasn’t until the table read that the cast and crew found out she was significantly older than him. He mentioned freaking out about it at the time. The BMW alum claimed McGee didn’t say anything about her age for a while after that situation. However, the subject finally came up after Will Friedle asked her a series of questions about her life during a casual conversation.
Soon the conversation on the Boy Meets World podcast turned to Trina McGee’s first impressions of the cast, as Danielle Fishel mentioned that most of the young cast were nothing more than self-absorbed teenagers. The Topanga Lawrence actress remembered she and her castmates worrying about frivolous things while McGee was married with two children (and pregnant with her third when she was cast). When thinking back to that time, Trina McGee recalled her first day on the set:
I remember the very first episode that I had one little line, it was kinda introducing me, and it was called [Boy Meets Real World.] I had a scene at a couple of desks and I said ‘Desks are dun-dun-dun, Cory’ or something. You guys were typical teenagers. I mean, I think at that point or year that was the beginning everybody as teenagers and I saw this. You were going through the ‘I’ve got to me’ stage, and you guys were really close-knit.
It appeared hard for the actress to connect with her new co-stars at first, but she could understand why they were a bit stand-offish. She continued:
My perception was that you were really confused about me because I’m older but I’m not older. I can’t really fit in with your group. I guess my first perception was that I thought you guys were snots honestly.
After humorously referring to the group was a bunch of “snots,” Trina McGee gave her honest thoughts about being an outsider upon joining Boy Meets World‘s “child actors” on the show. She thought having fame and success at an early age had gone to their heads before pointing out her ego’s involvement in the awkward situation.
I thought you were really, really privileged kids that didn’t know anything… I think the phase I was going through at 28 was more like, ‘I think I know everything. I’ve really got it together. I’ve got my career and these kids, and these kids dun-dun-dun.’ It was more of my attitude. Anything you would do to feed that would kinda feed that for me.
But as it turns out, that ego was actually hiding her envy, as she saw her co-stars living their lives as young adults. She wanted to hang out with them after work but had more pressing responsibilities as a wife and mother. In her words:
But honestly in the back of my mind sometimes I would think ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to go [anywhere]?’ I remember one time you guys were going somewhere after work all together. And I was like ‘I can’t go with them because I have to go feed children.’ [laughs] It was great, but it was weird because I could truly relate to you because you guys were very adult kids, and I related to you in a lot of levels.
Despite being a decade older than her castmates, she still related to them given their maturity at such early ages. It’s unfortunate that she couldn’t connect with them as much during the show’s run. But at the very least, it’s great that everyone seems to be on better terms years after the show ended its run
Trina McGee’s recount is just one of multiple eye-opening moments from Pod Meets World, including Danielle Fishel’s obsession with Leonardo DiCaprio or why Morgan Mathews switched actresses midway through the series. You can catch all the Boy Meets World tea from Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle weekly through iHeartRadio. You can follow again with the rewatch podcast by getting a Disney+ subscription to watch all seven seasons of the ’90s classic sitcom.
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