Bonnie gets candid about her brief experience on the Disney Channel sitcom, admitting she couldn't bear to watch the show because it reminded her of the unpleasant ordeal.
- Jul 2, 2023
AceShowbiz - Bonnie Morgan was dismissed from "Boy Meets World" because the director thought she "wasn't pretty enough." The 41-year-old actress was supposed to play Topanga Lawrence on the now-classic Disney Channel sitcom in 1993 opposite Matthew Lawrence but alleged that the reason the part eventually went to Danielle Fishel was that it was thought that she "couldn't take direction" and she didn't look good on camera.
"I had three callbacks. They kept bringing me back, and … it was rooms full of people every time. And, weirdly, every time I'd audition, we'd talk a lot. Every time I'd come back, the script would change slightly, it seemed, to things we had talked about," she said on the "Pod Meets World" podcast.
"Now, we're blocking, and Ben [Savage] kind of started poking at me a little bit. He would make faces and try to break me, and it worked. At this point, I was becoming a nervous wreck. I couldn't get his name, the opening line, Cory … and [director] David [Trainer] was just like, 'Get it together.' "
"I'm trying to pull it together. I pulled it together in sheer fear, and Ben just kept doing this thing to crack me up. At one point, I had a line. It was a sweet line, and David went, 'I want you to say it sweeter …' So, I said it sweeter, and he said, 'No, I want you to say it.' And he got really close to me, 'Like you're saying happy birthday.' "
"The director said that I couldn't take direction, which was one thing I'd never been accused of. My agent immediately fought back on that one. It came out very quickly to my agent that the director didn't think I was pretty enough. Literally did not think I was pretty enough. So, that meant that a grown man, a boss, could lie and tell me I was untalented because the fact was he didn't think I was pretty."
Bonnie - who now works as a contortionist and is known for her role as Samara in "The Ring" - went on to add that she was left "shattered" by her dismissal and revealed that apart from the pilot episode, she never watched an episode of the sitcom throughout its seven-season run. She said, "I don't know a lot of adults that could take that one."
