What you need to know
Melissa Joan Hart has opened up about being cast in ‘Clarissa Explains It All’ and how she has overalls to thank for the job.
Speaking with guest host Elisa Donovan on Tori Spelling’s misSPELLING podcast, Hart, 49, described the audition process as “pretty tedious,” adding: “I think I auditioned about three times, and I was also auditioning for the role of Blossom, the Six.”
she continued. “So I think I went to each audition three times…When I got a call for something, I had an audition, got a call, got a second call, I always wore the same thing because I thought I was lucky.”
Producer Hart added that he liked her outfit, but even more liked the way she wore it.
Never miss a news. Sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.
“And I was wearing a pink T-shirt and these were like acid-washed overalls. And it turned out that the producer really liked pink and blue, so it became like pink and blue,” she continued. “But apparently he was watching two auditions at the same time, and my strap fell off at the same spot. During the audition, at about three different places, I picked it up again… and it fell off, and I picked it up again. And it wasn’t until years later that he asked me, ‘You planned that, right?’ and he said, ‘He thought I was so great.’ He thought my 12-year-old self was planning things very carefully. ”
Hart added: “And he’s 12 years old and he’s like, ‘She did that. Look what she did.'” And I thought, “No.” Perhaps I moved as well, or made some kind of gesture that caused it to fall. ”
Donovan is best known for playing Amber in 1995’s Clueless (and the TV series version), and also co-starred with Joan Hart in Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Hart played Sabrina Spellman on the show from 1996 to 2003, and Clarissa on the Nickelodeon show, which ran for five seasons from 1991 to 1994.
United Archives GmbH/Alamy
Speaking to PEOPLE at the 2024 90s Con in Daytona Beach, Florida, Hart, who shares sons Mason, Braydon, and Tucker with husband Mark Wilkerson, reflected on her time on the show and playing the iconic Clarissa Darling.
“It was a really special time,” Hart said. “It was a lot of work… There were a lot of monologues, and the scenes were long, so we had to do everything as a live show even though it wasn’t a live show. It was really complicated to get it right.”
“It was a lot of fun and I knew she was a special character,” Hart admitted, adding that he thought the series overall, which explored everything from dating to how to deal with an annoying younger brother, was “great.”
She previously told PEOPLE in May that she “definitely identified with” the character of Clarissa more than her teenage witch persona, Sabrina.
