All The Days Of My Life (so Far). Alison Sweeney
although I’d usually go over my lines a few times, my mom and I used to spend much more time just chatting and playing word games to occupy ourselves. Some of my best memories are playing Hangman or other games with my mom.
What was my favorite game? My mom or I would start making up a story, and then we’d take turns jumping in and creating the next sentence of the story line. One time, however, when I was about nine years old, I was sipping on a milkshake as we played the game. Big mistake. At one point, the story got so absolutely funny that laughter got the better of me. What happened next? I accidentally spit up my milkshake all over my clothes. What a mess!
Rather than panicking, my mom and I took action. Get this: We splattered the rest of the milkshake all over my outfit, hoping it would look like it was part of the attire! It’s not as crazy as it sounds—the part was for a tomboyish little girl, so I’d worn overalls with splattered paint on them. The chocolate ice cream fit right into the look! Even so, it was a wardrobe department’s worst nightmare! Never let it be said that we didn’t know how to impress a casting director!
Even during moments like this, I rarely felt any stress associated with the auditioning experience, although some of the other kids clearly were dealing with the pressure (especially those whose moms insisted that they “don’t talk to the other kids; just practice your lines!”). I enjoyed performing for the adults I was auditioning for, making them smile and, if I was lucky, even making them laugh. Most of my memories are positive. I don’t ever remember reflecting back on the day and saying, “Well, that was another job I didn’t get!” I looked at it more like, “I had so much fun today.”
Again, I have my parents to thank for the emotionally smooth ride during much of my acting career. Few things irritated or stressed me out, even when I was juggling a heavy schedule at school along with the life of a working actress. From an early age, my mom and dad taught me that when there are challenges in front of me, I should not look at them as titanic in size and virtually insurmountable, but rather should break them down into smaller goals that can be achieved, one at a time. If you look only at the big picture, it may overwhelm you. But if you take it apart and confront it a step at a time, you can beat it, and not let it defeat you.
Life on the Stage and Screen
As valuable as commercials were in my own development as an actress, my appearances on TV shows, in motion pictures and on the stage may have been even more important learning experiences. In 1985, I got my first real acting job in a TV show. It was an episode of St. Elsewhere, titled “Santa Claus is Dead.” In the show, Santa collapses at a children’s party and is rushed to St. Elsewhere (where else?). It was a touching story, and I played a character named Chrissy, one of several children who arrive at the hospital, clamoring to find out about Santa’s well-being as the doctors work to keep him alive. It was a small part, but I did have a few lines (although nothing was more challenging than “Where’s Santa Claus?”). But, hey, I was only five years old, and it was a good stepping stone in an acting career.
I had bigger parts on other television shows, and at times the episodes dealt with very sensitive and important issues. You probably remember Webster, the TV series starring Emmanuel Lewis, Alex Karras, and Susan Clark (like me, Emmanuel started his career doing commercials, including some national spots for Burger King). In January 1985, when I was eight years old, in an episode called “The Uh-Oh Feeling,” I played a student (named Beth) in Webster’s classroom who was being molested by a substitute teacher. Webster overhears a conversation in which the teacher asks me to stay after class.
Beth tells the teacher, “I don’t like it when you touch me there.”
The teacher responds, “Just don’t tell anybody. You’ll start to like it.”
It was pretty chilling and ahead of its time. It still makes me feel a little creepy just thinking about how terrible that can be for a little kid. It was the first time that a situation comedy—or just about any other TV show, for that matter—had confronted the issue of child molestation.
The program had an enormous impact. Near the end of the episode, a teacher tells the children, “If anything makes you uncomfortable, tell the principal or another adult you trust.” After the show aired, kids in all parts of the country came forward and, for the first time, told what had happened to them. That’s the power of television. Looking back, I’m so proud that I was part of that show.
By the way, I recently ran into Steve Sunshine, the executive producer and head writer of Webster. He is a producer for a daily entertainment show, and he remembers that episode of Webster well. He told me how proud he still is of that story and the impact it had. Nineteen years later, it’s still rewarding to hear such nice things from your boss!
Along the way, I also performed in two equity-waiver plays in the Los Angeles area. I had known that I wanted to be an actress since I was a little child, and so I went on auditions for everything. My mom thought, “Why not try theater, too?”—after all, my acting classes often took on the format of performing in front of a dozen or so other child actors, which gave me a sense of what performing before a live audience was like.
At the age of six, I was cast in The Wedding Band. I played the part of the daughter in a very poor family who was building a porch onto their house. I had only a couple lines in the play; I remember one line, said in a very bratty voice, was: “My new tennis porch!” (don’t ask me why, it’s been so long I’ve forgotten the storyline!). It was a line that has taken on a life of its own in my real family; my dad and brothers still sometimes tease me—whenever they think I’m being bratty, I hear: “My new tennis porch!”
At age ten, I performed in another play, The Traveling Lady, by Horton Foote (one of America’s leading dramatists). I enjoyed doing the play so much, although there was one embarrassing incident that happened after a few months of that show’s run. At one point in the play, the actress who played my mom called my character’s name, which was my cue to come onstage. But one night, I was backstage in my dressing room not paying attention, and I missed my cue—really missed it! My onstage mom called my name again and again for about forty-five seconds, and I was nowhere to be seen. It must have been an unbearable amount of time for her to be standing there, alone on the stage, waiting for her distracted cast-mate to appear.
Finally and mercifully, I did hear her, and I raced onto the stage. We continued the scene, rather awkwardly as I recall, and then the script called for us to exit down the theater aisle and through the audience. When we reached the lobby, I got such a tongue-lashing from her (which I certainly deserved!). She leaned into my face, shook her finger at me, and said, “Don’t you ever miss a cue again! I know you were goofing off backstage. From now on, you better pay attention!”
Well, I almost started to cry. But I did get the message: Acting is serious business, and you better take your commitment to heart because everyone else in the cast is depending on you and your performance.
Despite moments like that, both of those childhood plays were so much fun and were such great experiences. Perhaps more important, they were pivotal in contributing to my growth as an actress, even at such a young age. More than ever, they convinced me that acting was something I wanted to keep doing.
I also learned that live theater is completely different than acting before the TV cameras. Even though you’re saying the same lines in a play, performance after performance, something completely different can happen every night, and it often has to do with the audience. When you go to the theater, remember that you’re part of the experience, not just a witness to it. The actors are definitely affected by you, whether you’re laughing, crying, feeling tense, or having the time of your life. It can be such an exciting experience for the actors.
Staying Centered
There are all kinds of perks that come with acting, and when you’re a kid, even the smallest ones seem pretty spectacular. When I was ten years old, I was chosen as a regular cast member of a new ABC situation comedy called Family Man. It starred Richard Libertini and Mimi Kennedy, and I played Mimi’s daughter, Rosie. (I was starstruck meeting Richard for the first time—he’s in one of my all-time favorite comedies, All of Me, with Steve Martin.) In one episode of Family Man, the script called