'You are never going to get this back': Danielle Fishel on 'Boy Meets World' burnout, her momager, and how the lessons she's learned shape the way she directs young actors (2024)

In real life, Fishel attended Calabasas High School when she wasn't filming the show, attending football games and the prom just like most "normal" high schoolers do. Except her prom date was Lance Bass, a member of NSYNC, the hottest boy band of the late '90s and early 2000s.

No matter how surreal her life then may have seemed to many of us — the "un-romcom" she and Bass are working on about their brief relationship is "at the very top of both of our lists," she tells Insider, noting that there are screenwriters attached and they are eyeing a potential 2024 release — Fishel had one constant in her life: her mother, Jennifer.

Fishel credits Jennifer, who quit her own job to act as Fishel's manager for a time, with helping her avoid the dark path familiar to many child stars

"She used to say to me, I can handle anything you tell me except a lie,'" Fishel says. She took the words to heart and felt comfortable dropping any "bombshell" on her mother, whether it was about sex, drugs, or anything in between.

But even her ever-present momager couldn't protect her from the "weird power dynamics and power structures" actors inevitably find on any Hollywood set, Fishel recalled.

"It's a very adult environment where we are asking children to be children but also act like adults," she adds.

In a conversation about her latest directing project, the Tubi original film "Classmates," Fishel spoke about tough on-set moments early in her career on "Boy Meets World," her acting hiatus spent gift-wrapping at Bloomingdale's, and how the lessons she's learned along the way have shaped her as a person and as a director.

Fishel says she'd 'burnt out' by the end of 'Boy Meets World' and spent her 'mid-20s crisis' wrapping gifts at Bloomingdale's and denying that she'd played Topanga

On their rewatch podcast, iHeartRadio's "Pod Meets World," Fishel and her "Boy Meets World" costars Rider Strong (who played Cory's best friend Shawn Hunter) and Will Friedle (who played his brother Eric Matthews) don't shy away from talking about the more negative aspects of their former jobs.

Strong recalled how it felt as if the show's creator, Michael Jacobs, had an idea in his head of what he wanted each episode to be, and if the actors didn't live up to that idea exactly, there was a sense on set that the episode was "falling apart."

Fishel shared in the same podcast episode that Jacobs once chastised her in front of the entire cast and crew, telling her he was going to save the notes on her performance for last because "if I made everyone sit here through all of the notes I have for you we would all be here for hours, and no one would ever get to go home." Jacobs then privately threatened to fire her if her acting didn't improve, she said.

She described her experience on set as "chasing the dragon of Michael approval." By the time "Boy Meets World" ended, she was burnt out from the unnecessary pressure of, as she put it, reaching for someone else's unrealistic expectations of perfection.

Fishel tells Insider she had a "mid-twenties crisis" trying to figure out what to do with her life when acting roles became scarce after "Boy Meets World." So she decided to pivot.

Around 2009, while in college, she took a seasonal job gift-wrapping for Bloomingdale's as she pursued her education. If people recognized her and asked her if she was "the girl from that show," she says she'd deny it and keep wrapping their gift whether they believed her or not.

In 2013, at 32, Fishel graduated from CSU Fullerton with a degree in psychology. She had just gotten an acceptance letter from Chapman University and was planning to pursue a Master's degree in marriage and family therapy when her phone rang.

Jacobs, the "Boy Meets World" creator, was on the line, telling her he had plans for a spinoff called "Girl Meets World." She would reprise her role as Topanga, who was now living in Manhattan with Cory and their two children, Riley (Rowan Blanchard) and Auggie (August Maturo).

Fishel says she took the offer because it was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." But after spending a season in front of the camera as her alter ego, she knew she had to put her psychology degree and acting experience together to try and create a more positive vibe on the set of the reboot, this time as a director. The decision changed her life.

Fishel says she takes her job seriously, but it's 'also not brain surgery or saving somebody's life'

Despite the notes incident she had with Jacobs in her early days, Fishel is only complimentary of Jacobs now that she's an adult, telling Insider she "would never have been able to direct" if it weren't for him giving her the chance to step behind the camera on "Girl Meets World." Fishel directed several episodes before the show was canceled in 2017.

Having experienced the stress of being a child actor firsthand, Fishel now says that creating a comfortable environment for kids is a top priority when she's in the director's chair. Though she's been directing sitcoms like "Girl Meets World" and "Raven's Home" for nearly a decade now, "Classmates," written by her husband Jensen Karp, is her biggest project yet. The film stars Camille Kostek and Anjelica Bette Fellini as college students who switch identities on the first day of college and find themselves learning lessons and navigating trouble they never expected.

Fishel describes her demeanor on set as "calm" and "cool," and she credits that attitude with keeping her actors comfortable. "I take everything that we're doing seriously and it is important, but it is also not brain surgery or saving somebody's life," she says. "And the number one thing that is most important to me is that everybody who works on my sets feels valued and respected."

Fishel works almost exclusively on content geared toward young adults and says that in her experience, actors need to learn to blame themselves less for changes that happen on set. "What I wish actors knew is that it is very rarely ever about you," she says.

That's something Fishel wishes she could've told her younger self, who burned out trying to attain a level of impossible perfection. She also wishes she could've told teen Danielle to appreciate her years on "Boy Meets World" and enjoy the ride a bit more: "You are never going to get this back. And this feeling you have that you're missing out on life is a lie."

"Classmates" is streaming on Tubi now.