Boy Meets World’s Rider Strong admitted he was initially against Matthew Lawrence joining the hit show.
Rider, 46, played heartthrob Shawn Hunter for all of the sitcom’s seven seasons from 1993 to 2000. Matthew, also 46, joined the cast in season 5, by which time he’d already made a name for himself in Hollywood. Matthew’s brother, Joey Lawrence, appeared on Blossom, while the pair teamed up with fellow sibling Andrew Lawrence for the sitcom Brotherly Love in the mid-1990s.
During a recent appearance on the Lawrence brothers’ “Brotherly Love Podcast,” Rider admitted he was intimidated by Matthew joining the show because of his family’s accolades in the industry.
“What was your thought about me when I came onto Boy Meets World?” Matthew candidly asked Rider on the Friday, February 20, episode. “I get this a lot … I’m much shyer and introverted than people quite understand, and I’ll bump into people, and they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re actually a nice person. I thought you were kind of an ass.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I was just quiet and kind of overwhelmed with all these people.’”
Rider responded, “I think we figured that out about you within the first year. It took a while.”
“But before you got there, I would say all three of you guys were very intimidating for us. Because you guys were like the established Hollywood people,” Rider then revealed. “You were the very successful set of brothers who had become superstars and done all this stuff. So, for us, I think there was a sense of, like, ‘Oh God, the Lawrences are coming.’ Seriously.”
Matthew joined Boy Meets World in 1997 as Jack Hunter, Shawn’s paternal half-brother, and remained a series regular through the ABC comedy’s final season.
“So, when you came on set, I think there was this, like, ‘What is he doing here? Does he even need to do this?’ It sort of felt like you were being imposed on us,” Rider said. “[Like] the network wants a Lawrence on our show. And we were like, ‘But we don’t need him.’”
Rider said he “was against it,” but once the on-screen brothers got to know each other, his concerns were alleviated.
“Once we talked to you and hung out, we were like, ‘Oh, this is fine.’ And then I totally got to know you, but, yeah, it was more about your reputation as a family,” he explained. “From my perspective, it was like this sense of you guys were Hollywood establishment, and it was super intimidating, super alienating, and I was like, ‘I don’t understand this world that these guys are so comfortable in.’”
In hindsight, Rider said, there was no need to be intimidated by the Lawrence siblings’ reputations.
“Nobody knows what the hell they’re doing. Back then, I always felt like I was outside of the industry with my nose pressed against the glass,” he said, to which the brothers agreed they often felt the same way.
Rider added, “You have to let that go, because that’s not the reality. There is no industry. It’s all just people doing their stuff and hustling.”
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