Boy Meets World’s Rider Strong admitted he was initially against Matthew Lawrence joining the hit show.
Rider, 46, played heartthrob Shawn Hunter for the entire sitcom’s seven seasons from 1993 to 2000. Matthew, also 46, joined the forged in season 5, by which period he’d already made a reputation 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 within the mid-Nineties.
During a recent appearance on the Lawrence brothers’ “Brotherly Love Podcast,” Rider admitted he was intimidated by Matthew joining the show due to his family’s accolades within the industry.
“What was your considered me after I got here onto Boy Meets World?” Matthew candidly asked Rider on the Friday, February 20, episode. “I get this quite a bit … I’m much shyer and introverted than people quite understand, and I’ll bump into people, and so they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re actually a pleasant person. I assumed you were sort of an ass.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I used to be just quiet and sort of overwhelmed with all these people.’”
Rider responded, “I believe we figured that out about you throughout the first 12 months. It took some time.”
“But before you bought there, I’d say all three of you guys were very intimidating for us. Since you guys were just like the established Hollywood people,” Rider then revealed. “You were the very successful set of brothers who had turn out to be superstars and done all these things. So, for us, I believe there was a way 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, once you got here on set, I believe there was this, like, ‘What’s he doing here? Does he even need to do that?’ It form of felt such as 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 one another, his concerns were alleviated.
“Once we talked to you and frolicked, we were like, ‘Oh, that is tremendous.’ After which I totally got to know you, but, yeah, it was more about your status 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 used to be like, ‘I don’t understand this world that these guys are so comfortable in.’”
ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection The Boy Meets World forged have had their justifiable share of feuds and drama with one another over time. The ABC series, created by Michael Jacobs, ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 2000 and starred Ben Savage, Rider Strong, Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel, William Russ, Betsy Randle and […]
In hindsight, Rider said, there was no have to be intimidated by the Lawrence siblings’ reputations.
“No one knows what the hell they’re doing. Back then, I at all times felt like I used to be outside of the industry with my nose pressed against the glass,” he said, to which the brothers agreed they often felt the identical way.
Rider added, “You may have to let that go, because that’s not the fact. There isn’t any industry. It’s all just people doing their stuff and hustling.”