By Michaela Gordoni
After starring in THE WONDER YEARS for five years in a row, Danica McKeller needed a break.
“When I finished THE WONDER YEARS, I went to UCLA to get a degree in mathematics,” she said this month.
She stopped her acting career for four years as she explored who she was without the lights and cameras.
“I just needed to find out who else I was,” she explained. “For me, the way I could find out was just to do something else and really exercise my brain and let go of all the glamour and superficiality of Hollywood.”
“When THE WONDER YEARS was over and I went to UCLA, it all happened around the same time,” she said in a podcast last year. “For me, it was like, ‘…Who, what would my value be if I didn’t have this show?’”
She felt empowered by her choice to go to college but still had love for the stage. After she graduated, she starred in WORKING, LOVE BOAT: THE NEXT WAVE and other projects.
“I was doing all these independent films that weren’t very good,” she said. “Then I started getting some traction. I did THE WEST WING for a season.”
Danica McKellar eventually found her way to Hallmark and then to Great American Family. She helped write her last holiday GAF movie, A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS BALL.
“This is a wonderful experience for me. It’s been amazing, because I got to write the script with someone else, but it’s the first time my name is on the script for one of these movies, and it’s really gratifying,” Danica McKellar said.
“Plus, I get to waltz in it! I love ballroom dance, as I think everybody knows who follows me on social media.”
The movie is one of many holiday flicks she’s been a part of. She believes Christmas movies are popular because they’re comforting and cozy — a kind of “escape” for viewers.
“More than an escape, it provides a reminder of what human nature can be,” she added. “We need that. We need that reminder. We need, yes, the feeling of comfort, but also ideas for how to move forward in a wholesome, earnest kind of way.”
Danica McKellar found Christ three years ago. God is an important part of her life.
“It just hit me like all at once,” she told Closer Weekly. “I had a lot of biases against Christianity for most of my life because of looking at the wars — the Spanish Inquisition.”
She realized that the critical part of Christianity isn’t about religion but “relationship,” she told Closer Weekly.
It’s about “letting go and trusting and not thinking that I have to be in charge of everything all the time.”
Danica McKellar has shown that she’s not a typical Hollywood actress — she’s found so much more meaning beyond the screen.
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