Friendly and sweet on-and-off camera, Lori Loughlin (or, everyone’s “Aunt Becky”) has warmed our hearts for decades as the lone adult female voice in the Tanner household, on the everlasting sitcom mega-hit Full House. Now eagerly promoting the show’s Netflix reunion series, Fuller House, as well as her Hallmark hit When Calls The Heart, Loughlin chatted with us about her early beginnings in Hollywood, becoming a face for the Hallmark Channel, and what the TV critics are getting wrong about the legacy of Full House.
Paste Magazine: Is it true that your career started when you accidentally became a print model?
Lori Loughlin: Yes, that’s true. I always had an interest in wanting to act, but my family wasn’t in the entertainment industry at all, and we didn’t know anyone. We didn’t really even know how you begin to crack that nut.
Then a good friend of my mother’s was taking her daughters to a modeling agency. I grew up on Long Island, and the agency was in New York. She said to my mom, “Lori’s always asking you, why don’t you take her in too?” They ended up taking me. They gave us a contract, like, “Here, we want you to sign this.” My mom’s like, “We can’t sign anything. We’ve got to go home and talk to your father.” I had a discussion with my mom and my dad that night.
My parents were really supportive and they said, “If we see that your school grades are dropping or that there’s a real drastic change in your personality, then we’re going to stop you from doing this. If you can keep up your grades and you remain a nice, normal kid, we’ll continue following this journey to wherever it takes us.” That’s what we did.
After several years of modeling I got an audition for a daytime soap opera. I had done a few commercials here and there but I was never super lucky in commercials. Then I went and auditioned for a soap opera and really was too young for the part. The casting director almost sent me out of her office. She said, “You’re really too young for this part but it was nice to meet you and thank you very much.” As I’m walking out the door she said, “Wait a minute, just come back and read for me anyway. Let me just hear you read.” I did and she said, “You’re really too young for the part but I like you, I’m going to bring you back for the producers.” She brings me back and I ended up getting it. It was a three-and-a-half year gig on a soap opera called, The Edge of Night. It was great training ground for me, it really was. It was like getting paid to take acting class. I was there working with wonderful actors—a lot of the theater actors who were so great to me, took me under their wing, were happy to teach me. It was wonderful. I feel very fortunate that I got that opportunity.
Paste: Before we get into current projects, I have to bring this up. There is a movie that was a big part of my childhood. I’m going to say two words, and I want to know if this sounds familiar to you at all at this stage of the game.
Loughlin: Let me guess, “Jamaican Ska”?
Paste: Yes! I’ve got to say, I have a two-year-old and was trying to sing to him and calm him down so he would go to bed. Somehow, out of my brain, after 20 years of dormancy, I found myself singing that to him. I was like, “where did that come from?” I just remember watching Back To The Beach over and over, of course having no understanding of the original beach movies that it celebrated. That was one of your first film roles, right?
Loughlin: Yeah, and that was a great movie. I loved working with Frankie [Avalon] and Annette [Funicelli]. Both of them, just awesome. We shot at the beach every day. What a really super time. Although she wasn’t telling anyone, I think she had just found out around the time we started shooting that she was sick. She was a great lady. I loved that movie, I really did.
Paste: So did I. Obviously Full House is a show that’s on everybody’s minds these days. When I started watching Fuller House the other day on Netflix, it definitely gave me this unexpected sense of comfort. Is that why people were so excited about the reunion? Do you think they’ve miss that simplicity that was always in the original?
Loughlin: I think that Full House is just a feel-good show. It’s not meant to be anything more than just a little silly, funny, heartfelt and warm program. We don’t care if sometimes you think our approach is cheesy. We don’t care. We know exactly what we are. I laugh when critics harp all over the show and really want to take it down. I just think “Wow, you guys are the fools. You’ve missed the whole point of the show, you’ve really missed it. You guys are morons.” It’s an easy target to go after Full House, and I just think these critics are so short-sighted and they’re just missing the joke. You’re picking on a show that’s not meant to be anything more than it is.
Paste: I think you guys have proven that you get the point just based on some of the jokes that are in Fuller House. It’s very obvious that there’s a sense of self-awareness—this is what we are, we enjoy doing this, and we all understand each other and what’s going on here now. It’s a little bit meta, where there’s this relationship between the show and the audience that is going to love it.
Loughlin: Exactly.
Paste: As a performer, did you ever feel concerned about being permanently identified with the show during it’s initial run?
Loughlin: Look, it’s a double-edged sword, right? You get on a show like Full House and then everybody’s like, “You can only be on Full House, and that’s what you do.” I think it’s just the nature of the business. People always want you to prove yourself. I don’t have a problem going in the room and auditioning and proving myself. If you want me, you want me, and if you don’t, you don’t. I was happy to have Full House, and Full House came at a really good time for me. I took the original six episodes offered to me because I was really low on cash. I really needed a job. When I got there it was such a fun group.
I loved everyone so much and I had such a good time with everyone. Was it, creatively, the most challenging job I’ve ever had? No. Was it one of the best, and one of the most fun? Absolutely. Will it always be the top of the top for me? It really will.