Sunday, May 6, 1990
Orange County Edition
Section: TV Times
Page: 79
By DANIEL CERONE
"It's weird. People come up and say, "Hi Winnie!" They know me, but I don't know them."
The truth is, most people only know 15-year-old Danica McKellar as Winnie Cooper, Kevin Arnold's puppy love affair on "The Wonder Years." The show has completely swept bittersweet TV audiences into the post-pubescent liaisons of the two star-crossed lovers. The first kiss. The Valentine's card. The make-out room.
What makes Danica nervous that is some people don't want to know who Winnie really is. They want to believe Kevin and Winnie's relationship is as authentic and tangible as their own fragile memories of first love. "So many people are tied up in the relationship," Danica said. "It's kind of freaky."
Fred Savage agrees. "Sometimes when I'm walking down the street, people will yell out, "Hey Kevin, where's Winnie?," he said. "It just makes me laugh."
"Right now we're together, so everything is OK," Danica said. "But it can't last too long, or we wouldn't have a story, right?"
The young actress said that at the very least, people want to believe that she and Fred are an item off screen. "Everybody asks that. Everybody wants to know if Fred and I are going out. And they want it to be true. They want it to be real."
Danica exhaled a deep breath, like a teacher repeating information for the students who weren't listening. "We're good friends. That's all." On the set, Danica and Fred interact like any of the other young actors-in fact, just like the regular kids that they are. "A lot of times I may be having a conversation with Fred on the set, and similar lines will appear in the script two weeks later because the writers were listening," Danica explained.
"The Wonder Years" is Danica's first acting job on a regular series, following three years of acting school and bit TV parts. "It's not like having a job at the mall on Sunday," she said. When Danica was 12, she answered a cattle call for the role of Winnie. The field was ultimately narrowed down to her and another girl-her younger sister.
"I tried out for the part with my sister, Crystal," Danica said. "We both got a call back the next day. It was down to just the two of us. They kept us there until late that night trying to decide. Finally, they told me that I got the job, but they liked Crystal so much that they wrote a part for her also."
As it turned out, 13-year-old Crystal plays Becky, Kevin's girlfriend
before Winnie. Although Kevin received his first kiss from Winnie in the
pilot, Winnie found an older boyfriend, so Kevin took up with Becky for
a short-lived fling earlier this season.
Both sisters live with their parents in West Los Angeles. Danica doesn't
see future scripts of "The Wonder Years" until the episode is
being shot. So she wasn't able to provide any insight into what's in store
for Kevin and Winnie's relationship. But she expects to be around for the
duration of the series, even if it's in a limited role.
"I think The Wonder Years' will run the five years of its
contract," she said, "and not get picked up after that. We all
want to go on to other things. I want to act in films. We'll all be grown
up at that point, anyway. I'll be 18 years old. There won't be as much
left to wonder about then."
PHOTO: COLOR, Danica McKellar answers the question she says everyone asks: "We're good friends. That's all ."
Type of Material: PROFILE; SIDEBAR