Melissa speaks with TV Guide

This page contains the pictures and text of Melissa's interview in the 2-8 October issue of TV Guide.
Thanks to Andrew Marchand for the scans.


Pictures:

Cover
Contents page
Second picture
These are extremely high resolution, and I intend to resample them at a lower resolution, which will also result in a smaller file size.

I also have these copies of the pictures:


SHE'S CRAFTY!

BY JANET WEEKS

With the still-spellbinding Sabrina, a new movie and four Picassos (!) on her wall, Melissa Joan Hart knows about wielding her superpowers

Melissa Joan Hart stares blankly into a mirror as a makeup artist dips a tiny paintbrush into a pool of flesh-colored liquid, then dabs it on the actress' freckles. Hart is waiting patiently for a break in the process before answering a question: Does she believe in magic? She is, after all, TV's lovable Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, a saucy little sorceress who can cast a spell with the mere point of her finger. "No," she says flatly, careful not to move her mouth too much and damage the smooth canvas her face is becoming. "Magic is just illusion."

Illusion, of course, is an actress' stock-in-trade. But this 23-year-old isn't interested in smoke and mirrors. She commands a more tangible force: power. The power of celebrity. Of money. Of youth. Just as alter ego Sabrina is learning to master witchcraft, Hart is learning to spin her star power into financial gold. "Up until three years ago, I didn't have any money or a career," she says, recalling a bleak time between the end of her starring role in Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All in 1994 and the start of Sabrina two years later. "I had nothing to show for what I did. But now I've got these plans."

Hart and her mother, Sabrina executive producer Paula Hart, have parlayed the ABC series' success -- now in its fourth season, it is the No. 1 rated prime-time show among 2- to 11-year-olds -- into a growing Hollywood empire. The two are partners in Hartbreak Films, which produces Sabrina and stands to make millions off last spring's sale of the series into syndication. (The Wall Street Journal estimated the price at $80 million.) The two also produce an animated Saturday-morning Sabrina spin-off series (featuring the voice of Hart's 13-year-old sister, Emily) and the ratings-winning Sabrina TV-movies. Starting this weekend, Hart can be seen in her first starring role in a feature film, the romantic comedy Drive Me Crazy.


"Everything is a game of Risk or Monopoly or chess," she says of her meticulous career strategizing. "You have to pick your moves carefully." And your investments, apparently. Hart has a home in Los Angeles decorated with four Picassos -- three etchings and a sketch that she purchased at a San Francisco art gallery. She also collects estate jewelry and is looking into buying a New York City nightclub. The reason? "I hate the doorman; he never lets me in. I got turned away the other day and I was like, `You know, you're going to be working for me in a month.'" Now, that's power.

A tiny, fast-talking blonde who is more direct than her TV counterpart, Hart arrives at a Culver City, CA, photography studio precisely on time, and without the entourage that typically escorts celebrities. "I take care of myself. I'm from New York," she says, a hint of her native Long Island accent (she is from Sayville) in her voice. That she is a self-sufficient adult may come as a shock to fans who know her as a perky teen on TV. "I'm not that age, but I look [it], and there are so many more parts for girls 16 to 18 than 23," says Hart, who auditions for as many as 10 films a week.


Of course, she can't play a kid forever. In fact, her mother has urged Hart to turn down teen roles. Paula Hart also tried to switch the TV show's title from Sabrina, The Teenage Witch to simply Sabrina (Archie Comics, which owns the Sabrina character, objected). Paula has also encouraged her daughter to take a decidedly adult posture with the press, one reason Melissa appears nearly naked on the cover of this month's Maxim magazine. "She has to grow up," Paula says. "I can only keep her as a child so long." Hart, however, is not quite ready to make the transition into adult roles. "Why give up on something that's working?" she says.

In Drive Me Crazy, a twist on last year's teen hit She's All That, she plays a high-school senior with a crush on a handsome basketball player (Gabriel Carpenter). In a scheme to win his attention, she pretends to date the school's disaffected rebel (Adrian Grenier), transforming him into a Gap-wearing preppie. Formerly Next to You, the film's title was changed to match the name of the current Britney Spears hit that is featured on the soundtrack. After Hart appeared in the song's video -- and Spears played herself on the September 24 episode of Sabrina -- the two became friends. "I try to get her away from her security guards," Hart says with a laugh. "I'm like, `Let's go out as girls and just hang out.'"

Hart is also hanging out with costar Carpenter, 21, who won Hart's heart during the making of the film. In a now-notorious incident reported by tabloids, the two were caught by the crew making out in a broom closet on the set. "It was just kissing," says Hart, giggling. "It was an innocent, stupid, three-in-the-morning kind of thing." Although she says the two are now just friends, Hart is leaving the door open: "Maybe we'll get married someday. But, you know, he's 21. I'm 23." Besides, Hart is coming off of a four-year relationship with actor James Fields, a former University of Utah student she met while snowboarding. She now prefers club hopping to nesting, although she complains that work interferes with her social life. "The best nights to go out in L.A. are Mondays and Thursdays, but I work Tuesdays and Fridays. I used to be, like, `You know what? I don't need any sleep!' But now it's, like, `I need sleep.'"


Clearly not much, however, as her busy life attests. Hart began working at age 4, after she begged her mother to take her to a Romper Room audition. Hart didn't make it on the show, but the experience led to commercial auditions. She landed 22 spots that first year. "She's a performer," says her mother. "There are certain people who thrive on that. She likes to please people." As Melissa became more involved in the entertainment business, Paula Hart found herself becoming a full-time stage mom. It was so consuming that it led to the breakup of her marriage to shellfish wholesaler William Hart (with whom she also has children Trisha, 21; Elizabeth, 19; Brian, 15; and Emily). "I wouldn't say [show] business destroyed our marriage, but the lifestyle did. I never got to see him. Our goals were different."

After the split, Hart and her mother and siblings moved from Long Island to an apartment over a dry cleaner in Manhattan. "That's where I experienced a lot of my personal growth," Hart says. "Having mass transit, having diversity around you, seeing how many different kinds of people there are and how everyone can be themselves." She also learned the value of a dollar, as her Clarissa earnings quickly disappeared. "I had to take care of my family," she says. "We used to steal toilet paper, because we didn't have the money to buy it. It's just in the last few years that things have really blown up."

Hart now lives in her own home with her two dalmatians, Pele and Holly. (Her mother lives nearby with her second husband, Leslie Gilliams, an executive with Hartbreak Films, and their two children, Alexandra, 5, and Samantha, 2.) As befits an enterprising young star, Hart will even direct an episode of Sabrina in November. "The more you put into anything, the more you get out of it," she says. "Sometimes it takes a while. But if you put time and energy into something, good is bound to come out of it." That's what we call making magic.


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