After more than 35 years in the entertainment industry, Melissa Joan Hart has stepped into her fair share of roles.
The actress, now 48, says she likes to “mix things up” when choosing the genre of a character to play. However, it took her a while to get there.
“I love doing these true crime movies because I never believed I’d be doing drama when I was younger,” Hart, who stars in the upcoming Lifetime film Bad guard, tells PEOPLE. “I did, when I was really young, I was actually in one of the episodes Equalizer, when I was about seven years old… and played some other dramatic roles — that was easy for me when I was a kid. But then, as I got more comfortable with comedy, it was harder for me to turn to drama.”
Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina.
Showtime/Disney General entertainment content via Getty
Hart says it’s coming to children’s television, which includes a starring role in the Nickelodeon series Clarissa explains everything from 1991-1994 and later Sabrina the teenage witchencouraged those comedic skills.
Melissa Joan Hart is 48 years old! Enjoy 10 perfectly magical photos of the 90s ‘teenage witch’ in her TV prime
“Comedy is so much about gesturing and big facial expressions, especially on Nickelodeon. When you’re learning to act on Nickelodeon, it’s like, do you want to look number one, number two or number three?,” she says, changing her face into three different expressions. “You’re trying to make a different look and make it big.”
“And then it was a real learning curve for me,” she adds. “So it was really interesting to immerse yourself more in the dramatic stuff and trust yourself in that.”
The PEOPLE Puzzler has arrived! How fast can you solve it? Play now!
Hart’s latest project, which premieres May 18, follows the story of what happens when “Leigh’s (Hart) father Jason (Eric Pierpoint) suffers a fall while she’s out of town [and] the courts grant Jason a guardian,” according to the official synopsis. While the guardian, played by La La Anthony, initially appears to be a useful addition, the official description explains that things “quickly take a horrific turn.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2)/Melissa-Joan-Hart-Bad-Guardian-042424-4-3f4952cc62b2485b9666812cd1ec3349.jpg)
Melissa Joan Hart and Luis Bordonada in “The Bad Guardian”.
For life
Hart says she was “enthralled by the script” and that while Britney Spears and Wendy Williams may be more “significant victims of guardianship and surveillance,” this film has more of a “small-town perspective.”
“In the version of Britney that we see in real life, for her, it’s her struggle to get out of her own guardianship,” Hart explains. “This film is very much about me, the daughter of a man who was taken to the hospital and then put into custody. So I’m a small-town woman who doesn’t have the money to pay big fancy lawyers to fight the big system.”
Melissa Joan Hart reveals who she’s still in touch with Clarissa explains everything (Exclusive)
“It’s little Erin Brockovich in nature,” she adds.
While continuing her work in front of the camera, the mother of three also lends her free time to World Vision to help fight poverty – especially in Zambia – where she has sponsored three children to date.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Bad guard premieres May 18 on Lifetime.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education