Danielle Fishel on How Boy Meets World Influenced Her Directing

Danielle Fishel grew up in the spotlight as a child actor on Boy Meets World, and her experience on the show taught her exactly what to do — and what to avoid — when it comes to directing young stars like the ones on Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.

“One thing I try to pivot away from that we did a lot on Boy Meets World [is] super fast paced dialogue,” Fishel, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while discussing her role as director on Wizards Beyond Waverly Place’s inaugural season. “There were a lot of scenes where the people talking to each other were rapid firing things. And depending on what’s being said, that timing could increase the funny, but it also gives the idea that no one’s really listening to the other person.”

Fishel noted that being a good actor is “all about listening to your scene partner” and “letting what they’ve said affect you in some way”— something she feels didn’t always occur on her hit ‘90s sitcom. Now, it’s something she tries to “shy away from” when helming her own episodes.

“I want my actors to feel like they’re living in a reality,” she explained. “Even if that reality involves magic, it is the reality for their character. And so I try to ground people as much as possible.”

Fishel made a name for herself by starring as beloved character Topanga Lawrence on all seven seasons of Boy Meets World, which ran from 1993 to 2000. While growing up on the ABC series inevitably taught her the “donts” of making successful TV, it also helped her discover the “dos.”

“I definitely try to incorporate some movement. It can be kind of difficult in a show where you’ve got a lot of characters in one set and everyone has to talk to each other,” she said, adding that “finding natural and organic places for people to cross and move” also presents a challenge.

“And one of the things I think we did pretty well on Boy Meets World were the crosses our actors made felt organic,” she continued “They didn’t feel like, ‘Well, why did they just do that?’”

Fishel preps for incorporating movement by blocking episodes in her “mind” ahead of shooting before walking her cast through the paces. In the end, however, she says that an actor is always the “expert” in their character — and she is open to feedback, always.

“If something I’m telling you to do doesn’t feel good for you or doesn’t feel natural for you, I want you to tell me and let’s come up with something else,” she told Us. “You make a suggestion, ‘Let’s try it. This is a safe space and let’s just find the best way to do it.’ And it’s worked very well for me thus far.”

That open communication is something that carries over when approaching any of the younger cast members on her set, especially when it involves giving notes. Fishel understands all too well the feeling of “all eyes” being on her, and doesn’t want that sensation to seep into the actors she’s directing.

“I think one of the really important things is having conversations with each kid, and not in front of everybody,” she explained. “When you’re rehearsing you’re on a set and everyone is standing around — there are crew members, the parents of the children are there, or their guardians; whoever’s there watching them that day. And when you are giving notes and you’re trying to make a scene better, sometimes it can feel like, ‘Everybody’s eyes are on me and I was just given a note.’ And I never want them to think that if I’ve given them a note, it’s that I’m correcting something they’ve done.”

Fishel added that there is “no right or wrong” approach to acting, just “different approaches” about what to try and what risks to take. “And so when I can tell that an actor is maybe feeling a little insecure or needs a bit of a pep talk for whatever reason,” she told Us, “I will ask the parent or guardian and that actor to step aside where nobody can really see us and just have a one-on-one conversation where [I say], ‘Tell me what’s going on for you.’”

Fishel’s directing career kicked off in 2014 with the BMW revival series, Girl Meets World. While she reprised her role as Topanga for the Disney series, she also stepped behind the camera for the first time. It’s there she realized that her “maternal instincts” were strong — stars Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter felt “very much like my kids,” she told Us — but it wasn’t until she became a mother herself that her approach to directing changed entirely. (Fishel shares sons Adler, 5, and Keaton, 3, with husband Jensen Karp.)

“I know from seeing my own kids and seeing their vulnerabilities that every kid, even when they are the star of their own TV show, is dealing with their own insecurities and is having self-doubt,” she shared. “And if I can just come in and be a person who encourages them and makes them feel like, one, they learn something throughout the week or [two], possibly have a better understanding of what they do or why they do it and that they had a good time and would like to do it again, then I feel like I’ve succeeded in my job.”

Fishel has since directed countless episodes of popular TV series’ like Raven’s Home, Sydney to the Max and Lopez vs. Lopez. Her debut on Wizards Beyond Waverly Place — a revival of the hit from the early 2000s — airs on Disney Channel this month. The episode, titled “Potions Eleven” follows teen wizard Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) as she enters mentor Justin Russo’s (David Henry) mind to figure out what really happened to get him fired from being a professor at WizTech years earlier.

The plot line carries over from the OG series’ finale — which starred Henry alongside Selena Gomez, who also reprises her role as Alex Russo — and unveils a secret fans have been curious about since the show’s pilot. That pressure was not lost on Fishel.

“The biggest challenge was just overcoming my own fear that I was gonna let anybody down,” she explained, noting that the Wizards franchise is “so special” and “so meaningful” to fans. “The unicorn incident is a big [story] — it’s a big episode — and having it be in my hands was a little nerve wracking.”

Luckily, everyone on set made Fishel feel “comfortable” — especially fellow former child actor Henry, 35, who is also a producer on the series.

“David Henry is so amazing, and the minute I got on set with him I saw what he was capable of doing, both with the, like, more heartfelt, vulnerable moments and the over-the-top wacky physical comedy. He can really do it all,” she gushed. “And so once I got in there and I saw what this entire cast was capable of, I was like, ‘Oh, there’s no failing here. There’s only success.’”

New episodes of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place air on Disney Channel Fridays at 8 p.m. ET.