Working on The Troop

I feel really privledged to be working on The Troop for Nickelodeon. It’s crazy but the strangest part about it is that everybody is so nice. I’ve been in television in Hollywood for 20 years and even when there are nice people there, which is often, it’s not what I would call a nice environment to work in. It’s a big corporate colossus where people scurry about in fear for their jobs, or their status or something. It’s always something. But on The Troop (Nickelodeon) it’s exactly the opposite.

In our first week of work, a couple of execs flew in from L.A. to give us an orientation. Now I’ve seen this before. It’s usually a fear filled warning about what will happen if you do this or that and it always leaves you feeling like they are the enemy. This couldn’t have been more different. Maybe it’s because they primarily work with kids and kids need a different kind of guidance. This orientation was about becoming part of the Nickelodeon family, who to call if we had questions, what were the things we should look out for to protect ourselves while in the media spotlight. I was floored. Frankly, after that meeting I felt inspired. I’ve never been on a television show where the network made an effort to make the actors feel like an important part of the team. All I wanted to do after that was get to work. If this is any indication of what Nickelodeon plans to do with The Troop then I can’t wait until we premiere in October.