Fantasy Island Guest Stars Alley Mills and Dan Lauria Discuss Their "Wonder" Filled Reunion.
Diana Keng
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For six seasons and over a hundred episodes, Alley Mills and Dan Lauria portrayed Norma and Jack Arnold, the 1960s parents of The Wonder Years' protagonist, Kevin Arnold.
Thirty years later, Mills and Lauria return to our television screens as Vivian and Lou Hutchinson, the most recent guests on FOX's Fantasy Island.
In this exclusive interview over Zoom, the pair shares with TV Fanatic how they've sustained both their friendship and working relationship over the decades. (While some of the warmth and exuberance of the interview is lost in transcription, believe me when I say these two are my new #FriendshipGoals gold star relationship.)
Lauria jumps right in when asked if they've kept in touch over the years. "We see each other. Whenever we're doing plays, we go see each other. And we just did a play together. I love working with Alley."
Mills fills in more details about their work together, "[We did] a play together in New York last fall. Morning's at Seven with some wonderful actors. It was really a great experience."
Lauria lists the stellar cast they worked with, "Oh yeah, John Rubenstein and Lindsey Krause..."
Mills adds, "... Tony Roberts..."
Lauria then explains how Mills joined the cast. "And Judith Ivey got hurt, and I called Alley, and she jumped in, thinking she was going to have a week's rehearsal.
"She literally went on two days with book in hand and within three days was off the first act and within four days was off-book entirely. She's a real trooper."
Mills is honest about the experience, "It was fairly terrifying. Quite a reentry into New York theater, that's for sure. Everybody was really supportive. It was awesome."
Both actors are enthusiastic about the joy they find in performing live theater productions.
Lauria's love of it comes down to the flow of the show. "I like that nobody can cut it."
Meanwhile, Mills describes the constant surprise live performances provide. "In the same way that nobody can cut it, you also don't ever know what's going to happen on a given night.
"Dan and I had a scene, and it was pretty much different every night -- the scene when I leave.
"I love that, that you just kinda never know what's going to happen. You never know how the person's gonna react. You don't know what's gonna come up.
"You keep the blocking the same because you're lit, but I love that it's live, and also, there's people sitting there having the experience, which is the whole point."
Lauria credits their familiarity with each other with what they were able to bring to that pivotal scene.
"What is a good thing about working with people you've worked with before [is] we may have different approaches and everything, but I'm more relaxed on stage than I am in real life.
"Especially with Alley and only having four days, I said, 'Alley, don't worry about it. Go with it. I'll go with you.' And we had a lot of fun. A couple of nights that was the best scene in the play, I thought."
Mills agrees, "I loved it. Yeah, I loved it."
With their close friendship, it wasn't hard to get them to reunite for Fantasy Island Season 2 Episode 10.
According to Lauria, he was simply following orders. "Alley called and said, 'You're going to Puerto Rico.' I said, 'Okay.'"
Mills doesn't dispute his account. "I mean, they just offered it to us. We now have the same agent, which is just odd. So I don't know how it all went down, but they just called and said, 'Do you want to go to Puerto Rico? And I called Dan and said, 'Do you want to go to Puerto Rico?' and we went to Puerto Rico.
"We heard that there was a golf course. I think that had a lot to do with his saying yes."
Filming in the island paradise was a good experience in general, according to Lauria. "Puerto Rico was great. They were a great crew. The woman you know as the star of the show, Alley, she was just a doll. She was just great to work with."
Mills agrees, "Everybody was. It was beautiful there but really hot."
Lauria admits island weather can be tricky. "We were kind of lucky with the weather for the most part."
Mills loves that Fantasy Island is a primarily female-led production.
"The fact that all the creators of this show are women now -- all the producers and everything -- makes a huge impact on the experience of working on this show.
"You feel a part of a family, and their crew was just fabulous. We love them. My hat's off to this revival team. They're quite something. And our director was a woman. The three [directors] we met that were doing the other three shows were all women. It's kind of amazing. I mean, good for them."
Lauria jokes, "Yeah, Alley had to say, 'No wise remarks, Dan.'"
Mills clarifies, "'Don't be a sexist pig, Lauria!' [laughs]."
Being neighbors can get messy...
— Fantasy Island (@FantasyIslandTV) April 14, 2023
Don't miss an all-new #FantasyIsland Monday at 9/8c on @FOXTV, next day on @hulu! pic.twitter.com/FSwwOmplG4
On Fantasy Island, Mills and Lauria play a recently retired married couple who are feuding with their neighbors, another couple also holidaying on the Island.
Mills identifies their characters, "We're the Hutchinsons. Aren't we?"
Lauria is vaguer on the details, "I don't remember. I just remember that she was the grouchy one in this episode."
"I'm scary grouchy," asserts Mills.
"And I was the nice one," adds Lauria. "Which is a complete one-eighty from usually the things that we do."
Mills laughs, "Yeah, Dan's always the grouch. He doesn't have to work hard at that."
"I back up to the bank after one of those jobs," Lauria admits, "[It's] like stealing money."
Did playing another married couple allow them to revisit their roles as the Arnolds?
Lauria is thoughtful as he answers. "Well, I don't know about so much related to the Arnolds, but as actors, we've worked together on stage and [done] a lot of readings and things like that, so it's easy -- once you establish what they want -- to play off each other."
Mills supports this assessment with specific detail, "There was one scene that we had, I think it was towards the end of the show, under a tree, sitting on those chairs, and talking about our future.
"There's just an easiness when you've known somebody for... -- when was The Wonder Years? The 80s? That's thirty years ago. Oh my god, Dan. But when you know somebody that long, there's a real ease.
"I just noticed it in that scene in particular. There's just such an ease between us because we know each other so well. And I think that translates. Y'know, you can really see that on screen when there's that kind of a history."
With The Wonder Years rebooted in 2021 and Fantasy Island being a revival of the original 1970s series, what do Mills and Lauria think about the return of so many beloved classic series?
"With Fantasy Island," Lauria comments, "I think this [revival] is done better than some of the others because it's actually gone a little deeper, whereas I think like the [reboot] on The Wonder Years when they stuck with our formula, it was okay, but when they tried to make it into a sit-com-y it didn't work as well.
"Fantasy Island is… I think it's actually better this time around than the original. But it's a matter of taste. It's so subjective. I think it's better."
Despite her general feelings on recycling shows, Mills agrees with Lauria on Fantasy Island's current iteration.
"Yeah, I think it's deeper too. And I don't normally like [reboots]. I always think they've run out of ideas when they reboot something. I'm going like, 'You are kidding me. Another reboot of another show? Doesn't anybody have any new ideas in this day and age when the world is falling apart? Really, is nobody coming up with something?'
"We were really lucky that we were back in the days of television in the 60s and 70s when it was SO GOOD. Everything was so new, and people would come up with unusual ideas."
Lauria adds, "And they took more risks. I think Fantasy Island's not afraid to take a risk."
Mills lights up at that. "That's what I think is different about Fantasy Island. I think they've made it much better too. They took a simple problem in human life --- that's why you go to the Island to get rid of your problem --- but then the Island changes your way of thinking.
"The pilot was really excellent that way, the way it just turned everything upside down. Our episode was like that too – it's probably always a question of the writing – but the new concept [is there]. And again, because it's by all women…."
Lauria groans, "Oh, here she goes…."
Mills surrenders, "Alright, here I go. [laughing] I think it might have something to do with it, though, I do."
Lauria snorts. "No comment."
On The Wonder Years, Norma Arnold embodied a spark of feminist spirit in the traditional housewife. Did Mills' feminism influence the character that way?
"No, not mine," Mills explains, "but the woman that created the show. It was Neil Marlin's and his wife, Carol Black, and Carol Black's mother really was Norma.
"And she said to me, right off the bat, 'Look, you look like a 50s housewife. You're cooking. You're in the kitchen.'
"She said, 'But don't be fooled. My mother could've graduated Summa Cum Laude from Radcliffe and run a corporation, but she didn't.' And she goes, 'But that's who you are, deep down.' She told me that before Day 1.
"I kind of wondered that myself when I read for it. I put some of that in it. But not modern at all. She was a creature from the 50s even though I was already 25 or 30 in the show. But the character grew up in the 50s and was definitely a product of that kind of thinking.
"But she'd broken out of that mold. She stood up for herself with Jack. Y'know, kind of."
Lauria has a more confident take, "No, she did."
Mills concedes that point. "In pottery and everything. It took [her] a while. What I thought was so great is she found a way by softening [and] talking to him into getting her way, to doing the right thing for the family.
Lauria laughs, "And has never stopped."
"She's not a modern feminist," Mills asserts. "My mother was like that. Very old-school but very strong. And that's what Carol's mother was like. They ran the family, but they just didn't let the husband know that.
"She was delicate and wore pink capris pants and put the scotch on the table every day, but really did handle the kids and the trajectory of the family."
With the role reversal in the Hutchinsons' relationship on Fantasy Island, does Lauria get to be the velvet glove guiding the decisions?
"Yeah," Lauria states, "What I got out of the script was I was the guy in the middle, always going, 'Don't holler. Don't holler. Relax. Take it easy.'
"Whereas a total opposite of The Wonder Years. Y'know, Jack, he went out and earned a living and let Norma take care of the kids and all that. She would always have to step in and tell me when I was wrong or tell the kids when they were wrong."
Mills reminds him, "And you were a bit of a hothead. Y'know, you'd come in, and the first thing I'd hand you a drink, and you'd go *grumble grumble*."
Lauria slips into his Jack Arnold voice, "Work's work."
Mills laughs, putting on Norma's cheery tone," 'How's work?' [lowers voice to a growl] 'Work's work *grumble*' [laughs again]."
The two enjoy the moment, remembering that regular exchange in the Arnold household, and Lauria recounts some of Jack's legacy.
"There's an interesting thing that happened after The Wonder Years. They had a thing in the newspaper about what TV dad would you most want to be your dad. And I wasn't even on the list.
"And then a couple of years later, they said, 'What TV dad was most like the dad you had?' and I was Number One. So nobody wanted me, but everybody had me. And that's a credit to the writing. It always comes down to the writing."
Having seen what the Island was able to do for their characters, what would Lauria and Mills ask for if they could visit a real Fantasy Island?
Lauria gives a lovely bearhug of an answer right away. "Oh, that's easy. I would ask to be on stage with Alley."
Mills is smitten. "Awwww…"
"Well," says Lauria, "I like being on stage with you. I mean, it's fun doing television stuff, but stage is what we do best. So that's easy for me."
Mills takes a bit more time to consider the possibilities.
"What I was going to say -- because I'm a recent widow -- is that I'd just go sit on that island and feel the peace and the joy of the beauty of that island. We never really got a chance to sit that much there.
"But in terms of what I would ask for if I got my wish and went down there… I live in Venice, California, and it's bad here. It's such a beautiful, beautiful, wonderful old historic town with a lot of history and social diversity and economic diversity, but at the moment, the homeless population in LA is so intense.
"Sixty thousand people are on the street. I lose sleep over it at night. I'm on the council. I just got double the votes of anyone on the council because I went door to door for two months talking to people. The solutions are really tough.
"We have a huge fentanyl epidemic. My beloved granddaughter OD'd last year from fentanyl. So it's personal.
"We've gotta get that drug out of this country, and we have to get people their lives back."
Lauria points out, "It's very easy to bitch about these problems, but actually finding solutions takes an effort. There are few people like Alley that are willing to make a commitment to finding solutions and have some compassion about it."
Mills remains hopeful. "I dream that there's [a solution] out there that somebody on Fantasy Island has. Like, 'WHY DIDN'T YOU THINK OF THIS?' That's all I want, somebody like that to appear."
A sincere wish and a somber reminder that there are always people who could use some magical island intervention in real life.
As Venice Beach Council Community Officer, Mills continues to work for the future she believes is possible.
Lauria is keeping busy and has several upcoming television and film productions on the go.
ICYMI their episode, remember, you can always watch Fantasy Island online and read our reviews right here on TV Fanatic!
Over to you, Fanatics! What are your favorite memories of the Arnolds? How great was it seeing Mills and Lauria reunited? Fill our comments below with your nostalgic squees!
Diana Keng was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. Follow her on X.
