It appears on Tuesday Jimmy Kimmel live, ex and forever Punky Brewster Soleil Moon Frye came out as a champion of his own identity and career, very well adjusted and still enthusiastic. It might seem like a low bar to delete and take note, but the phrase “former children’s starToo rarely can she be followed by sadness and grief, so good for her. And why shouldn’t Frye be happy? He let’s try it The NBC affiliate, which is Peacock, has just delivered to the actress a “sequel” (in Frye’s words) decades after the scandalous life and times of her iconic eighties character from the new series. Punky Brewster, with the mother of four Punky, now divorced (but always fluffy), who continues along with optimism and, well, the draft. Plus, he has a new documentary that seeks to explore how he got into the devices of Hollywood’s child star machine without getting hurt, too badly.
Nen 90 (premiered on Hulu on March 12), Frye opened the carefully sealed “Pandora’s box” that were the hundreds of VHS tapes and audio recordings she made when she was a young actress. As Kimmel confirmed, Frye was at the center of a truly varied and impressive mix of some of the leading television and music stars of the time, including Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Brian Austin Green, Stephen Dorff, Mark McGrath, Jenny Lewis, Perry Farrell, David Arquette, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio (who is the executive producer of the film). The documentary also includes footage of some of Frye’s friends who did not escape unharmed, such as the late Jonathan Brandis and Children starring Harold Hunter and Justin Pierce. Frye says of his eventual return to these recordings: “There was so much joy and happiness, and there was so much pain as well. And I had lost some people who were very close to me.
Describing her excavation with found images (which, according to her, was inspired by the visualization of Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s departure, of all things) as an exercise in finding out “if my life had gone on as I remembered it,” Frye told Kimmel that ultimately the sometimes painful experience was liberating and enlightening. Pointing to the freedom of “social media” so that his group of famous friends could have much greater privacy than today’s young actors, Frye explained that while his punk-like enthusiasm often made him the focus, was just watching her old tapes (and sharing them, sometimes emotionally, with her old friends from the movie) saw that, “I didn’t realize how good those people were.” For current 44-year-old Frye (seen in a candid vintage photo, crushing both Mark Wahlberg and Will Smith), the long and disappointing path to childhood stardom has seemed, at least, better than all its ups and downs. than most.