Rachael Leigh Cookwas one of my absolute favorites growing up.The Baby-Sitters Club,All I Wanna DoandShe’s All Thatwere basically on repeat in my house. As thrilled as I was to get to revisit memories from those productions during this edition ofCollider Ladies Nights, one of the greatest joys of this conversation with Cook for her new Netflix release,Love, Guaranteed, was hearing about what Cook learned from all of those experiences and how it all landed her in a place where she has a degree of control over the content she’s making.
Again, as a diehard fan of the 90s classicShe’s All That, my limited perspective led me to believe that movie had to be the game-changer for Cook, the project that gave her name a certain amount of weight in the industry and control over her career. Turns out though, that came years later:
“Feeling like I had a degree of control over the trajectory of my career, that’s been in fairly recent years to be honest with you. I’d say from maybe 2017 or so, when I started partnering up to produce things with Crown Media and The Hallmark Channel. They’ve been incredible partners to me and so supportive. And I love working in the feel-good space, you know? I spent many years trying to be cool and make edgy content that I thought would make people sort of stand up and take notice of me, but it wasn’t until I sort of followed my heart’s desire and my true intention that I think I started to really feel like I had greater control or a degree of say-so over the way my projects were gonna go, or actually even come to fruition.”
For more on Cook’s experience makingLove, Guaranteed, give her full Collider Ladies Night interview a watch at the top of this article! She also discusses her experience working on the “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” PSAs, a key conversation she had withThe Baby-SittersClubdirectorMelanie Mayron, how her audition forCan’t Hardly Waitpaved the way toJosie and the Pussycats, and so much more. We’ve also got a podcast version of the chat for you below:
Rachael Leigh Cook:
