Melissa Joan Hart talks toning down for ‘serious roles’ after Nickelodeon

Melissa Joan Hart found her transition from Nickelodeon to more serious roles rather challenging.

The actress, now 48, popularly starred in Clarissa Explains It All from 1991–1994 and later on Sabrina the Teenage Witch from 1996–2003, told People Magazine that she now likes to “mix it up” when choosing potential roles.

“I love doing these true crime movies because I never trusted myself to do drama when I was younger,” Hart said.

“I did, when I was really young, I was actually in one of the episodes of The Equalizer, when I was about seven years old … and did some other dramatic roles — that was easy for me when I was a child. But then, as I got more comfortable with comedy, it was harder for me to flip into drama.”

She explained that comedy is “so much about gesturing and big facial expressions,” especially when it came to her Nickelodeon roles.

“When you learn Nickelodeon acting, it's like, do you want look number one, number two, or number three?’” she said of changing her expressions. “You are trying to do the different looks and make it big.”

Hart shared that toning it down for the drama was a “real learning curve” after years of acting. 

“It’s been really interesting to dive more into the dramatic stuff and trust myself with it.”

Hart’s latest movie, The Bad Guardian, follows a woman, Leigh Delgado (Hart), who tries to save her father from a corrupt and greedy court-appointed guardian.