Whoa! From Blossom to Dancing with the Stars, Joey Lawrence Is Only Getting Started

Originally Published October 12, 2006

This is how my interview with Joey Lawrence ended:
Jacki: Can you do your signature Blossom "Whoa" for me?
Joey Lawrence: You mean just for the heck of it?
Jacki: Pretty much. It's for my own benefit. I just want to be able to tell people you said it for me.
Joey Lawrence: Okay. It goes something like this...
...and then Joey Lawrence said "Whoa" in true Joey fromBlossomfashion. Amazing.

To the joy of young girls everywhere, Blossom premiered on January 3, 1991, introducing viewers to a new teen heartthrob, 14-year-old Joey Lawrence. Blossom may have ended 11 years ago, but Lawrence's career didn't end with it. Lawrence has always appreciated his role in the teen hit. "I think it was my breakout role in terms of getting my name out there and all that... It was a role that allowed me to get into that sort of 'everybody knows my name' thing... In terms of notoriety and fanfare, for six years Blossom put me on the map," Lawrence said. Yet what Lawrence didn't know then was that at 30 years old he'd be on the hit reality talent competition show Dancing with the Stars - a show that would gather all of his Blossom fans and put them back in his corner.

Of this new chapter, Lawrence said, "It was a great time. Those 16 and 17-year-old girls who were screaming out of control now have a different vibe. They're looking forward to seeing my movies and me coming back to TV at some point." Lawrence's scores on Dancing with the Stars have consistently been among the highest each episode. While the show is about dancing, it's also very much a popularity contest, proving that Lawrence's fans are still behind him. "It's been pretty amazing... To see the reactions from people is pretty overwhelming. It's been neat. I haven't had this kind of attention on the business front in quite awhile. It feels so good."

Lawrence said he decided to purposely lay low for the past few years, during which he got married and had a baby. This hiatus is helping Lawrence return to the spotlight in a new role, one that is different from the teen he portrayed so often in the past. "In terms of acting I was playing a character that was nothing like me. Despite for years people thought that was me, so I guess I did a good job. It wasn't so challenging on the acting front," Lawrence said about his role as Blossom's older brother Joey.

Blossom fans should not dismay. Although Lawrence is in transition as an actor, he said it's "such complete hogwash" that child stars don't like talking about their early acting experiences - that they should recognize how lucky they were to have had the opportunity. He added that it's not right for actors "to have that kind of success and turn around and not want to talk about it because they want to go on to bigger and better things." Lawrence will not be turning his back on Blossom.

If Lawrence's plans for the future work out as he intends, he should continue to feel as good as he does now. "My idols are Bruce Willis and George Clooney... Hopefully by the time I'm 35 or 36, I'll get to be in feature films. You gotta start somewhere... At the end of the day, I can't wait to do my Die Hard. People can say what they want. It might not be the most sophisticated choice. It's not Casablanca or Gone with the Wind... In Die Hard, Bruce Willis was the every man. He could be humble and make fun of himself and be vulnerable. And at the end of the day he could hold up a gun and say 'You're mine if you hurt my family,' and you believe it... I really believe I can pull something like that off." And, not only can Lawrence act the part, but he can look it too with his newly shaved head.

Lawrence knows he has some work cut out for him. He said he is picking his roles now based on the role and not the movie itself, because he isn't at the point where the movies are his movies yet. As for the movies he's just finished (Killer Pad, Together Again for the First Time, Rest Stop), "The individual roles were kind of interesting. I look at the role more than the actual feature itself. Whereas if it's your film, then clearly you look at every aspect of the movie."

So when Joey Lawrence does have his own movies, you might see one or two incorporating the moves he's learned so well from Dancing with the Stars. "Honestly, I'd love to do a remake of An American in Paris," Lawrence said. "It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I'd like to redo it in a modern fashion, like they did with Moulin Rouge." Lawrence said that Dancing with the Stars has been a "crash course" in dancing for him, and if he ever does get to do An American in Paris, "I'm going to be well on my way to preparing."

Lawrence continued to say, "One of the great things about the industry now is that if you're successful in one area, there's a lot of crossover. Dancers becoming actors, movie people doing TV... Entertainment is entertainment." Lawrence added that back in the 90s, this was not the mentality. He recalled that in the Golden Era, people were "acting, singing, winning Oscars, winning Emmys. Then everyone got it in their haughty minds that movie people weren't going to do TV. If you were going to sing, you couldn't act... If you can do it, and you can do it well, by all means, do it. We can call ourselves actors and singers, but we're all entertainers." So, for those true Joey Lawrence fans who know about his early singing career, a comeback may not be entirely out of the question. "If the opportunity came up," Lawrence said, "I would do it." Currently though, he said he is focusing on being in front of the camera.

According to the New York Post, Dancing with the Stars offers its celebrities a maximum pay of $425,000. What will Lawrence do with the money? "I don't know yet. I'm going to support my family because money doesn't really grow on trees for anybody. I'm not at a point in my life that I'm financially secure," he said. Lawrence is doing his part to help out others as well. He said he donates a lot of money to charities privately, and says he doesn't "make a lot of fanfare out of it," because he doesn't "need accolades for giving." Lawrence said he is always at The Children's Hospital fundraisers. In fact, he and his Dancing with the Stars partner, Edyta Sliwinska, performed there recently. Lawrence said he was glad he could "use my dancing immediately to help a good cause. I think it's one of the best organizations on the planet."

Fans have experienced Joey Lawrence the actor, the singer, and most currently, the dancer. Now that his fans are back right along side him, it looks like we're going to see even more facets of this all around entertainer.