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Did you feel Leonardo DiCaprio’s greatness when he appeared on Growing Pains as a teenager? If so, then you’re not alone.
Ashley Johnson, who appeared on Growing Pains durings seasons 6 and 7 as youngest child Chrissy Seaver, opened up about her time on the series while appearing on Pod Meets World in an episode released on Monday, June 2.
Johnson, 41, recalled how she first entered the entertainment industry when a talent scout came to her school looking to cast children for Star Search. She appeared on the show and sang “Broadway Baby” at age 5.
Not long after, she joined Growing Pains as Chrissy Seaver, who had been born in season 4 and was aged up from a toddler to age 5 when the actress was cast in the role. “Every memory that I have from that is so good,” she said on the podcast. “It really really is.”
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At the time, Johnson joined an established TV family that included Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Kirk Cameron, Tracey Gold and Jeremy Miller. “Everyone was so wonderful to me,” she said. “They just took me in like I had been there.”
She even called it “a great start” to her now decades-long acting career.
In the show’s final season, the Seaver family added another child to the group — a homeless teen named Luke Brower, who was played by DiCaprio. At 16, he had just started his career, and Johnson thought he had already filmed 1993’s This Boy’s Life, his first breakout, but it hadn’t been released yet.
“He was so good,” Johnson recalled. “You could tell so early on… I just remember everyone was like, ‘This kid is so good.’ Like, he had it. We felt it. He was great.”
“He was a teenager, he was a kid, but I remember he was so sweet to me,” she added.
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Johnson said the last time she saw DiCaprio, 50, and her other costars was when Thicke died in 2016 at 69. “He wad the greatest,” she said of her TV dad. “I just remember I loved hugging him and just being around him.”
Though the reunion was “bad circumstances,” she said it was “cool” to have “adult conversations” with them for the first time.
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Johnson had since starred in TV shows, like The Killing and Blindspot, and in movies, including What Women Want and The Help.
She has also worked as a voiceover performer on Recess and Teen Titans, and provided the voice and motion capture of Ellie in The Last of Us video game series. During season 1, she portrayed Ellie’s mother in the HBO series adaptation.
