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As the star of a hit TV show and the lead in her first feature film, Melissa Joan Hart, 23, is one busy girl. She gives Seventeen a peek into her hectic world with a journal she kept while shooting her new movie, Drive Me Crazy.
September 12
Setting: A two-bedroom apartment (my home for the next three months), Salt Lake City.
I've just arrived in mountainous Utah, on a brief hiatus from Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. It's the night before I start work on my first feature movie, Drive Me Crazy, directed by John Schultz, and I'm really excited. I play a character named Nicole, a popular high school student who lives next door to a school rebel named Chase (played by Adrian Grenier). Chase and Nicole don't get along, even though they grew up together, but they become friendly again when they pretend to date each other just to make their exes jealous.
Drive Me Crazy has a great big talented cast, including Stephen Collins from 7th Heaven, who plays Nicole's dad; Gabriel Carpenter, who plays Brad, Nicole's basketball-hero ex-boyfriend; Ali Larter, who plays Dulcie, Chase's nonconformist ex-girlfriend; and Susan May Pratt, Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Kris Park, Keri Lynn Pratt and Mark Webber, who all play Nicole's buddies.
Later that night: When I showed up for the cast dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Salt Lake City, I didn't know anyone except Adrian, whom I'd done a screen test with a few months earlier. The rest of the cast, which includes 12 actors my age, had already been in Utah for a couple of days and had started getting to know one another, and there I was just walking into it, with everyone kind of watching me, like, How's this girl going to be? I was a little nervous, as if I was being judged. I came here to play a high school student; suddenly I felt like I was back in high school.
I latched on to Adrian immediately, but then, as we sat around on the floor, Japanese-style, I noticed Gabe. I thought he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. We all shared our food and talked about what we like to do and where we can go in Utah. The feeling was: All right, we're here, let's make the most of it. By the end of the night I started thinking, I'll just get to know these people, go where they go and see what happens. If no friends come of this, it's OK-I'm here for work.
September 14
Tomorrow we officially start the shoot: in the mountains, in a river-in bikinis. It's funny, they always shoot the most uncomfortable scenes first! I need to do some extra sit-ups and shave my legs very carefully.
Later that night: I arranged a cast dinner at Robert Redford's restaurant Zoom, 45 minutes away in Park City. Gabe started acting like, You're the girl I want, so I started liking him. He's totally my type-tall and skinny-and my friends Kim (who works in wardrobe) and Colleen (who does my hair) say he looks just like my first love. In fact, it's scary how much he looks like him. I got my first one-on-one opportunity with Gabe after dinner, when we both went upstairs at the restaurant.
September 15-16
Scene: Nicole and the popular girls are in a secluded spot on a river, floating on innertubes and talking about the boys-who are up on a hill, out of earshot.
Six bikini-clad girls in tubes in a river surrounded by waterfalls: If this doesn't drive people to the box office, I'm out of ideas. Each morning we arrived at the set at 5:30 a.m. and walked through the woods to the river. Everyone was out of breath from the hike and the high Utah altitude-thank God I'm not a smoker. The water was freezing; between shots the crew came over in rubber boots to throw blankets on us. I had a line where I actually say it's hot out, but he had to redo it because it was so cold, my nose was red.
On the second day Adrian thought my stand-in, Holly Phelps, was me, and he mooned her. When he realized his mistake, he ran off to find me and was like, "Oh, my God, guess what I did!" He was so embarrassed.
September 22-23
Just finished a two-day shoot at a local dance club that was transformed into a bar for the movie. Adrian and I had our first kissing scene, but it wasn't the first time we'd kissed: We had to do a kissing scene together for our screen test, which I remember vividly because he rammed his tongue down my throat, and it scared the hell out of me. I always fake it on TV. But hey, it was his big screen test, and I guess he was trying to prove something.
So...he shoved his tongue down my throat again. But it was OK-I was expecting it this time. I'm realizing that Adrian is like a big puppy dog. He's very thoughtful and sweet, but at the same time he's all man. He's actually a great kisser. But kissing scenes are so awkward; they're really technical-everyone's saying, "Wait, separate a little, don't get so close, keep your face on the left side, now move right"-but we were able to giggle about it. We probably did about 20 takes.
Later that night: The entire cast went to Kris' room for a little birthday party; we just hung out and had champagne and talked about the day.
October 4
My Sabrina hiatus is now over, and I was supposed to be on a plane back to L.A. for tomorrow's rehearsal for the show, but I missed my flight, which I was kind of excited about because I got to hang out with Gabe. (Yay!) I stayed on the set until 2 a.m., working my butt off on some more scenes, got to bed by 4 a.m. and was up at 6 a.m. for my 7:30 flight to L.A. The I went straight from the airport to the Sabrina set. To keep my energy up I've been trying to drink a lot of juice, cut down on the sweets and caffeine, and take B12 and other vitamins.
October 14-19
Scene: All the kids are at a centennial-themed school dance in Utah's State Capitol in Salt Lake City.
We've just finished nearly a week of shooting night scenes, from around 6 p.m. to about 6 a.m., in prom gear. Whenever we got tired, we weren't supposed to sit on the ground-but we did anyway. I wore a blue silk gown, which was beautiful, but when you wear something for five days in a row you start to hate it. When I needed a nap I'd just grab a coat and lie down wherever I could.
I loved the night shoots, though. We all bonded because we would lose our inhibitions in the middle of the night, when we were exhausted. Everybody would lie around on the floor between setups, and we'd just start giggling and dishing and gossiping about our set crushes.
October 24
Most everyone is wrapping this weekend; it's so sad to have to say goodbye. We all wrote down our addresses and phone numbers-I really hope we stay in touch. I'm psyched because Gabe and Mark are coming to stay with me in L.A. for a while. I will never forget this unbelievable experience. I can't wait to see the movie all done and put together. I have faith that it will be amazing, because it was made with a supportive cast and crew, and with love.
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