With the amount of press and social media coverage of all things Hollywood in today's media, it's impossible to not know what is happening on the set of your favorite TV show. However, back in 1987, that accessibility was a bit more limited, which is what makes Lifetime's upcoming movie The Unauthorized Full House Story so exciting. Set to premiere in August, the movie will try to show what it was like for the actors of Full House to be a part of America's favorite family. Garrett Brawith, who plays Bob Saget, aka Danny Tanner, says fans of Full House might be surprised with what the Lifetime movie reveals. "You're watching these people have fun on screen, make jokes and laugh, and be imperfect perfect people with their family," he says. "But in real life, their families are going through some very serious problems."
While The Unauthorized Saved By the Bell Story movie that Lifetime released in 2014 revealed behind-the-scenes drama of that classic series, I hope that The Unauthorized Full House Story will show a caring and familial atmosphere on the sitcom's set. To this day, the Full House cast seems extremely supportive of each other (see: Netflix spinoff Fuller House , aka all of my hopes and dreams), and Brawith seems to agree.
"It's always amazing to me that they treated the stage like a church," Brawith says of the cast. "When they show up there, they leave their problems behind." So what kind of "problems" could we expect to see in the Lifetime flick? Brawith claims that behind the Tanner family were actors who were dealing with a variety of personal issues, though fans of the sitcom may never have realized that.
Behind the scenes of The Unauthorized Full House Movie, however, I think fans, like myself, are most concerned with how accurately it will portray the actors of Full House. Brawith explains that the movie is not there to hurt anybody's feelings, but instead, tell a good story and entertain. "You develop a respect for [the cast of Full House], and the last thing you want to do is insult them," he says. And while the actor believes that the movie does a great job at portraying those involved with the original sitcom, he found his own role to come with some limitations.
"I had handcuffs on a lot," he says, "because it is TV." In addition to playing the Tanner patriarch, Bob Saget is a stand-up comedian and his jokes tend to be very raunchy — too raunchy for TV. But Brawith was still able to portray that aspect of Saget's career, and really enjoyed it.
"The best part for me was doing the stand-up comedy scenes," he says. "There's such a stark contrast to the character on the show and on America's Funniest Home Videos, that I got my liberties in that I was able to just start ripping out stand-up comedy." Brawith says he was able to take off the handcuffs in a scene that allowed him to do his own version of a Saget stand-up comedy routine.
And while Brawith says meeting Bob Saget isn't a "fear" of his after this movie debuts, he admits, "I do kind of bite my nails once in a while wondering if I'm going to be the subject of some stinging commentary on stage."
Images: Scott Schafer/Lifetime; Giphy
