Cohn and Palm Royale costar Amber Chardae Robinson open up about feeling like outsiders while pursuing acting, before praising the other women on the Apple TV dramedy's stacked cast.
Sometimes feeling like an outsider is simply a fact of life ... and a feeling Facts of Life star Mindy Cohn recalls experiencing herself after she was cast in the classic sitcom back in 1979.
Both Cohn and Amber Chardae Robinson star on Apple TV's Palm Royale, where they each play women on the outside of Palm Beach's luxe high society. For Cohn, she plays a reporter who's invited to cover all the swanky parties -- while never truly being part of them -- while Robinson appears as a Black bookstore owner-turned FBI recruit investigating the town's many misdeeds.
Not being part of the in crowd, or struggling with self-doubt, is something they've both felt in their respective careers.
"Well for me, I got discovered by Norman Lear at my high school at 13 and got plunged into-- he wrote this part of Natalie for me in his new show called The Facts of Life," Cohn, 59, told TooFab ahead of Palm Royale's Season 2 premiere.
"And so talk about impostor syndrome at the age of 13, because I did not do a Pampers commercial when I was six months old; I was very out of my depth," she continued, "and, gratefully, I had a cast, especially Kim Fields, who took me under her wing at the ripe old age of 11 and said, 'This is what upstage is Mindy,' and, 'Stage right is this way.'"
"But I had a really hard time, like one of these things is not like the other," added Cohn, as her co-stars Fields, Lisa Whelchel and, of course, Charlotte Rae, all had numerous credits to their names before they were cast on the series. The Facts of Life was a hit and ultimately ran for nine seasons, from 1979 to 1988. "For a good season and a half, those first few weeks and months were really hard for me," Cohn said looking back.
For Robinson, she could also relate to that feeling, telling TooFab that "being on the journey of an artist can be lonely sometimes."
"I come from the South ... I'm from a very small town in Texas, not a lot of people do what I do," she explained. "And so forging this path for myself has always been kind of like, 'Okay girl, ooo, that's hard.' So in that right, I understand. Being an outsider coming from a very small town with a big old dream like this can be isolating."
On Palm Royale, however, the two women are in very good company. The show's cast is absolutely stacked, with names including Carol Burnett, Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney, Ricky Martin and Leslie Bibb, just to name a few. Being part of that ensemble, according to the two women, has been both "exciting" and a bit of "wish-fulfillment."
"I remember Season 1, the first scene I had with Allison Janney, she busts into the book store and she is cussing and she is stomping. Allison is really tall and the cameras are going and I forget that I'm acting," recalled Robinson. "I'm like, 'Oh wow, wow, amazing,' just watching her act in real time was such a joy."
"I think, for me, just watching these legends act in real time is such a master class, I'm learning so much from from observing. I forget that I'm acting half the time, I'm like, ' What's the line? My bad ... Allison took my breath away,'" she joked. "So that's the really exciting part for me."
Cohn then shared her "Janney story," too.
"I obviously was so tickled to meet Kristen. I'm a huge Kristen Wiig fan, and hadn't met her yet. I was walking on set with her to my first scene with Allison, and I started to get overwhelmed and Kristen was like, 'Are you okay?' and I was like, 'I think I'm gonna burst out crying,'" recalled Cohn. "She goes, 'You can't do that, do not do that,' and I just remember hearing her voice for the first time and I just went, 'She has been on my list of top five actresses I've wanted to work with for probably the last 20 years.' So yeah, wish-fulfillment, 100 percent.'"
See all of them in action when Palm Royale returns for Season 2 on Wednesday, November 12.
