By Sadie Brown
Fort Worth locals Noah Cottrell, 12, and Quinn Copeland, 7, have returned home after filming a pilot episode for a reboot of the popular ‘80s series, “Punky Brewster.”
Leggings and scrunchies aren’t the only things from the ‘80s making a comeback in 2020. Fort Worth locals Quinn Copeland, 7, and Noah Cottrell, 12, have returned home after filming a pilot episode for a reboot of the popular ‘80s series, “Punky Brewster.” Noah plays Diego, one of Punky’s adopted children while Quinn plays a modern version of Punky herself.
The young actors talk about their roles, learning about the show’s impact and the crazy life of a child actor.
Q: What made you decide to become actors?
Quinn: Deciding to become an actor … I don’t really know. I just got a part for something, and I got really excited to be an actress. So why I wanted to be an actress was because I would get to have a dog. Here we can’t have dogs. The kind of dog I want is a Pomeranian.
Noah: I wanted to become an actor because I saw my brother and sister doing it. They went to an acting class at the same studio we go to. I was there just in the waiting room, probably on my phone, because I was 6. One of the agents saw me and told my mom, “I didn’t know you had another child.” I got signed with that agency, and then I did my first commercial. From there I was like, “This is awesome. This is something I want to do.”
Q: You have both built quite the resume so far, especially for people under 15. How has it been getting experience? What have you learned along the way? Is it different than you though it would be?
QC: I agree. You get to be anybody every day, anybody you want. Even at home when you’re not doing auditions or doing a part or something, you can just be whoever you want. It’s easy — sometimes hard though.
NC: It’s totally different than what most people would think. It’s awesome, first of all. I mean, it’s acting. You get to be someone else every day. You’re not just stuck being yourself. You can be a crazy person, a happy person, a sad person and then you just switch characters. It’s awesome.
Q: What’s it like being on the Punky Brewster reboot pilot? It’s a show that was on for a really long time. Does it make you nervous about living up to the original?
QC: I didn’t even know what Punky Brewster was. Was it a boy or a girl? I was thinking it was a boy, but now that I’ve been on Punky Brewster, I know that it’s a girl. It was actually really fun to get to be on that show. She was so cute back then, like the cutest kid with pigtails.
NC: I didn’t know the show before the audition. Once I figured out how big it was and how much it had a huge fanbase, I was like, “Wow! It was really big.”
Q: Punky Brewster isn’t just a sitcom; it talks about some important things. A big part of the show was about being a foster kid and how the way that families look is changing. Can you talk about being a part of showing people what a family can look like?
QC: It shows that you don’t have to be in this one family; you can be in any kind of family. It shows that it doesn’t matter what you look like. It’s more like loving a family.
NC: A family can look like whatever you want it to look like. Punky Brewster shows everyone that there’s not a certain way, a certain thing or that you have to be a certain family.
Q: What about your characters? What are they like, and how do you relate to that?
QC: That’s easy because mine is a mean character who literally runs away from everything. That’s me at school every day, like, “I have to escape! Let me out of this prison!” Getting to the sad parts was kind of hard though. After I heard what her lines were, it made me sad, and that’s how I got into character.
NC: My character is the total opposite. He is a sloppy mess. He looks like he just rolled out of bed. He drinks straight from the orange juice carton. And to be honest, I am sort of a sloppy mess too.
Q: What’s it like being on set of a TV show? How do people interact with you? Do people treat you differently because you are kids?
QC: We both get treated so differently than at home because a lot of people are just nicer than they would be, like, ever. Being on that set was really fun because I was being treated like a little princess.
NC: Yeah, everyone was super nice on set. It’s like a second family. Everyone really loves and cares for you.
QC: I have so many families because I am always filming commercials or something.
Q: What happens if the pilot gets picked up for series by the streaming service?
QC: Oh my gosh, we would get to see everybody every other day. It would be a dream come true. We would get to have a puppy and a new house. It would be so great.
NC: It would be a dream come true.
Q: So that is something you would move to LA for?
QC: Oh yeah, I would so move to LA just for that.
NC: Oh yeah. Yep.
Q: How would you feel about leaving Fort Worth?
QC: I wouldn’t be that sad because I kind of like LA more than here because its warmer. It’s really cold today, probably the coldest day ever. In New York, I bet it’s snowing. I would like to move to LA because I would get to make new friends, go to a new school, have new teachers. I would like to move out there, but I would miss my friends. We would actually keep this house though.
NC: I would kind of be sad. I would be leaving my home and my dog.
Q: Quinn, you are the reboot of Punky’s character. What is it like? Does having Soleil Moon Frye on set help you?
QC: I’m like the new Punky, but mean. She does help me with that stuff whenever I am not in character. Everything she does inspires me to act like my real character. It would be an honor for it to come up to series. My heart would be a zoo.
Q: What’s it like working with other kids? Do you get along and hang out off set?
QC: Sometimes I imagine that Lauren would be my big sister one day. If it comes up to series, then she would be my big sister. I would have a little sister and a big sister. We would have to take new family photos.
NC: When we were on set of course, we would have some down time. We had to do school on set, so we would be with each other for like four hours in the school trailer every day, so we would talk a bunch. Lauren and Oliver are two awesome people. It’s fun hanging out with them.
Q: How do you balance being an actor with being a kid? Do you ever feel like you don’t get to be a kid as much as you want?
QC: It’s really hard actually to be kind of a grown-up kind. I don’t really get that much time to be a kid. When I’m home with no auditions, no callbacks, no parts, I get to be a kid a lot. But my parents make me do grown up stuff, like make my own food.
NC: Yeah, especially when you’re back home and stuff, I love to fish. I’m out at my pond like every day. I’m trying to bribe my dad to go. I played a football game last night. We won 19-18.
Q: How do you deal with auditions and the stress and pressure of rejection?
QC: Oh, if I don’t get the part, that’s fine, because that means that God has a bigger plan for us. If this doesn’t come up to series, there is something even better for us to be in.
NC: Even if you get the rejection of “no,” you always have to know that there is something better for you in the future.
