Melissa Joan Hart feels for her younger self in this Sabrina the Teenage Witch episode
Melissa Joan Hart played Sabrina Spellman in the ABC fantasy teen drama Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Melissa Joan Hart is reminded of "vomiting [her] brains out" and almost collapsing on set when watching the series three finale of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The 50-year-old actress feels for her younger self, who was seriously ill while filming The Good, the Bad and the Luau, which saw her titular character go to Hawaii for a family reunion, where she learned every Spellman has a twin and faced hers, Katrina, to determine which sister was good and which was evil.
Melissa told Entertainment Weekly: "I do remember with this episode in particular on that volcano, I was vomiting my brains out, and I asked our key grip to stand behind me in case I passed out and fell off because we were out in the sun."
She added: "I’m puking off camera. I’m standing there trying to play two of me. So when I see that I’m like, 'Oh, God, are you OK?'
"I think of little me like, 'Are you all right?'"
Despite the illness that overshadowed filming, Melissa still looks back on the episode fondly.
She said: "I always ask kids at any Comic Con, I say, 'Do you know the Spellman family secret?'
"I test people by how well they know the show if they know the Spellman family secret."
Sabrina the Teenage Witch ran from September 1996 until April 2003, with the unusual twists in Sabrina's life helping keep Melissa's role entertaining throughout.
She said: "I always say that Sabrina was kind of a tough character to play for me because she wasn’t daring and adventurous. She was trying to disappear and fade into the woodwork.
"But she, luckily, got to do these wild, crazy, weird things which kept it really, really interesting for me."
Melissa added: "So I think the fact that Sabrina got to be an evil twin, or got to be Alice in Wonderland, or got to be a trapeze artist, kept it really interesting."
The entertainer shot to fame aged 15, playing Clarissa Darling in the Nickelodeon 1990s teen sitcom Clarissa Explains It All.
Although she did not like how growing up on TV sets held her back socially, Melissa appreciates how being a child star prepared her for adult life from an early age.
In February, she explained to People: "I think it gave me a good work ethic. I think it helped me kind of grow up quickly, learn some things about myself in the world, take care of myself and but also, in that way, it kind of stunted my growth in other ways, socially."
Melissa has zero regrets because her parents, producer Paula Hart, 70, and 74-year-old actor William Hart, ensured that she did not miss out on childhood and was brought up with a sense of normalcy.
The star said: "I pretty much had a normal childhood, even though I was acting since I was four. So I don't regret anything.
"I think my family did a really good job … I was in Girl Scouts, and we would go on family ski trips and things like that. So there was a lot of normal mixed up with this weird, crazy world."
