From child star to ‘resistance’ leader
Ms. Milano, 46, made a name for herself as the quick-witted Samantha Micelli, daughter to Tony Danza’s character on the 1980s sitcom “Who’s the Boss?” “She was just this force, even at 10 years old,” said Mr. Danza, who still views his former co-star’s accomplishments with a kind of paternal pride. “You know, most celebrities don’t know what they’re talking about. She does.”
As she moved from child star to young Hollywood ingénue, she was cast on Melrose Place, and later starred opposite Shannon Doherty and Holly Combs on the CW cult classic, “Charmed.”
“I mean really, how many times a week is ‘Charmed’ on?” Mr. Cruz said as he and Ms. Milano sat down for their meeting, referring to the show’s frequent reruns. “It’s incredible!” (“I knew that’s why he must have taken that meeting,” Ms. Milano remarked later. “That there was some weird fan thing going on.”)
Ms. Milano is still acting: She has starred in a handful of Lifetime movies, an ABC series called “Mistresses” and recently had a guest spot on “Grey’s Anatomy.” The second season of “Insatiable,” the black comedy on which she plays the wife of a pageant queen coach, is streaming now; last week, she announced she would star in and executive produce a family film about a young woman separated from her mother at the border.
But acting is more of a means to an end these days anyway — in that pretending to be other people in front of a camera is what gets her access to the people she really wants to talk to. (She said her improv training frequently comes in handy.)
Like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to whom she talks to “a couple of times a month,” she said. (The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.) Or the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, whom her friend Kim Raver, an actor and director, recalls her taking calls from while on set in Vancouver, B.C. — between shots for a Lifetime romance saga they were filming. “Literally, it was like she had the bat phone calling,” Ms. Raver said.