Sarah Chalke claims Roseanne Barr accused her of lying about her age during her Roseanne audition.
The Scrubs star, 49, explained on Tuesday’s episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s on Me podcast that she was just 16 years old when she auditioned to replace Lecy Goranson as Becky Conner in the sixth season of the hit ABC sitcom. Goranson had exited the show in its previous season in order to attend college.
Lecy Goranson as Becky on ‘Roseanne’; Sarah Chalke as Becky on ‘Roseanne’ ABC via Getty Images; Bob D’Amico/ABC vis Getty Images
“The next audition came and basically they were like, ‘We’re going to fly you down to audition with Glenn Quinn, who played Mark, Becky’s husband,'” Chalke recalled. “And there were seven of us — it was me and six other women. And they were all 21, moved to L.A., living in L.A. actresses and I was like, 16 from Canada.”
A week later, the Scrubs alum explained that she was flown back to Los Angeles to audition with Barr herself.
Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Glenn Quinn (Mark), Sarah Chalke (Becky), John Goodman (Dan), Roseanne Barr (Roseanne), and Johnny Galecki (David) on ‘Roseanne’ (19940
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
“The audition was, like, on the infamous couch. The quilt. We’re sitting there. I just remember Roseanne turned to me and said, ‘How old are you?'” she remembered. “And I said, ‘I’m 16.’ And she said, ‘How old are you actually?'”
The questioning took Chalke by surprise, because “it would never have occurred to me to lie about my age.” She continued, “I didn’t even know that was a thing. I was like, ‘I’m 16.'”
Chalke said that her age made her a “wild card” amongst the remaining actresses in contention for the role who were already grown adults living and working in Los Angeles.
“Because everyone else was 21 and auditioning, and because Sarah and Lecy had both wanted to go to college, I think they were concerned that I was the wild card that would maybe take the job and go to college,” she explained. “Where all the other girls were already doing this.”
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In fact, they were so concerned that Chalke said Tom Arnold, Barr’s ex-husband who played Arnie on the show, personally called her to clarify college wasn’t in the cards for her.
“Tom Arnold called me at my house and was like, ‘What about college?'” she recalled. “I knew why he was calling. And I was like, ‘Yeah, no. No college. No college for me.'”
Chalke continued, “Even though I knew I would go eventually… This was an opportunity. I would go to college after. I would do whatever.”
Despite landing the job, Chalke revealed that she actually had to wait an additional “four months to find out” if she would play Becky on screen after the show temporarily got “cold feet” about recasting the role. “Then they called and they’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do it. Come down.'”
The actress would go on to play Becky on season 6 and 7 of Roseanne. While Goranson returned to the role in season 8, Chalke stepped in to film three episodes due to Goranson having scheduling conflicts. She then returned to play Becky for the entirety of season 9, with Goranson taking over the role once again for its 10th and final season.
Chalke also appeared in a 2018 episode of the Roseanne spinoff The Conners, this time playing a woman named Andrea.
Lecy Goranson as Becky and Sarah Chalke as Andrea on ‘The Conners’ Adam Rose/ABC
Hear more from Chalke’s Dinner’s on Me interview in the clip above.
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