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Melora Hardin is recounting a harrowing encounter with an animal actor while on the set of a '90s procedural starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Office star tells EW that during the filming of an episode of Equal Justice, she "had to deal with a monkey, and the monkey bit me."
"It didn't make me bleed, but it definitely cut my skin," she reflects, able to look back on it now with perspective. "I'm fine. You know? We put a Band-Aid on it, and then we did it again."
Whoever said acting was an easy gig?
After appearing in over 100 films and TV series since the time she was 6 years old,Melora Hardinhas lived to tell the truth — good and ugly — about show business.
In a recent, career-spanning interview withEntertainment Weekly, theOffice,Monk, and27 Dressesstar recalled one of her more harrowing experiences with a costar — but not one she could reason with like Steve Carell or Tony Shalhoub.
"I had actually done something withSarah Jessica Parker, where I also had to deal with a monkey, and the monkey bit me on that one," Hardin shares. Reflecting on her many memorable on-set experiences with animals, from leading the Saturday morning kids showThunderwith a horse to her infamous encounter with Marcel the capuchin onFriends, Hardin remains as ardent an animal lover as ever. But the close call with Parker on the short-lived ABC seriesEqual Justicerattled the actress.
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"It didn't make me bleed, but it definitely cut my skin," she says. "It could have been worse, but those monkeys, it was the same kind of monkey [as onFriends]. Those monkeys are just so high strung. They're just really hyper kind of animals. They're really highly anxious."
Hardin says that working with the worrisome Marcel was just as tricky. The only difference was that theFriendsexperience didn't result in injury. "It was a similar thing. He just was jumping around in the scene and he just decided to bite me.
Equal Justicewas a legal procedural that aired on ABC from 1990 to 1991. Parker played the fresh-faced law school graduate Jo Ann Harris, who must prove herself as a junior member of a competitive staff of prosecutors at a district attorney's office. Hardin guest-starred as Doris on a season 2 episode in which Jo Ann teams up with Jane Kaczmarek's Linda Bauer to crack a case against a pregnant addict.
By that time, Hardin had just secured a star turn in the lead role of CBS' series adaptation ofDirty Dancing, while Parker was already an established A-lister with roles in films likeFootlooseand series likeSquare Pegs. Half a decade later, they'd both land their next big breaks, with Hardin appearing in the Clint Eastwood thrillerAbsolute Powerand Parker headliningSex and the City.
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Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with ourEW Dispatch newsletter.Hardin can now shrug when looking back on theEqual Justicedebacle. "I love animals, and I'm okay with them. I mean, if today that happened to an actress, I don't know, would they sue? Oh, God!" she jokes. Ultimately, theEqual Justicescene turned out as planned. "I'm fine. You know? We put a Band-Aid on it, and then we did it again.
Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
