Mackenzie Rosman spent eleven seasons growing up as Ruthie Camden, the youngest of the Camden kids on 7th Heaven. In Part 1, she sits down with Blake and Jordan and goes all the way back to the start: the kindergarten tag-along that accidentally turned into a career, and the producer session where a five-year-old walked into the room and shook every single hand in it. That, it turns out, is how you book an eleven-year job.

From there the three of them trade the stuff only child actors really know. The 4 a.m. call times and falling back asleep alone in the trailer. The set teacher who turns out to be one of the most important people in your whole childhood. Choosing to go to a real public high school for senior year just to find out whether she could socialize with people her own age, and what it does to you when everyone knows you from TV before they ever get to know you.

It gets honest, too. Mackenzie talks about the strange grief of a show ending when you have never once not had a job, the panic attacks that made auditioning feel like a completely separate career, and how long it took her to learn to trust her own judgment. Then comes the turn nobody saw coming: horses, adrenaline, and racing steeplechase in Maryland, the one thing she had been doing for as long as she had been acting.

She also opens up about watching her own childhood back for a living on Catching Up with the Camdens, what it feels like to see Mackenzie and Ruthie grow up side by side, and the cystic fibrosis episode she brought to showrunner Brenda Hampton for her stepsister Caitlin. We had way too much fun to fit it all into one episode, so this is Part 1. From our childhood to yours, this is The Not So Little Rascals.

Part 2 is coming soon.

🎥 What happens in this episode?

00:00 Cold Open & Intro

01:01 Welcome, and the Great Mug Debate

02:19 The Call That Changed Her Life, and the Handshake Audition

07:19 Stage-Mom Days and 4 A.M. Call Times

10:03 The Set Teacher You Never Forget

12:09 Public School, Senior Year, and Being Known from TV

16:17 When the Show Ended, and the Hard Part After

20:42 A Grounded Kid on the Biggest Show in the Country

22:35 Polaroids and the Shower-Door Factory

25:43 Life After the Camdens, and a Family Loss

27:58 Burnout, and Learning to Trust Her Own Judgment

31:09 Horses, Adrenaline, and Steeplechase

32:53 Watching Her Own Childhood Back

34:46 Mackenzie vs. Ruthie, and Firsts on Camera

37:40 The Cystic Fibrosis Episode, and Caitlin

41:08 Part Two Is Coming

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