These days, Adam Scott is probably best known for his role as Ben Wyatt in Parks and Recreation, which earned him two Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.
You might also recognize him for his breakout supporting role in the 2008 comedy movie Step Brothers, or for starring opposite Ben Stiller in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
More recently, Adam’s performance as Mark Scout in the Apple TV series Severance earned him an Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series category.
But you might not be aware that the actor got his big break playing Griff Hawkins in Season 2 of the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World.
Adam was 21 years old when he joined the series as a recurring cast member, having only worked as a background actor in the past.
In fact, prior to landing the role of Griff, Adam had even appeared as a background character in an earlier episode of Boy Meets World.
Griff was brought in toward the end of the season to replace Harley Keiner as the leader of the school bullies. Griff was a last-minute addition to the show after the actor who played Harley left abruptly because he was struggling with his mental health at the time.
All in all, Adam ended up appearing in three episodes of Season 2, and one episode of Season 3.
And while there is no doubt that Adam has managed to make a name for himself away from his Boy Meets World legacy, he revealed this week that some of his experiences on the show had sat with him for the last three decades.
On Monday, the actor joined his former castmates Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle as a guest star on their rewatch podcast, Pod Meets World, where he awkwardly confronted them over the way that he was treated back in the ’90s.
Adam said that he had a memory of Rider that had stuck with him since 1995, and also recalled hearing that Danielle had told people that nobody on the set liked him.
Both of these anecdotes were surprising to the stars, with Danielle insisting that the latter had never happened.
Adam kicked off the discussion by saying that once he knew that he was going to be speaking with them on the podcast, he’d told his family that he was looking forward to “finally” asking Rider about “something that has been bothering” him “for 29 years.”
“I don’t know if you remember this, Rider,” Adam began, with Rider nervously replying that he “probably” won’t as Danielle and Will admitted that they were on the edge of their seats.
“Literally, this has been tugging at me for 29 years,” Adam continued, before setting the scene that he was backstage watching the Season 2 finale being filmed with his fellow guest stars Blake Soper and Ethan Suplee — who played Griff’s “lackeys” Joey and Frankie — when the incident occurred.
“I was with Blake and Ethan. Rider, you were there with a different group of people but we were all gathering around knowing the last scene was about to finish,” Adam went on.
“The scene ends, everyone just erupts and starts cheering,” he explained. “Blake and Ethan high-five and hug, they come up to me and high five and are just cheering… Then Blake and Ethan go up to you, Rider, and give you a high five and hug you and after they do that I’m like, hey, congratulations, buddy, and give you a high five and go in and hug you.”
“And as I do that,” Adam recalled, “you push me off and you give me this look like, ‘Wait a second, who the fuck are you?’ and then you ran away.”
Rider, Danielle, and Will could not hide their shock at Adam’s revelation and awkwardly laughed as Rider exclaimed: “Are you serious?! Why would I do that?!”
Visibly uncomfortable, he went on to insist that he didn’t remember the moment “at all,” to which Adam said: “I’m so glad you don’t remember that because to some extent that means it wasn’t a traumatic experience for you.”
“But I remember just being like, oh no no no no! I’m sorry! What just happened? No no no,” he added.