Adam Scott had a brief recurring role on the 1990s sitcom playing Griffin 'Griff' Hawkins. Photo: AFP
Adam Scott is getting closure on a faux pas that has been haunting him for nearly three decades.
Before he lit up the screen as Mark on Apple TV+'s sci-fi drama Severance and Ben Wyatt on NBC's Parks And Recreation, Scott had a brief recurring role on the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World, playing Griffin 'Griff' Hawkins, which he reminisced about during an appearance on the recent podcast Pod Meets World.
Chatting with co-stars Rider Strong, Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle, Scott recalled a "horrifying" on-set interaction with Strong during the filming of the show's Season 2 finale.
"I don't know if you remember this, Rider," Scott said, but "literally, this has been tugging at me for 29 years."
He continued: "I was with (co-stars) Blake (Soper) and Ethan (Suplee). Rider, you were there with a different group of people, but we were all gathering around knowing that the last scene was about to finish.... The scene ends, everyone just erupts and starts cheering. Blake and Ethan high-five and hug; they come up to me and high five and are just cheering."
But Scott said this moment of celebration went south when he approached Strong for a friendly embrace.
"Blake and Ethan go up to you, Rider, and they give you a high five and hug you, and then after they do that I'm like, 'Hey, congratulations buddy,' and I give you a high five and I go in and hug you," Scott said. "And as I do that, you push me off and you give me this look like, 'Wait a second, who the (expletive) are you?' and then you run away."
Surprised by Scott's anecdote, Strong said he didn't remember the alleged encounter, adding that he's "generally a hugger".
"I'm so glad you don't remember that," Scott replied. "Because to some extent that means it wasn't a traumatic experience for you."
Scott also recalled a rumour he read on an online message board about Fishel's feelings toward him at the time.
"I remember going on there and just being so thirsty for any recognition or anyone even knowing that I was on television," Scott said. "I think I read somewhere, someone said, 'Well, I heard that Topanga doesn't like Griff.' "
But Fishel quickly set the record straight, insisting the speculation that she bad-mouthed Scott off-set "just wasn't true."
"Nobody didn't like you. That was not the situation," Fishel said. "I didn't talk about Boy Meets World at school. If somebody asked me a question I would, but it wasn't super cool to be gone from school all the time."
While the online rumour was unsettling for Scott, he said the experience wasn't entirely bad.
"There was a little bit of a thrill to it because I was being talked about on the Internet in reference to the show that I was on," Scott said. – USA Today/Tribune News Service
