While Topanga was originally only supposed to be in one episode in Season 1, the character ended up being such a big hit that she was brought back for the season before eventually becoming a main cast member.
In fact, any fan of the show would tell you that the name “Topanga” is synonymous with The boy meets the worldand quickly established herself as the love interest of main character Cory Matthews, and the two were married in season 6.
Danielle even ended up reprising her role in 2014 for the sequel series. The girl meets the worldwhich is about Cory and Topanga’s daughter, and lasted three seasons.
In 2022, Danielle and her ex The boy meets the world Co-stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong launched a rerun podcast, Pod meets the worldwhere they reminisce about their time on the show and share behind-the-scenes information with fans.
For context, Will played Cory’s older brother Eric on the show, and was 16 when he was cast. Rider was 13 in the first season and played Cory’s best friend Shawn.
In an early episode of the podcast, Danielle revealed that there was a huge pay disparity between her and her male co-stars, leading her father to team up with her agent, Judy Savage, in an attempt to boost her salary. This included forcing Danielle to boycott a script reading, something she was incredibly reluctant to do.
But the topic came up again when Judy joined the gang for an interview on Monday’s episode of Pod meets the worldDuring the conversation, the now-retired agent recalled how difficult it was to increase Danielle’s salary, and it was revealed that she never reached the same level as her co-stars.
“You had to double my salary,” Danielle confirmed. “I think between Season 4 and Season 5 I went from making $7,500 an episode to $15,000 an episode.”
“I always made less than everyone else on the show,” Danielle reiterated. “And they said it was because of where I started; I started at a very low threshold, I was never going to improve. But you did the best you could and it was amazing to see.”
Meanwhile, Will revealed that looking ahead to the sixth or seventh season of The boy meets the worldHe and Rider teamed up to negotiate their new salaries.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Judy reflected on how much actors’ salaries had increased during their years in the industry, saying that child actor Luke Edwards, who starred in a slew of ’90s films, was making up to $100,000 per film “very quickly.”
He then confirmed that his first client who received a million for a single film was a High School Musical star.