After portraying a grandmother in a new film, Melissa Joan Hart is taking the online frenzy over her role in stride.
“I couldn’t be more flattered that people don’t think of me as a grandmother (no matter how possible it is at the age of 47),” the actor told HuffPost in an email Friday. “I’m proud of my performance in the film and it’s fun to see it go viral.”
In a similarly worded post to Instagram on Friday, she added: “I guess now Clarissa can Explain AARP or play the Middle-Aged Witch.”
Hart, widely known for her roles in “Clarissa Explains It All” and “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” appeared this year in “Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story,” which is based on a 1980s true-crime case. In it, she plays Ella, the grandmother of 11-year-old Mary (Presley Allard), who shoots and kills her abusive stepfather (Connor McMahon) at the request of her mother (Olivia Scriven).
Though “Would You Kill for Me?” premiered to minimal fanfare on Lifetime back in October, a clip of the movie circulated on social media this week.
Many fans expressed disbelief that Hart, who endeared herself to a generation of young TV viewers in the 1990s, had been cast as a grandparent.
“Melissa Joan Hart is four years older than me and getting cast as a grandma so I just need to lie down for a minute,” one person wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“I just saw a clip of Melissa Joan Hart playing a grandmother,” said another. “Someone hold me I am unwell.”
It’s worth noting that Priscilla Wyers, the West Virginia woman on whom Scriven’s character is based, was 16 at the time of her daughter’s birth, so casting a younger actor to portray Mary’s grandmother may not be too far off the mark.
In real life, Hart is a mother of three sons: Mason, 17, Braydon, 15, and Tucker, 11, whom she shares with her husband of 20 years, musician Mark Wilkerson.
Watch a trailer for “Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story” below.