The UNICEF ambassador revealed to ET that a completed script has been turned in to Amazon Freevee: 'It's really funny.'
Alyssa Milano is revealing exciting news about the Who's the Boss? sequel series with Tony Danza, which landed at Amazon Freevee this past summer. In an exclusive sit-down with ET's Rachel Smith, the actress shared a completed script has been turned in and the project, for which she admitted she was initially hesitant about, is moving right along.
"I was very skeptical about this," Milano confessed to ET when asked for an update on the Who's the Boss? sequel, which is written by One Day at a Time's Mike Royce and Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz. She was promoting her advocacy work with UNICEF, for which she has been an ambassador for 20 years, and Tuesday's inaugural UNICEF Gala honoring the organization's efforts to help children around the world.
"And then I spoke to Tony... and I got kind of excited. I was like, 'If we could put this together in a way that really stays true to that whole progressive thing that we had in the '80s...,'" she continued. "Angela (played by Judith Light) was a single mom raising her kids, owned her own business, divorced, had a promiscuous cougar mother that lived in the backyard talking about hickeys and then she hires a dude to come clean her house. I mean, in the '80s that was huge."
"If we can figure out how to tap into that with today's issues and make it... as progressive -- and I gotta tell you, I read the script. There's a script," Milano emphasized. "But you are the first person to know that we submitted the script to Freevee before Thanksgiving and they are internally talking this week about it. So hopefully we will hear soon."
Though there is no firm update on whether the follow-up will be moving toward filming, it appears it may be headed in that direction, though nothing is written in stone. "It could be really soon," Milano said of production potentially kicking up. "And I gotta tell you, it's really funny. It's really funny."
The proposed Who's the Boss? update would center around Milano's Samantha Micelli, who is a single mother living in the same house she grew up in on the original sitcom, which ran from 1984 to 1992. Her father, Tony, lives with her and helps take care of Samantha's children.
"It would be Tony coming to take care of my children because I get a job that makes me travel a lot, so it's that whole dynamic," Milano teased. "But also, the generational difference between raising a child now versus then, which is always the conflict that I have with my parents in real life about gentle parenting. So I'm really looking forward to that aspect of it."
The 49-year-old actress expressed optimism that the Who's the Boss? update, which has been in the works for a long while, will get the official greenlight. "I think it might happen," she said. "I really have this gut feeling that it might happen."
While Danza and Milano are the only original stars currently attached to the series, Milano said the door is open for Light to return as Angela. "I'm sure she will, I'm sure she will," she offered.
Milano acknowledged the timelessness of the original sitcom, crediting the tight-knit bond she had with her cast members as playing a crucial role in why the show has stood the test of time.
"I think we genuinely love each other. I think we genuinely were a family and I think the progressive nature of what the show was at that time set it apart enough that it wasn't totally scary for people to watch," she explained. "But it was still a couch sitcom where families are sitting around a couch."
As for Milano's two decades of advocacy work with UNICEF, she acknowledged it's her "longest relationship ever." Milano spoke about several UNICEF trips across the world that have stayed seared into her memory.
"I believe in the mission," she said of why she's continued to work closely with UNICEF. "I've traveled the world now with UNICEF. I was in Angola two years after the peace treaty was signed, the longest war in the history of mankind; I was in India six months after the tsunami to see how UNICEF was helping these incredible villages grow and keeping communities together and getting kids back in school, which obviously was a big deal. I went to Kosovo to see the disparity and the difference in how children suffer the most in impoverished situations and now this trip to Egypt. And I feel like the trip to Egypt honestly felt the most hopeful for me out of all the places because -- don't get me wrong there are still really, really difficult things that are happening there. But it feels like everyone that I spoke to... understood that that needed to change and understands what needs to happen in order to make that change, and a lot of that is supporting UNICEF's work."
Milano said her travels abroad have inspired her to teach her own children "that giving back and doing good is as fundamental as eating and brushing your teeth."
"I think you need to instill that in them at the age that they instinctually have it because if you look at your child on the playground and another child gets hurt, another child will go up to them and say, 'Are you OK?' It's just innately in a child to want to care for other people," she said. "Somewhere along the line that gets distorted or corrupted, and I think social media now plays a big part of that. But if we can really teach kids when it's innately in them, when they're feeling that empathy already, if we could say yes, that's what it means to be a human... Every day you need to do something."
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