For several of the on-screen subjects interviewed for Investigation Discovery’s docuseries Quiet on Set, it was a gamechanging way to draw attention to long-ignored problems facing the industry of children’s television. For others, taking part was apparently just as traumatizing as the initial experiences of working under former Nickelodeon creative Dan Schneider. Specifically, The Amanda Show’s Raquel Lee Bolleau and Zoey 101’s Alexa Nikolas have called out the project’s producers for securing their involvement through false pretenses, and then ignoring their attempts to correct things.
Both former child stars shared similar stories about how they were contacted by Quiet on Set’s creators and co-directors Emma Schwartz and Mary Robertson, telling IndieWire that they were each told that the docuseries would take an open and honest look at the issues facing adults who suffered traumas during childhood. And both say they spoke about their striving attempts to raise awareness on such issues, and how they help others who have gone through similar pain, believing those elements would help fuel the project’s narrative.
However, Lee Bolleau and Nikolas were both shocked and dismayed upon watching the docuseries (available to stream with a Max subscription), which they claim used their footage and answers out of context to support the project’s salacious narrative. According to Lee Bolleau:
After watching the show, I saw that it was not at all what I signed up for. I also saw that I was surrounded by people who have one agenda, and that one agenda is their own success. It’s a horrible word to even use in this context: success.
In Alexa Nikolas’ mind, the producers were clearly more interested in repeatedly airing some of the questionable video clips from her Zoey 101 days, rather than actually putting her story out into the world in a helpful way. And both she and Raquel Lee Bolleau say that while their interviews started off normally, the producers began inserting questions about convicted sexual predator Brian Peck, who was notoriously arrested for assaulting the underage Drake Bell, yet still managed to get letters of support from other young actors such as Ashton Kutcher and Will Friedle. Once those out-of-the-blue inquiries started coming up, the women started to become suspicious about what was actually happening.
Part of the reason why neither actress was aware of the situation is because they claim they and other interview subjects were “siloed” by producers so that cross-communication could be kept to a minimum, and the actual point of the docuseries could go undetected. And Lee Bolleau says she even spoke at length about her long-standing friendship with former co-star Drake Bell, only to learn with the rest of the world that he was the victim at the heart of Peck’s court case.
The fact that his trauma was used as a cliffhanger for the second episode sparked quite a bit of flak on social media, and Lee Bolleau slammed the creators for not crafting a more beneficial series after all that time. In her words:
To know that you’re about to reveal something like this, and you don’t even care to nurture the real conversation, even to support who he was then and who he turned into, how dare you? You had two years. You had two years to shape. You had two years to nurture. You had two years to develop. You had two years to bring together. You had two years to build. You had two years to get your stuff in order. There’s no way that this should be falling apart the way that it is.
As if the first four episodes didn’t already make things difficult, Lee Bolleau also claims the fifth installment, which was produced in response to the doc’s popularity, featured her comments about a particular Amanda Show sketch in which Amanda Bynes was required to spit on her co-star. While she addressed it in the context of a toxic workplace, the producers then had another Black actress sharing her opinion that the sketch was racist, which is an angle Lee Bolleau says she never voiced. And yet after the episode, she had to deal with the aftermath of viewers thinking she perceived the spitting to be a racially motivated act.
Alexa Nikolas said that rewatching her most notorious Zoey 101 clip with the goo was used in a sensationalist fashion, and that the docuseries producers were on the same level as her former Nickelodeon boss in terms of doing whatever they wanted. In her words:
[Schwartz and Robertson] feel like they have a license to it and that they’re able to do whatever they want with it. That’s how Dan felt, too… what is different from them to Dan Schneider? I don’t see a difference. I only see a crossover.
These two actresses certainly aren’t the only ones who have spoken out against Quiet on Set, with Marc Summers revealing he was also interviewed under false pretenses, and that his doc footage speaking highly about Nickelodeon was taken completely out of context. Finance guru Chelsea Fagan also spoke out in defense of iCarly vet Jennette McCurdy for audio from their 2022 podcast interview being used in the doc despite the requests being denied. Even Stevens' Christy Carlson Romano says she flat-out turned down the opp to be in the doc, and talked to Mayim Bialik about it being trauma porn, with Bialik agreeing that child safety issues were a big problem in the industry, and not just at Nickelodeon.
It remains to be seen if anything will change in the near future because of Quiet on Set. Head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what else is on the way soon.
