Most young girls would move heaven and earth to meet Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron, but 4-year-old Rory Melora Jackson and 7-year-old Piper Quincy Jackson recently had the opportunity to do just that and no special effort was needed. That’s because their mom, actress Melora Hardin, 41, just so happens to be co-starring with the tween sensations in two upcoming films – 17 Again and Hannah Montana: The Movie. Unlike the majority of their peers, however, Rory and Piper had no real perspective on just how popular Miley and Zac really are. “To them they were just another actress and actor,” Melora tells Time Out New York Kids. “We don’t really have TV in our house; It was my husband’s decision to turn it off when our first daughter was born.”
“I’m sure there will come a day when they’re going to want TV, but for now they do other things — look at books, do a puzzle. They get to watch videos and movies on the weekend.”
The girls are content for now with their ballet class and music lessons, and they enjoy “doing shows for Mommy and Daddy,” Melora says. While she wouldn’t stop them from pursuing a career in show business, Melora says they’ll have to be persistent! “They would have to bug me as much as I bugged my parents,” she admits. “I’m thankful that I wasn’t famous at 15 and that I had my teenage years to myself.” Rory and Piper do have one film under their belts already, however — the film You, which Melora’s husband Gildart Jackson wrote and Melora herself directs. While Rory was a baby, the couple were lying in bed having “one of those blissful new-parent moments” when Melora daydreamed about the speech she’d someday give at Rory’s wedding. Gildart soon thereafter produced a script inspired by that dream.
“Originally, we thought we were going to raise money [to get it filmed]; then we decided to make it ourselves. It was a family affair, made about a family by a family: Our kids, my parents and our friends are all in it. We were scrambling eggs in our kitchen for the crew while getting our makeup done.”
The film was shot in 18 days, and spans 21 years in the life of a family. “Hopefully it will help people appreciate their loved ones that much more,” she adds.
Melora recently completed a three month turn in the Broadway revival of Chicago, and the experience was positive for the whole family. The girls were in New York with their mom for five weeks before returning to California for school, but not before taking in all the city has to offer – including a carriage ride through Central Park, ice skating at Rockefeller Center and visits to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the Metropolitan Museum and the Empire State Building. Melora adds,
“They loved having Christmas in the city. Since we were staying in an apartment in midtown, we drew a chimney on a big piece of wrapping paper and hung it on the wall to make sure Santa could still come. And of course they loved making snow angels in fresh snow.”
I think, Melora and family do not know that today, when TV becoming so frightening some parents that might give bad effect to their children, there is a Parental Controls to help you watch the children from bad or uneducated channel.
