How Danica McKellar Learned to Embrace Her Wonder Years Past

Danica McKellar knows you want to ask her about The Wonder Years. And she also wants you to know it’s okay.

When the star was on stage at RomaDrama Live!—a three-day convention in Palm Beach, Fl. for fans of Hallmark, Lifetime and GAC Family TV movies—several attendees approached the microphone, hands shaking, to say how much the classic sitcom, and more specifically, McKellar’s character Winnie Cooper, meant to them. 

McKellar happily answered all of their questions, even getting up at one point to give one guest a big hug, a moment they had likely envisioned for years. 

“It’s incredible to be part of a show that had that kind of impact,” McKellar told E! News after the panel. “It’s something that I never want to take for granted.”

But that doesn’t mean the 47-year-old was always comfortable with her early brush with fame.

“Right when the show ended, I thought, ‘Okay, I am moving on and so will the rest of the world,'” McKellar, who was 13 when the show began airing in 1988, said, “and the rest of the world didn’t move on.”