What Danica McKellar's Wonder Years Co-Stars Have Really Said About Her Over The Years

From the very beginning, "The Wonder Years" was a show steeped in nostalgia. The series premiered in 1988, and for those who watched the coming-of-age dramedy as kids, it now evokes a different nostalgic feeling: They remember growing up alongside the core group of kids portrayed by Fred Savage, Danica McKellar, and Josh Saviano. For as long as they live, the cast of "The Wonder Years" probably won't be able to escape being asked about the series that made them stars. As Kevin Arnold, Savage put McKellar's girl-next-door character, Winnie Cooper, on a pedestal. Off-screen, McKellar also made quite an impression on all of her castmates, who have had nothing but nice things to say about her over the years.

In 2014, McKellar offered her theory on why it resonated so strongly with young viewers when it first aired. "'The Wonder Years' was the first show to acknowledge the feelings that kids were having at that age so instead of a show focusing on a family and the kids were just there, this show made the kids' experiences the priority," she told Paste. That same year, she shared that some of the realism also came from the writers overhearing conversations the show's young actors had with each other. She and Savage became such close friends that she even discussed her feelings about other boys with him. "There was this whole episode dedicated to, 'Do you like him, or do you like him, like him?' That was an expression that he and I used when we were talking about some guy that I had a crush on, in real life," she recalled to Collider. McKellar shared close bonds with many of her former castmates, and they all look back on their time together fondly.

In a bittersweet moment during the pilot of "The Wonder Years," Kevin Arnold comforted Winnie Cooper, whose brother had just died in the Vietnam War, and the pair shared a sweet kiss. During a 2014 92nd Street Y conversation, Danica McKellar and Fred Savage were asked how many times they've been asked to comment about the lip-lock. "I don't know — hundreds," Savage guessed. Savage also said he doesn't remember being directed to stroke McKellar's hair in the kiss scene's final take, which was the one used on the show. "I just kind of went with it," he recalled. 

McKellar revealed it took half a dozen takes to get it right, but the first might have been the most stressful of them all — it was both of the young actors' first real-life kiss. "It was terrifying. We were both really scared and nervous," Savage said on "Good Morning America" in 2014. He further explained in 2000 that he wasn't just concerned about the kiss looking good on camera. "I was a young guy, I wanted to be a good kisser, you know," he confessed (via People). For "The Wonder Years" DVD extras, Savage rewatched multiple takes of the kiss with McKellar. "That is so cute," he said of one (via YouTube). McKellar criticized another take because she had smiled, but Savage said to her, "I feel like you're being too hard on yourself." He also told his former co-star, "I mean, you are the most beautiful child in the world." On top of that, he commented on how McKellar is aging like fine wine, saying to her, "You look exactly the same."

On "The Wonder Years," Kevin Arnold idealized Winnie Cooper to a point that she almost felt mythological when he remembered her as an adult, and many fans felt betrayed when the pair didn't end up together. In real life, Fred Savage fell for the girl behind the romanticized love interest. "I was in love with her for the same reasons every other boy fell in love with her. You won't meet a sweeter, nicer girl — and she's gorgeous," he said in 2000 (via People). His crush on Danica McKellar was initially reciprocated. "He actually wrote me a love letter in real life, and we wrote each other a couple letters," McKellar revealed to Entertainment Weekly. However, they became more like brother and sister as time went on. Apparently, the shift in dynamic occurred around the time Savage introduced her to a real romance killer: the "pull my finger" joke.

During a cast interview for the DVD extras, Savage told McKellar, "I just really wanted you to like me, Danica, and I would just always try to make that happen." His admiration for his castmate continued into adulthood. "Danica is the most courageous, and she's amazing. Fearless — courageous and fearless," he told "Entertainment Tonight" after McKellar competed on Season 18 of "Dancing with the Stars" in 2014. Savage went on to become a prolific director whose TV credits include "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "Modern Family," "2 Broke Girls," and "The Conners." With those credentials, what he said about McKellar's performance in "The Wonder Years" was high praise. "You were just so open all the time and vulnerable and just the best," he told her during the DVD interview. "I just loved you and what you did."

Some fans might not know that McKellar nearly lost the role of Winnie Cooper in "The Wonder Years" to her sister, who also auditioned for the role. "They ended up hiring me, but they said they loved Crystal [McKellar] and they meant it ... They wrote a part for her." Danica told ABC News in 2014. That part was Becky Slater, a mean girl who briefly dates Kevin Arnold. While the role was nowhere near as large as Danica's, Crystal wasn't bitter or jealous. In fact, during her interview for the DVD, Crystal said, "I credit Danica with a lot of the success of the show" (via YouTube). She also praised Danica for doing such an incredible job early on that her role was expanded from guest star to series regular.

Crystal loved being on set with her sister and her other castmates, saying of the experience, "It didn't necessarily feel like work." She and Danica filmed together often, and one of her favorite memories was when the two of them got to dress up like "Star Trek" characters. "I loved that because the costumes were hilarious," she said. Danica was also a fan of the wardrobe department's work that day, as were their male "Wonder Years" castmates. "You got to wear that awesome outfit," Josh Saviano said to Danica during their 92nd Street Y interview. "Yeah, the girls looked great," Fred Savage agreed. Off-set, Danica and Crystal did volunteer work together for causes they both cared about, and later on, it was Danica who coached Crystal through her first pregnancy. "Danica has been the most wonderful older sister anyone could ever ask for," Crystal said in the DVD interview. "She's been such a role model to me."

In 2014, Josh Saviano admitted that he was among the many boys of his generation who had a crush on Danica McKellar. However, the actor — who played Kevin Arnold's geeky friend, Paul Pfeiffer, on "The Wonder Years" — had started viewing her differently by 2019. That February, he shared a photo on X and wrote, "The more things change, the more things stay the same, and the more I enjoy hanging out with these 2 ... You guys are like family to me. Love ya!"

That family vibe was evident when he and McKellar did some Instagram Lives together in 2020. While reminiscing about "The Wonder Years," McKellar correctly guessed that Saviano's favorite episode would be the one where Paul celebrates his bar mitzvah. During their 92nd Street Y talk, Saviano also revealed that McKellar attended his bar mitzvah in real life. Another topic they discussed was their relationships with other child stars. The group included one of Saviano's pals, "Growing Pains" actor Jeremy Miller — the center of McKellar and Candace Cameron Bure's teenage love triangle, though this was unbeknownst to the two girls at the time.

In the DVD extras, Saviano praised McKellar's performance on "The Wonder Years." While discussing how viewers see the world from Kevin Arnold's viewpoint on the show, he said, "What I think Danica did a beautiful job doing is behind all of that was the depth of a human, of a real person ... Danica's portrayal of Winnie made Winnie her own character." Saviano celebrated his 50th birthday in 2026, and in response to Danica's Instagram post marking the occasion, he wrote, "Thanks Danica, for the birthday wishes and the lifetime of friendship and creative collaboration. Love you."

Dan Lauria portrayed Kevin Arnold's father on "The Wonder Years," Jack Arnold. While Winnie Cooper and Kevin spent a great deal of time together on the show, Lauria noted that Winnie and Jack exchanged words just once during its entire six-season run. "I said, 'Hello, Winnie.' She said, 'Hi, Mr. Arnold,'" he recalled to "Location Station." Jack was a man of few words and a bit of a grump — so not someone a kid would want to hang out with. But Lauria developed a close bond with Danica McKellar off-set. "I'm closer with Danica than anybody from the show. She's like my daughter," he said in the 2021 interview, adding that they had even dined together recently. A few years later, McKellar revealed that their bond remained intact. "Dan is the [cast member] I'm the closest with," she told Fox News in 2026.

Lauria often sounds like a proud father when he talks about McKellar's accomplishments, including her other careers as a brilliant mathematician and author. "She was inducted into the International University of Mathematicians. She's a genius," he boasted to "CT Style" in 2018. "I don't know why she talks to me." When McKellar married Scott Sveslosky in 2014, she invited Lauria to their wedding, and she backed up his claim about their familial bond when she told Paste, "Dan is like a second dad to me." While he portrayed a father for years on television, Lauria never had children of his own. However, thanks to Danica, he hasn't just gotten to feel like a dad — it seems that he's also enjoyed the grandparent experience. He told The A.V. Club in 2014, "Danica's my girl. I even babysit her kids sometimes!"

While singing Danica McKellar's praises, Dan Lauria has sometimes mentioned another former child star: Lindsay Lohan, whose celebrity feuds, multiple arrests, and other shenanigans once inspired no shortage of negative headlines. "Why does Lindsay Lohan have a show and Danica McKellar doesn't?" he wanted to know in a 2013 "Better Connecticut" interview. "Danica McKellar is much more beautiful," he added. Lauria might not have been quite up-to-date on his Lohan news, as her career was on the wane at the time of his interview: She'd appeared in the critically panned 2013 film "The Canyons" and made a cameo as herself in "Scary Movie 5." 

But that same year, he dragged Lohan again in his interview with The A.V. Club. "You'll read a lot more about Lindsay Lohan than you'll ever read about Danica McKellar, who's a real inspiration to young women," he said. At least he wasn't advocating for Lohan to get blacklisted. "It'd probably be smart to make a series with Lindsay Lohan and Danica. Maybe Danica could straighten her out!" he suggested. Instead, it was Lauria who would get to work with his former co-star. McKellar had started appearing in Hallmark movies, and he fittingly got cast as her character's father in the 2018 Hallmark Mystery movie, "Christmas at Grand Valley." While promoting the film in a Hallmark Channel interview, Lauria reminisced about how McKellar used to watch Barbra Stanwyck movies at his house, and he spoke about the possibility of working with her again. "I only know two words when I'm around Danica, and that's, 'Yes, dear,'" he joked. Perhaps it put a smile on his face when Lohan rebooted her career with a wholesome holiday movie of her own.

Dan Lauria isn't the only star of "The Wonder Years" who worked with Danica McKellar again. In a 2021 Hallmark Channel interview, Jason Hervey revealed that he contacted Danica to confirm that an offer to appear alongside her in a Hallmark film was legit. "I'm like, 'But do you know about this?'" he recalled. "She's like, 'Who do you think suggested you?'" A Hallmark movie titled "You, Me & the Christmas Trees" is the last place any "Wonder Years" fan would expect to see Hervey's "Wonder Years" character, Wayne Arnold, who probably helped popularize the word "butthead" among the youth of the world. However, Hervey agreed to play a Christmas tree lot operator in the film. "It's great working with him," McKellar told Us Weekly. "We had not worked together since 'The Wonder Years.' We've been friends the whole time, our families are friends."

Like many of McKellar's costars, Hervey considers her family, which he emphasized when a fan asked him to play snog, marry, avoid with three of his female "The Wonder Years" castmates, including McKellar, during a Reddit AMA. "If you said 'give a warm hug to' I'd say all three," he wrote in response. Their closeness was especially evident in 2024 when McKellar posted a photo of herself holding Hervey's baby grandson. "You put him literally right [to] sleep ... he felt the love and knows your family!" Hervey wrote in the comments. In the cast's DVD interview, he also praised McKellar's performance as Winnie Cooper, specifically how she handled the character's indecisiveness on how she felt about Kevin. "You did it, though, in such a real, genuine way that came from this vulnerable place, and it was never arrogant," he told her.

Alley Mills played Norma Arnold, Kevin Arnold's mom from "The Wonder Years." Like her on-screen husband, Mills also didn't do much filming with Danica McKellar. Mills found it surprising that Winnie Cooper was rarely shown around Kevin's family, saying in her DVD extras interview, "I really didn't spend much time with Danica. Because she always had the stories with Fred next door, she didn't come into the kitchen very often. I don't know why, since they were such close friends, she didn't come eat with us" (via YouTube).

Mills and McKellar made up for their characters' limited interactions on the show by being supportive of each other's careers in real life. For instance, Mills surprised McKellar and Dan Lauria by filming a video supporting their Christmas movie, which was played during their Hallmark Channel interview, and Lauria revealed that he and McKellar had attended some of Mills' theater performances. McKellar and Mills also starred in the 2002 film, "Jane White Is Sick & Twisted." In turn, Mills and Lauria also showed up to cheer McKellar on during her "Dancing with the Stars" stint. "It was great to have their support," she told Paste.

During a 2014 media call promoting "The Wonder Years" DVD, Mills listed some of the achievements of the show's young cast. "I was amazed to see what these children have become," she said (via Pop Entertainment Blog). When she got to McKellar, she said, "[She's] a beautiful young woman and phenomenal." Mills also agreed with McKellar's assessment of why "The Wonder Years" appeals to such a wide audience: It explored the kids' experiences, acknowledged their emotions, and recognized them as meaningful and important. "[It] transcended barriers somehow that could affect everybody, as Danica just said, young and old," Mills stated.

On "The Wonder Years," British actor Olivia d'Abo played Kevin Arnold's free-spirited hippie sister. In the show's DVD extras, Danica McKellar revealed that she only shot a single scene with d'Abo, who was a few years older than her. During their Instagram Live, Josh Saviano told McKellar that he was in awe of d'Abo because she was dating John Lennon's first son, Julian Lennon, when she appeared on the show. "I wasn't actually cool enough to recognize how cool she was ... She would tell jokes that I didn't understand." McKellar confessed (via YouTube).

Maybe McKellar wasn't as impressed with d'Abo as Saviano was, but d'Abo gave McKellar a glowing review in her solo DVD interview (via YouTube). She brought up McKellar's incredible aptitude for mathematics, saying, "Brilliant. She's so smart, and I don't know if she knew at that time how interested she actually was in math and how gifted she was." For the record, McKellar credits mathematics for helping her find her self-worth after "The Wonder Years." On the "Hey Dude... The 90s Called!" podcast, McKellar shared that she discovered her proficiency in the field of study after enrolling in a math class at UCLA.

During a 2014 media call, McKellar and d'Abo had a fun discussion about how much they loved the go-go boots and minidress that Winnie Cooper wore in the pilot episode of "The Wonder Years." She also praised McKellar's musings on why the show resonates. "You really got a perspective of what it was like for kids that you hadn't really gotten before on the television show," she agreed. "What they were really experiencing in a very real and personal way."