Krysten Ritter has fond memories of her time on the short-lived sitcom Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, particularly about working with costar James Van Der Beek.
“I love James. The Dancing With the Stars stuff still makes me laugh,” Ritter, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while chatting about her new film Sonic the Hedgehog 3. “We got along so well. We had such a great time together.” (In the series, Van Der Beek’s character competed on DWTS several years before he would go on to do so IRL in 2019.)
Van Der Beek, 47, played a fictional and heightened version of himself on the ABC series, which ran for two seasons from 2012 to 2013. Ritter starred as Chloe, the show’s titular difficult roommate to Dreama Walker’s June and a friend of Van Der Beek’s.
Reflecting on the show, Ritter told Us that her “absolute favorite thing in comedy that I’ve ever done” was an episode in which her character pretended to be an editor for People magazine, during which she used her power to put Van Der Beek on the cover and slapped an employee on both sides of their face using both hands, which she dubbed the “smackwich.”
“That episode, that’s a good rewatch,” she shared. “I rewatched that episode maybe, like, a year ago and I was like, ‘This is gold.’ This show was so ahead of its time. It was so well written. It was so fun. I love playing that character so much.”
Ritter holds a special place in her heart for several of her past projects, in addition to Don’t Trust the B—-. “I’m so lucky that I’ve been in really cool things. I’m so lucky. I’m so grateful,” she gushed. “I don’t know if there’s one more than the other, but obviously Jessica Jones is a big one. That’s like a daily thing, but Breaking Bad‘s really up there too. Two very cool shows that I’m very proud to be a part of.”
Krysten Ritter and James Van Der Beek Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Confederacy
Ritter starred as Jessica Jones on the Netflix series of the same name from 2015 to 2019 and appeared as Jane Margolis on Breaking Bad from 2009 to 2010. Her latest role as Director Rockwell in Sonic 3 is a memorable one for the actress, as the film will mark one of her first projects that her 5-year-old son, Bruce, will get to see. (She shares her son with longtime partner Adam Granduciel.)
“He was about 15 months old and I played a big scary mean witch [in the movie Nightbooks], and I would practice some of my lines on him and he would laugh and he would be on set and see me in these big costumes,” she shared. “And now, the kid’s obsessed with Halloween and I don’t know why. We wonder why because he was exposed to all of that fun, over-the-top scary stuff. So that’s the only thing that he has seen.”
She continued: “I have some Jessica Jones little action figures, so he knows about Jessica Jones, but he could not see any of that ever. So, this will be the first thing that he’s able to see of my work, which is really exciting.”
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is in theaters now.
With reporting by Tufayel Ahmed