Melora Hardin Opens Up About Her Time with Michael Landon While on “Little House on the Prairie” Set as a Child Actor

Melora Hardin’s career as a child actor took her to one of the most loved shows in American history: Little House on the Prairie.

On the Jan. 13 episode of Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko, The Office star opened up about her time on the series during her days as a child actor. She originally auditioned for the series when she was 9, and she read for the part with actor Matthew Labyorteaux. At the time, the series was casting young versions of Michael Landon’s Charles Ingalls and Karen Grassle’s Caroline Ingalls.

“Charles and Caroline had to be dancing together, and Matthew said he had already been cast, and he said that he wanted me to play the part because I didn't step on his feet, and all the other girls did,” Hardin, 57, remembered. Hardin was a dancer; “If you'd asked me as a child what I was gonna do when I grew up, I would've told you I was gonna be a ballerina, and that acting was my hobby.”

Neither Hardin nor Labyorteaux ended up getting the part, but Labyorteaux, 58, ended up joining the series in season 5 as Albert Ingalls. Hardin was cast in an episode as Belinda, one of Albert’s classmates. Belinda is terrorized by Nancy, the adopted sister of Little House on the Prairie antagonist Nellie Oleson, who is just as dastardly as her sister. 

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“I was 13 first, and then my character was Belinda, and she got locked in the ice house, by the new Nellie, who was just as mean as the old Nellie,” Hardin said.

Years later, Hardin returned to the series for the 1983 TV movie Little House: Look Back to Yesterday as a new character, Michele, Albert’s love interest. “I played his love interest and, actually, Matthew and I had our first screen kiss together,” Hardin shared. “And he's still a very good friend of mine and the godfather of my second daughter.”

Hardin credited Landon — who not only starred in the series but was also an executive producer, write and director — with fostering a “community feeling” on set. “He was just so warm,” she remembered of the actor, who died in 1991 at age 54. “He was so sweet. He made all the kids and adults, everybody, feel like he had really chosen you. And he just let you do your thing.”

“And when he ever gave you direction, you never felt admonished by him. He just was lovely,” she said, noting that he knew “how to talk to kids.”

Related: Little House on the Prairie Cast Says They Felt 'Very Protected' on Set as Child Actors

Hardin — whose credits also include The Bold Type, Transparent and Monk — said that she first started acting because her mom Diane, was an acting teacher who taught young stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, River and Joaquin Phoenix and Molly Ringwald. “She was my stage mom, and she was my first teacher, really,” she said.

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“She just is so joyful about the craft of acting,” Hardin said. Her mom wasn’t focused on her “being famous,” but on her “learning the craft and being an artist.” She said both her parents (her dad is X-Files actor Jerry Hardin) allowed her to have a “real childhood” while still working.

“They really believed and understood that you have to have life experience to be a great actor,” she explained. “You can't be a great actor without great life experience.”

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