Tori Spelling and Kellie Martin Recall Cast of Their 1989 Classic Troop Beverly Hills Being ‘Cliquey’

The cast of Troop Beverly Hills was very cliquey, according to Tori Spelling and Kellie Martin.

The longtime friends got together to discuss their experience playing supporting roles in the 1989 comedy on the latest episode of Spelling’s podcast 90210MG, with the host admitting that she felt “out of the loop” with the other young actresses in the movie.

“It was like, the Beverly Hills girls and then the Red Feathers,” Spelling, 51, said, referencing the film’s two rival Girl Scout-esque troops. “It was, like, very two distinct groups. And I was, like, ‘Oh, is this what cliques are like? Okay. I got it. I got it: Not just in schools, on movie sets.’ ”

Both Spelling and Martin noted the irony in the fact that Spelling, who actually grew up in Beverly Hills, ended up being cast as a member of the Red Feathers troop, while Martin played a member of the titular Troop Beverly Hills.

According to Martin, Spelling wasn’t the only one who felt “out of the loop.”

“It was actually a clique within the clique,” Martin, 49, recalled. “I definitely didn’t feel a part of the little core group of Troop Beverly Hills girls.”

“I played the poor girl. So, I was not really, like, a rich Beverly Hills girl,” she continued. “But, also, I auditioned for the part of Hannah Nefler — Jenny Lewis’s role — five times. And then per usual — like, literally, like, my whole career — Jenny Lewis gets cast as the main girl, and I get cast as the friend, the sidekick, or something like that.”

Martin said she was up for the same roles as Lewis, who played Troop Beverly Hills star Shelley Long’s daughter in the film, multiple times as a young actress. “She always got the part, and I always got the part of her friend,” she said. “So, anyway, when I did Troop Beverly Hills, I felt sad to not be Shelley’s daughter, to not be Hannah.”

Other members of the cast like Ami Foster and Emily Schulman already knew each other from being in sitcoms like Punky Brewster and Small Wonder, according to Martin.

“So, like, they were, like, in the kind of, like, child actor world. And I was very much on the outskirts because I had just done, like, commercials and guest spots,” she said. “So, I felt very much, like, not cool at all during that movie, and I always felt like I was trying to fight for the camera.”

The film’s director Jeff Kanew, she claimed, left it up to the young cast to decided where they would stand in a scene, often leaving Martin feeling like she was left “in the back” of a shot.

Spelling and Martin, who also went on to costar in the 1994 TV movie A Friend to Die For, seem to remember Troop Beverly Hills fondly, however, with Martin noting how well the film held up when she recently rewatched it with her 8-year-old daughter.

“It’s a movie that went on to become a cult classic,” Spelling said. “You know you’re big when Kim Kardashian has a shower based on Troop Beverly Hills.”

“It’s a time capsule,” Matrin agreed. “It’s Rodeo Drive in its heyday, and it’s Spago, and it’s all these, like, iconic places.”

“And gay men love it,” she added. “They’ve really kept the fire alive for Troop Beverly Hills.”

Spelling recalled her excitement at being in the film because it was something with which her famous father, TV producer Aaron Spelling, wasn’t involved.

“Then I got cast as a Red Feather. I was like, ‘Oh, okay,’ ” she said. “So, people, when they hear I was in that movie and they don’t really know about it, they’re like, ‘Oh, [your character was] in Troop Beverly Hills, obviously.’ I’m like, ‘No, actually, I grew up in Beverly Hills, [but] wasn’t in that troop.’ ”