Mo

Just in time for the premiere of the CW's revamped 'Beverly Hills: 90210' on Tuesday night, the 'New York Times' interviewed cast members of the original to find out what was it really like behind the scenes of the hit series.

"There were times when it was worse than high school," Jennie Garth, who played Kelly Taylor, tells the paper. "The environment there was like: Are you kidding me? There was a lot of tension and unnecessary drama on the set, a certain amount of competition, and a certain — probably — anger about different salaries as the years progressed."

"People would find out how much someone was making, and then they'd be angry and want that, or if you got days off in your contract, they'd want that. Nobody was brave enough to step in and set us straight, and have a serious talk with us about it. There was a lot of tension directed from one specific person, and that one specific person had to reap the consequences from that."

Garth's hoping it's a different experience this time as she returns for the revamped '90210', but she says it wasn't all bad times: "I saw a picture the other day of all of us at a photo shoot on the beach. I can't even imagine doing that stuff. I was in a bikini, on the shoulders of Ian Ziering. And the thought of doing that now, I'd be like, 'I'll crush you, boy.' It's inconceivable to me."

As for the 'high school' comment, sounds some of it had to do with Shannen Doherty, who also returns, but she isn't apologizing for anything: "I really could care less about it anymore. I have nothing to apologize for. Whatever I did was my growing-up process that I needed to go through, that anybody my age goes through. And however other people may have reacted to that is their issue."

"Nobody likes to read bad things written about themselves, and a vast majority of them were exaggerated or completely false. But to be completely honest, I don't even think about that anymore. At some point you have to move on. Nobody gets along with everybody in this world. It's absolutely impossible."

And of course, we just had to share this from Jason Priestley, who played Brandon Walsh, on his audition: "I remember meeting Aaron (Spelling) for the first time. He was walking across the four-inch-deep shag carpeting in his office with a cocktail in his hand. And the second that happened, there were no more nerves for me. I thought: 'Well, you know, Aaron's already drinking. I'm cool. I got this."

Priestly also has an interesting take on why the show succeeded: "There was no excitement about it at first. Fox was this rag-tag group of affiliates back in 1990... Oddly enough, our numbers started to improve during the first gulf war. People were looking for entertainment, and they were looking for escapism. And by God 'Beverly Hills 90210' was the perfect escape from the bombing of Baghdad."

But Jennie Garth thinks it had a lot to do with the summer episodes: "The show was on for a while, and it was OK. The ratings. And then we filmed all of our risqué summer episodes at the beach and aired those at the time when the other shows were in reruns. So we caught a huge teen audience, kids that were home from school. And then it just went crazy."

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cabsmd

I loooove Jennie Garth. ♥