Soleil Moon Frye says watching old videos for her doc Kid 90 unleashed a ‘Pandora’s box’ of emotions

Soleil Moon Frye says watching video from her teens for her new documentary Kid 90 unleashed a ‘Pandora’s box’ of feelings for the former child star.

The actress/director’s latest project Kid 90 is crafted from decades-old home movies from the Punky Brewster star’s famous adolescence, something Frye, 44, now realizes ‘locked away’ because she had lost some of her ‘closest friends’ during those years.

‘I think on a subconscious level, I probably locked it away for so long because I had lost some of my closest friends so young.’

‘So, on a subconscious level, I think I probably wasn’t ready to look back at it,’ she explained to TooFab ahead of the Hulu doc’s release on Friday.

Fame was tough on the teens in Frye’s life.

She lost friends like actor Jonathan Brandis and Kids star Justin Pierce from suicide when they were just 27 and 25, respectively.

And looking back, Soleil says she didn’t realize how much ‘pain’ some of her peers were in. 

‘It was so moving and there was so much pain, because I didn’t see how much pain some of the people I loved most were going through,’ she continued. 

‘I think we all had different levels of it. There was so much joy and bliss that I remembered and there were also some internal struggles we were going through, some of us more than others.’

Seeing the joy and darkness in the videos struck Soleil with a type of survivor’s ‘guilt’, something ‘didn’t know’ she had until watching the tapes back.

“How often do we really look at somebody and say, “How are you?” and actually hear them back,’ she wonders in the film. 

‘That’s why this process has been like f***ing blinders coming off. I don’t think I’ve been living a lie for the last 20 years, but I certainly haven’t been f***ing listening.

‘Now that they’re off, now that I’ve opened Pandora’s Box, I can’t put any of this back.’

Soleil was able to gather some prominent names from her past for Kid 90, which features interviews from Brian Austin Green, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, David Arquette and Stephen Dorff.

And she was grateful for the opportunity to hear their perspectives.

‘Everyone was so willing to share themselves, and to share so authentically,’ she told TooFab. ‘I think it really goes to show that these were really true friendships that go so far back, and we really were like our own middle school of friends and kids growing up together.’

‘I was so grateful that everyone just opened their hearts and I think they’re so sincere throughout it in sharing their lives. It was amazing and each person had their own perspective. At the root of it though, in the core, you saw this deep love and connection we all had with each other.’

Kid 90 comes out Friday, March 12th 2021, on Hulu.