Sokoloff played Stephanie Tanner’s rebellious best friend in seasons 7 and 8 of the beloved sitcom
Marla Sokoloff says her daughters were “horrified” by her role as bad girl Gia on Full House — how rude!
The actress dropped the hilariously honest truth bomb during a recent appearance on Dave Coulier‘s podcast Full House Rewind. The moment came up as the Practice star was telling Coulier — who of course played Joey Gladstone through all eight seasons of the beloved ’90s sitcom — that the role of Gia was “perfect” for her “because she was so biting and always being set up by somebody to come in and do something deplorable or irritating, and so I feel like that’s inherently in me.”
Sokoloff played Stephanie Tanner’s best friend, Gia, in seasons 7 and 8. She’s initially introduced as a smoking, rebellious teen who influences Stephanie to make bad decisions, but they eventually become close friends and Stephanie has a positive influence on Gia.
Apparently, it’s the character’s smoking habit that scandalized Sokoloff’s three daughters. “What do you tell them when they see Gia? ‘Don’t act like that?’” Coulier asked. “Exactly,” she replied. “Especially with the smoking stuff. They’re horrified. They’re like, ‘Mom, you were smoking?!’”
Sokoloff herself didn’t mind though, telling Coulier that the herbal cigarettes she used on set “were delicious.”
In fact, Sokoloff said she has fond memories of her time on the Full House set, so much so that, as Coulier pointed out, she’s still close friends with some of the cast. “You guys are all so amazing,” she told him. “And it’s also, especially being a guest star, it’s a really precarious place to be. Even if it’s a show you’ve been on, you’re a guest, and you guys never made me feel like that. You guys included me in stuff, which is so nice. That’s really rare.”
She continued, “I mean, I’ve been on shows before — I’ll tell you when we’re not [on the podcast] — where I couldn’t wait for the episode to be over because nobody would ever talk to me and I felt so strange being there. Not unwanted, but like I was in the way.”
She went on to reprise her role as Gia on Full House’s sequel series Fuller House, making 11 appearances total, beginning with the “Girl Talk” episode of season 2. Fuller House ran for five seasons on Netflix from 2016-2020.
