Tamera Mowry-Housely Reveals She and Tia Helped To Create ‘Sister, Sister’
Tia and Tamera Mowry have been fans’ favorite pair of twins for decades and that is courtesy of their popular 1990s sitcom, Sister, Sister. With a reboot still in the works and the show now available for streaming on Netflix, fans are inquiring about the behind the scenes moments of the show. In a new interview. Tamera opens up about how she and Tia helped to create the show.
Tamera Mowry-Housely on how she and Tia Mowry helped to create ‘Sister, Sister’
The Mowry twins were already making their mark in Hollywood before being approached to potentially have their own sitcom. They’d done small commercials and photoshoots, and at one time were in a singing group. Their opportunity for their own platform came by chance.
In a new interview with Madame Noire, Tamera reflects on the moment that sparked the idea for Sister, Sister. At the time, their brother was working on a show and they’d often visit the set. They caught the eye of the executive producer and the rest is history.
“My sister and I got on the show in the first place because of my brother [Tahj] actually,” Mowry-Housely says. “My brother was doing this show, “Out All Night” with Patti LaBelle and Morris Chestnut and Vivica Fox. We used to always visit that set. The executive producer of that show recognized that my brother had other siblings and she loved that we were twins. She met with us and said, ‘You girls need to be on tv.’”
From there, Tia and Tamera began brainstorming on show ideas and looked to their favorite show with another pair of famous twins for a concept.
“We basically thought of a really cool idea,” she continues. “My sister and I loved “Sweet Valley High” and we loved Parent Trap so we wanted to do something like that. We met with an amazing writer named Kim Bass. He’s the one who actually created the show you guys watched over 20 years ago.”
The only network to agree to a pilot was ABC.
‘Sister, Sister’ became one of the most successful shows of the 1990s due to its relatability
Sister, Sister premiered in 1994. The storyline focused on twins, Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell, who were separated at birth and reunited at age 14 when the two accidentally reunited at a department store in a clothing mall. Their single parents moved in together to raise them. The show lasted for six seasons.
One of the reasons the show became such a success is because it was relatable. Many teenage girls were able to identify with the girls’ opposite personalities: Tia as the smart and studious one, and Tamera as the silly and boy-crazed one.
Tamera tells Madame Noire that their on-screen personalities were not far fetched from their real-life personas. She also explains how their personalities have shifted over the years
“Now, I feel like we have a bit of both of the characters within us,” she says. “At the time, Tia was more of the studious one. And I was the mischievous one, meaning I was boy crazy. I had a lot more energy. But as we got older, I feel like the roles kind of would switch. Every five years we would switch. I would be the studious one and Tia would be the more outgoing one and then it would switch.”
Tia and Tamera are hopeful that a reboot of Sister, Sister is possible but there have been many issues with such within the past few years.
