‘Quiet on Set’ Survivors Say Docuseries Exploited Their Trauma, Then Shut Them Out
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Like most things in Hollywood, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” began with a promise.
After years of whispered complaints about the sometimes-shady world of children’s entertainment, an investigative team set out to expose Dan Schneider’s Nickelodeon and the years of alleged abuse endured by the kids who worked there from 1994 to 2018. Others had tried to tell this story, but this time serious journalists planned to expose the industry’s seamy underbelly — documenting past wrongs, giving voice to victims, and charting tangible change.
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Ex-kid actors and “Quiet on Set” subjects Raquel Lee Bolleau and Alexa Nikolas told IndieWire they were presented with a plan for an honest look at the issues and suffering borne out by their childhoods. Lee Bolleau (“The Amanda Show”) talked to the “Quiet on Set” producers about her passion for healing and protecting young performers still in the industry; Nikolas (“Zoey 101”) recounted for producers her and her mother’s horrifically painful exit from the network and a move toward full-time activism.
These stories, the former child actresses say, could have been used to frame a toxic workplace exposé; Bolleau and Nikolas don’t defend Schneider or Nickelodeon. But the women say the smash-hit docuseries from Investigation Discovery and Max succumbed to the same temptations that can mar any unethical TV production.
Bolleau and Nikolas claim “Quiet on Set” co-creators Emma Schwartz and Mary Robertson used their sensitive interviews about difficult childhood memories primarily as a premise to re-air salacious material from Schneider’s years at Nick. As a result, the women say, Schwartz and Robertson misrepresented at least one survivor’s take and left others feeling deceived and abused.
“After watching the show, I saw that it was not at all what I signed up for,” Lee Bolleau told IndieWire. “I also saw that I was surrounded by people who have one agenda, and that one agenda is their own success. It’s a horrible word to even use in this context: success.”
Like former Nickelodeon game show host Marc Summers, who said during a podcast appearance released April 5 that he walked out of filming his part for “Quiet on Set,” Lee Bolleau and Nikolas have alleged that they too were interviewed under false pretenses.
“They made me feel like my story was going to be heard and it wasn’t,” Nikolas said, describing herself as “livid” after producers repeatedly used a sexualized clip of her as a child with diminishing context. “They were more interested in resurfacing that awful footage than listening to survivors’ experiences.”
“Quiet on Set,” which reportedly premiered to 20 million viewers, presented a portrait that has fundamentally changed the public understanding of kids’ TV. Under Schneider, the documentary claimed, Nickelodeon’s adult staff, kid actors, and parents were subjected to belittling, bullying, sexualization, and in some cases physical and sexual abuse. The first four episodes of “Quiet on Set” aired March 17 and 18 and propelled Hollywood into a watershed moment described as the Me Too movement for kids.
The first four installments illuminated various allegations levied against Schneider and Nickelodeon over the years — including the revelation that Drake Bell was the John Doe in a criminal sexual abuse case from 2004, identifying ex-Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck as a child abuser.
But Lee Bolleau, who said she did not receive early access to the first two episodes — although some “Quiet on Set” subjects, including Nikolas, say they did — experienced the news in a way that was “retraumatizing” for her. The former actress said she learned about Bell’s court case with the rest of the world at airtime. While Lee Bolleau can appreciate the sensitive nature of the information, she was shocked producers did not better prepare her.
“I knew I couldn’t trust them the moment I watched those four episodes,” Lee Bolleau said. “In my interview with Emma, I speak so much about how close Drake and I were — so much so that it really would’ve painted an understanding of why I’m so hurt right now.”
Lee Bolleau remembers sitting down with her family nervous but excited for “Quiet on Set”; by the end of the first night in a two-part premiere, she was stuck on an agonizing cliffhanger waiting to see what more Bell would say about the abuse her friend had secretly suffered in the background of Lee Bolleau’s own childhood memories. The reveal of Bell’s identity was effectively used as a narrative reason for audiences to return between “Quiet on Set” Episodes 2 and 3 with Bell sitting down silently before credits rolled.
“To know that you’re about to reveal something like this, and you don’t even care to nurture the real conversation, even to support who he was then and who he turned into, how dare you?” said Lee Bolleau. “You had two years. You had two years to shape. You had two years to nurture. You had two years to develop. You had two years to bring together. You had two years to build. You had two years to get your stuff in order. There’s no way that this should be falling apart the way that it is.”
Since the show’s release, Lee Bolleau and Nikolas have compared notes and identified what they describe as strategic “silo-ing” over the two-year production. They believe “Quiet on Set” was designed to keep interview subjects in the dark about the true nature of the documentary and its myriad implications; they call the result a “manufactured consent” that’s effectively left them unable to critique the producers without criticizing the platform that also helped survivors like themselves.
“They pieced together a story and a narrative that they had on their own,” Lee Bolleau said. “The reason they kept us all apart and from knowing specifics was because they knew if we all got together, we would start sharing and exchanging experiences and figuring out what this really is and what it means for us.”
Going into it, Nikolas knew more about the project’s scope than Lee Bolleau. As an outspoken activist and the founder of Eat Predators, Nikolas said she made a video for the producers’ pitch deck when the project sought funding.
Lee Bolleau didn’t have the same insight; she thought the documentary was more squarely focused on improving toxic workplace conditions faced by child actors. Then, “Quiet on Set” producers’ questions shifted away from change in the industry and toward specific allegations of pedophilia (without mentioning Bell’s name). That was the beginning of Lee Bolleau’s loss of faith in Schwartz specifically.
“They kept trying to push Brian Peck [and other criminal allegations] on me,” Lee Bolleau said. “And I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know that. I can talk about my own story and we can go real deep if you want to do that. But if you want to talk about that and put words in my mouth, I’m not going to say anything that I did not experience. And I’m not going to say anything that you think I should say to support what you’re trying to create, because that’s not who I am. I’m sorry.’ Maybe they didn’t like me because of that.”
“I dare them to air my entire interview now,” she continued. “Do you want to know why? Because there is a part in my interview where I stop Emma in the middle of the interview and I said to her, ‘Hey Emma, what is this about? Is this about Dan? Is this about Nickelodeon? Or is this about ‘The Amanda Show’? You need to help me understand because your questions that you’re asking me right now are not lining up with what we’ve been talking about over the past year.'”
Lee Bolleau’s claims echo those of Summers, who said he was bait-and-switched during segments included in “Quiet on Set” Episode 1. The former host of Nickelodeon’s “Double Dare” could not be reached by IndieWire for comment but alleged that he was effectively ambushed by documentary producers. According to Summers’ account, he was blindly praising his former employer when he was handed a smartphone that played a video with Nickelodeon-produced footage of an underage girl (Ariana Grande) in a highly sexualized scene. After being asked for his reaction, he said, he walked out.
“Seeing him get handed that phone, you’re just like, ‘Oh, my God,'” Nikolas said. “That makes me deeply uncomfortable to think that in that way I was told what the documentary was about and that others weren’t. That makes me regret sitting down.”
“Quiet on Set” producers denied his claims. “We are clear with each participant about the nature of our projects,” Robertson and Schwartz said to IndieWire.
Nikolas and Lee Bolleau said they disavowed “Quiet on Set” over the last 10 days, but added that their decisions are a long time coming. Both women separately told IndieWire they felt “harassed” by producers’ repeated attempts to contact them during pre-production on the first batch of four episodes. They said the“Quiet on Set” producers pressured them even when interview subjects voiced hesitation.
A full-blown communication breakdown between “Quiet on Set,” Lee Bolleau, and Nikolas followed after the premiere of the series’ hastily produced extra episode that aired April 7.
Like the rest of “Quiet on Set,” Episode 5 “Breaking the Silence” was created by Schwartz and Robertson; the involvement of executive producer and Business Insider reporter Kate Taylor, whose own work informed the other four episodes, is unclear. Schwartz and Robertson served as off-camera interviewers in the first four episodes, but the de facto finale is hosted by former CNN and NBC broadcaster Soledad O’Brien. It’s a narrative structure that probably made the episode faster to produce and easier to edit, but the post-mortem bears the earmarks of a rush job.
“Breaking the Silence” was made to discuss “where the industry can go from here,” per Investigation Discovery and Max. That’s fertile ground for journalistic exploration as legal efforts across the U.S. mount to change lacking federal labor laws that do not protect child actors at all.
However, it offered little in the way of next steps. Compared to its predecessors, the last “Quiet on Set” episode uses sets that looks cheap, lighting that seems harsh, and in one unfortunate moment of crosstalk, poor audio editing that sees the parent of a survivor literally silenced so O’Brien can be heard. Pausing the conversation at particularly heightened moments before cutting to commercial breaks gives the impression of “Quiet on Set” creating what it wanted to expose: using traumatized child actors and their parents as grist for a content mill.
“Breaking the Silence” begins with a sizzle reel that features the most shocking sexualized moments from “Quiet on Set” but that lack any of the contextual content from the first four episodes. Nikolas was enraged to see the suggestive “Zoey 101” clip featuring her, Jamie Lynn Spears, and a tube of green goo in Episode 5. It was no longer her trauma, she says; it was sensationalism.
“[Schwartz and Robertson] feel like they have a license to it and that they’re able to do whatever they want with it,” she said. “That’s how Dan felt, too… what is different from them to Dan Schneider? I don’t see a difference. I only see a crossover.”
Lee Bolleau said the extra episode created new misinformation about her experience.
Some of the “never-before-seen footage” in Episode 5 featured the Black actress describing a sketch from “The Amanda Show” in which she was repeatedly spit on by star Amanda Bynes. That sketch angered Lee Bolleau and she described it for “Quiet on Set” producers as evidence of a toxic workplace.
But in this extra episode, another woman altogether — Bryan Hearne’s mother, Tracey Brown, who is also Black — declares that the scene was “racist.” Lee Bolleau never made that allegation and does not support it now.
“I had no clue,” Lee Bolleau said. “Honestly, I was still catching my breath from watching the first four episodes that were gut-wrenching for me. So then to throw this fifth episode out there with zero context around what I said… and to make me wake up and be a headline the next morning with zero context from my own words about how that situation even came about, honestly, I’m at a loss for words.”
In an email to IndieWire, Hearne wrote, “Working through trauma is hard for us all. I understand if people feel re-traumatized by this situation and the magnitude of information that came out in ‘Quiet on Set.’ I did reach out to Raquel, it couldn’t have been easy to see someone else speak to your trauma. It wasn’t easy for my mom and I, not knowing that [segment] would be there, either. Everyone deserves to have a voice and to be heard.”
Hearne continued, “With all that being said, I do hope that the center of focus can be on changes in the industry. We all bared our souls with the hope that exposure of the injustices would inspire policy and systems changes.”
Episode 5 dropped two days before “Quiet on Set” kicked off its awards campaign with a red carpet event hosted at the Television Academy in North Hollywood April 9; IndieWire was present.
That night, Emmy voters, special guests, and press watched Episode 2 on a 60-foot screen in the Dolby theater, including Nickelodeon’s “On-Air Dares” — depicting children doing things they explicitly said they did not want to do. The episode inspired odd moments of laughter. After the screening, journalist and “Quiet on Set” subject Scaachi Koul hosted a panel Q&A with producers Schwartz, Robertson, and Taylor as well as Bell, Hearne, and “All That” actress Giovonnie Samuels.
Lee Bolleau and Nikolas were neither on the panel nor in the theater. Both live in Los Angeles, but discovered the screening only after the fact via Instagram posts. The TV Academy theater seats more than 600 and the screening appeared half-empty.
“Let me tell you what my problem is with this industry,” Lee Bolleau said in a TikTok she filmed in her car shortly after learning about the event the next morning. “‘Quiet on Set’ did the same thing that the industry always does: They get what they want from you and then they’re done. Never did they think that I would want to be at a discussion like that or a part of a discussion like that. Like, really? This has actually been a very, very difficult thing for me to face. This is what has happened in my career over and over again. This industry has done nothing but hurt me left and right from since I was a child.”
The women allege that the siloes they experienced extend to how they’ve been treated in the series’ aftermath.
Leon Frierson, another former kid actor who participated in “Quiet on Set, did attend the FYC screening — but only because he learned about it by accident. “I was surprised that there was an event in Los Angeles that was taking place without everyone being extended an invitation, including myself,” he told IndieWire. Unlike Lee Bolleau, he also received early access screeners for Episodes 1 and 2 at his request.
“I was surprised to see how large the event was, considering that I didn’t get an original invite,” Frierson said. “I heard about it actually through a friend who was attending, and so they were gracious enough to give me a heads up, which allowed me to ask for an invite. So I wasn’t invited upfront, but they were gracious enough, I guess, considering that I had given my story up for the documentary to extend the invite after I posed the request.”
Frierson said he found the FYC event meaningful and believes the series is important for its potential to protect future generations. Still, the actor is disappointed for those who were not allowed to participate.
“It’s unfortunate that the people that are sharing their stories, baring their souls, and providing the content for the event aren’t all invited,” he said. ”I believe the production team could have done better in including the talent. Many of us have never met in person, so it could have been an incredibly healing event to get everyone together in one place at one time.”
Frierson said he had a good personal relationship with the “Quiet on Set” producers, but said specifics about the series were consistently murky unless he sought clarity. “[Episode 5] does seem to be rushed and it does seem to skip the due diligence that they did in the first four to make others feel comfortable,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing the result with Raquel’s response.”
“Quiet on Set” producers have not addressed how they made their guest list for the evening, but Lee Bolleau and Nikolas independently recalled being told by producers that if any such “reunion” did occur, they would “of course be invited.”
“I’m telling you, the level of betrayal that I feel from these people — if you want to wash something till there’s nothing left, that is exactly what this has done for me,” Lee Bolleau said. “I’m really, really, really done.”
Speaking on the FYC panel, Samuels told the audience that she remained torn between feelings of pride and sadnesse about her time on Nickelodeon’s “All That.” As the actress said, “Two things can be true.”
“Quiet on Set” can be impactful even if it’s problematic. The facts it bore out are directly responsible for the cultural reevaluation now under way in Hollywood. But like the adults they reported on, Schwartz, Robertson, and the rest of their team now face a daunting question: Where do you draw the line with child actors and their exploitation? And when can these survivors finally say “enough”?
IndieWire reached out to Warner Bros. Discovery, Emma Schwartz, Mary Robertson, Scaachi Koul, Kate Taylor, Soledad O’Brien, Giovonnie Samuels, and Marc Summers but received no official response.
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