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Tony Danza has a new reality show, and Better has the scoop.

Transcript

Tony Danza Turns Teacher for TV Show Audra Lowe: First he’s been the boss and now he’s the teacher. Tony Danza starring in a new reality show on A&E called Teach. Tony Danza and this is the real deal, the cameras follow Emmy nominated actor who was tapped ahead of class in a Philadelphia public school but Tony also learned a lot about himself. Rhiannon sat down with Tony to talk about all the challenges that you face and also why he says this one is not your typical reality show. He made us laugh as a lovable living housekeeper on whose the boss but Tony Danza’s latest TV show is no laughing matter. Rhiannon: What made you want to teach? Tony Danza: Well I always wanted to teach. You know you look around at the situation you know we have over a million kids a year dropping out of school only talking to the Secretary of Education says a kid drops out of high school in America every 11 seconds. Rhiannon: Unbelievable. Tony Danza: We there’s a study out that says this is the first generation of Americans that will not attain the level of education of parents I mean this is crazy. Rhiannon: Plenty of people including Danza himself wondered if he was crazy when he committed to teaching high school English. Tony Danza: I really didn’t know what to expect and I really and I’ll be honest with you I was terrified. I thought that I made the biggest mistake of my life. Rhiannon: You’ve had such a successful career obviously with Who’s the Boss, taxi you’ve done a cookbook, Broadway you pretty much done it all. Tony Danza: I’ve seen like.. Rhiannon: Yeah you’ve done everything and now you teach students the other teachers were any of them impressed by any of that. Tony Danza: Well the teachers certainly knew who I was but the kids didn’t knew who I was the kids were born 3 years after Who’s the Boss was off the air their like who is this guy? I think my mother is a fan. Rhiannon: How could they not know Who’s the Boss? Tony Danza: No, they don’t know. Rhiannon: He’s star status of the 80s doesn’t earn much credit with today’s high schoolers. Camera’s captured his struggles and his triumphs as a first year teacher. In fact the actor doubted he could even offer much to students. Tony Danza: I was coming out and make a fool of myself but I don’t want to let kids down and I was going to be accused of exploiting kids. Rhiannon: But Tony says slowly but surely he started connecting with the kids and he hopes the show will bring more attention to the education system and the challenges that teachers face with students. Tony Danza: I don’t think the teachers are successful because they’ve heard the rhetoric, they’ve heard you know those that can do and those who can’t teach and they’ve heard their teachers you know of the press and so you know the teachers are the disadvantage. Rhiannon: What a lot of people don’t realize as you just mentioned is you actually spent an entire year there even when cameras weren’t their rolling you were really there teaching. How hard was it? Tony Danza: You know I like to call it responsible reality, that’s my line. Rhiannon: Responsible Reality TV. Tony Danza: That’s right and I like that you know and so we try to do that when and I think to some extent we really did and I’m proud of the show, I’m proud of the show and I’m proud of, I’m really proud of you know in the Year Book issue, the Legacy from Northeast High in – they put my picture in the English Department in the Year book. Rhiannon: So more teaching in your future or are you ready to get back to acting? Tony Danza: I want to think another run at acting I really want, you know I was away from my family for a whole year I haven’t thought it was senior, I have a 5 year old grandson and I have you know responsibilities here and to my own family so I’m going to come back and I also I have a little bit of a Jones for acting and I think that in a crazy way I think this teaching and opening yourself up in ways that I never did before are actually I think will make me a better actor. Audra Lowe: Man that’s what I call a reality TV that looks like the real thing. No joking, no scripts no nothing. Rhiannon: Yeah this definitely isn’t the rock of love. Audra Lowe: No. Audra Lowe: He’s really serious about it and I admire the fact that he’s putting his career out there on the line so to speak because he said people may not take him seriously. They may judge him I mean it’s a chance he took right? Rhiannon: It’s scary and he said even though he wants to return to acting he still wants to teach in some capacity he doesn’t know what that is. Audra Lowe: We love you Tony for that. He looks good. Rhiannon: Well he says he still gets up every morning at 4 a.m. still has 100 push ups every single day. Tony Danza: That’s just the warm up. Rhiannon: So what’s the secret to looking this good at 59? Tony Danza: I think you got to train I think you got to watch what you eat. You know I was a fighter and fighters we you know it’s easy to be disciplined when you know the other guy is training. You know you got you’re just going to get your butt kicked so I have that discipline and I just think it’s a good way to you know to live. Audra Lowe: I love it you can catch him on the A&E channel right. Rhiannon: Yup show is still going on Friday nights and you don’t want to miss it. Audra Lowe: Alright thank you so much Rhiannon.