Shanola Hampton Is Nothing Like Her Character On Found

I’m on a call with Shanola Hampton, star and producer of the hit NBC series Found, when two things become abundantly clear: First, it truly is a small world, and second, Hampton is one of those rare people who’s managed to reach star status without losing an ounce of authenticity.

In my research ahead of our interview, I’d discovered she grew up in Summerville, South Carolina, a short drive from my current home in North Charleston.

“Girl, you're not in North Charleston!” She says, sharing that she still visits the area several times during the year to see her family (“We’re very close”). “My daddy’s business is right there ... I went to Summerville High School and worked at Applebee’s.”

When I tell her I grew up in the nearby tiny town of Eutawville (population 234), the world gets even smaller. Turns out Hampton’s dad is a bishop in a church in the neighboring town of Holly Hill (population 1,240), where I attended high school and pass through when I visit my own parents.

Talking to Hampton, it’s not hard to imagine sitting down with her at a knotty pine table and catching up on small-town gossip over a plate of Sweatman’s barbecue. But I’m also acutely aware of how busy Hampton is. On days off, she flies out of Atlanta, where Found is filmed, back to LA to spend time with her husband, Daren Dukes, and their two kids, an 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. She even manages to squeeze in volunteer hours at their school.

This context is important because, while fantastic, PR specialist Gabi Mosely — her character on Found — is not the funny, joy-filled person that Hampton is.

Gabi is... serious. Once held captive and all but forgotten in the public eye, she runs a crisis management team devoted to finding the missing people that the world tends to overlook. Her former captor, Sir, is played by none other than Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who has basically become Hampton’s real-life set bestie.

And midway through Season 2, it’s oh-so-clear that things are going to get even bumpier for Gabi and those in her inner circle. Here’s what Hampton had to share about the show and being a parent “without a filter.”

Scary Mommy: How would you describe Gabi Mosely?

Shanola Hampton: I would describe her as beautifully broken and beautifully flawed, and it's finally a person on TV who is not perfect. She's the hero character, and she's gone through trauma.

SM: There’s a lot to unpack this season. So, the biggie — Gabi was keeping her captor, Sir, captive in her basement. Now the entire team knows, and it’s a mess. Can we assume this is not going to be a linear healing journey with the team?

SH: What's wonderful about the luxury of being able to have Season 2 be 22 episodes is nothing is rushed. We're able to really depict relationships and healing and coming back from — and maybe not coming back from — in a way that feels very real to how people are with one another when they’ve been found out, or when they're not what other people thought they were.

You see [now] where no one was really speaking to her and how different situations have caused them to soften. People were able to reflect; even Margaret now seems to be coming around after going through her scary experience. So yes, the healing process for the entire team and Gabi's personal healing does happen throughout the entire Season 2, but you starting to see them already coming back to each other to find whatever their new normal is, which I think is nice.

SM: Will we see more characters’ backstories come into the present like Gabi's has?

SH: Yes, you will. That's what's great about our show ... we are going to dive into the backstories. This next half you're going to get to learn a lot more about Margaret, and it’s so exciting. It will pull all your heartstrings, but it will show us more of how we got here with Margaret.

SM: There’s such an interesting dynamic between Sir and Gabi. Is it Gabi’s trauma-bond sort of transferring to him, or do you think it’s something more?

SH: Oh, I think it started off as that. We got to see Sir's backstory and his need to feel loved and important because he didn't get that from his mom, and having the neighbor, who was a woman of color, deliver the books to him and sort of present his first escape. Then, for him to meet Gabi in school, I think it started off really as wanting to create a family in that sense of the father — [seeing] her father not being there and him saying, "Well, I would love her unconditionally."

Now, they're so intertwined in this cat-and-mouse game that it feels like neither one of them can really escape it. It's almost as if it's an addiction. As much as Gabi can't stand Sir and wants him to pay and wants him out of his life, she has to question, and you'll get to see her question: Why does she always answer the phone? Why is she always running after him? It's one of those things where the only way I can describe it is an addiction that's not sexual, and that's not drugs.

SM: You and Mark-Paul have such great off-screen chemistry as well. What has it been like working with Zack Morris himself, the man, the myth, the legend?

SH: The man, the myth, the legend — let's not go crazy. It's Mark-Paul. He's fine. He had to go on tips at one time; let's keep it in perspective. (laughs) No, he is one of my dearest friends. There is a thing that happens, and it happens not often, and that is that you are equally yoked with someone, and you have a connection with someone right on hello. And that was in the case of Mark-Paul and I. No rehearsals; we just bonded.

We're both big family people. We both fly back and forth. I more than him because he doesn't work as much. Let's put that in there. Mark-Paul does not do the hours that Shanola does, and make sure he reads that part. Circle it, underline. (laughs) But we fly back and forth to be with our family, and he gets me in a way that no one else can understand. We just speak each other's language. We think the same way about almost everything.

SM: This show really highlights the inequity that exists in the way certain ethnicities and groups are covered in crisis, which just feels so pertinent right now. What does that mean to you?

SH: I don't take it lightly. I think everybody can only do what they can in whatever gifts they've been given or opportunities that they've been given. So, to be a representative to speak for those in underserved communities, to express the importance that every human being — everyone, not one is more important than the other — deserves to be found. To recognize what people identify as the elderly, homeless, mentally ill, addicts, sex workers, Black and Brown people, all of those voices can sometimes get muted in this world, that means a lot to me. And to be able to do it in a way that is palatable to entertain and add that thrill aspect, it really is what I wanted to do next in my career.

SM: How do you balance being this badass mom on TV and being at this junction of your kids' lives when they’re hearing a lot of things and maybe needing an extra filter?

SH: What's interesting is you used the word filter, and one of the things that I would say is, for me, my style is you're not going to hear it from your friends; Mommy has no filter. So I'm going to tell you straight up what the what is, especially with my daughter.

We have conversations, and my friends will say, "You said what now?" I'm like, "Yeah. Oh, was that too far?" Because I want them to recognize that, and I say this to them, "Your friends are going to say a lot of things. Some may be true, some may be versions of the truth, but Mommy's always going to tell you the truth and keep it real." Sometimes even having the uncomfortable conversations, especially now that my daughter has gotten older, where they go, "Oh my gosh, Mom!" And, "Did you just say that? That's so cringe." That's their new thing: That's so cringe.

I speak to them on a level that hopefully will help them to know that I'm going to trust you until I can't. If you make good choices, you get rewarded, and here's what's really happening in the world. It's really all you can do because they have access to so many things, no matter how much you monitor. And believe me, I do. I had the YouTube kids thing on where they can only go to a certain thing, and then you listen to what that is, and I said, "Well, that's the kid's version?" So they're going to hear this stuff. I just want to be an accessible parent without a filter. That's how I speak to them.

SM: Your kids might not watch the show yet...

SH: No, they do.

SM: Oh, that’s awesome. What are their feelings about what you do for a living and keeping it in the context of this is still real life even though what you do is so extraordinary?

SH: That's a balance that we're still working on because, my kids, we wanted to always keep them in public schools. I'm just a little girl from the South, and all of my family, they're in education. So, I try to normalize as much as we can with activities and say that what I do is just a job. My daughter specifically has to make sure friends are being her friends for who she is and not who her mom is, and she's figuring that out. But she's doing a great job of kind of sussing it out, and she speaks quickly and without filter, like Mom in a lot of ways.

But when they've seen you on this show, their biggest thing is, "Gosh, Gabi is nothing like you. She never smiles." That's the biggest takeaway that they get from the show. And my daughter will be like, "Mr. Mark-Paul better not hurt Lacey."

SM: So sweet! OK, one more question I HAVE to ask, because Gabi serves looks every single episode. How much say do you have in what Gabi wears?

SH: We have a great wardrobe department, but you best believe as the lead and a producer on the show, I have a say. One of the things that I knew I was always going to have heels on. It's a way to present. It's a carrying of oneself, and at the beginning of the pilot episode, they wanted me to have shoes that I changed into in the car where it was weather boots that made sense that I was running. I was like, No, I know how to run in heels in real life, because I taught myself ... I used to only wear heels before I had kids. So it kind of started with the shoes and went from there. Now, it's color and making statements, but it's not just for vanity — the thing I want people to understand is that Gabi is dressed to the nines because it is the one thing in her life that she has control of.

It’s a way of us really presenting and telling the story of this character. Everything else has been so topsy-turvy. She was taken; she was kidnapped. She had never had real control, but the one thing that she can do is present well. It's also one of the things that is still inside of her that Sir taught her when he kidnapped her — the reading of the scripts at the dinner table, getting dressed for those dinners, stuff she couldn't really shake — and it's now manifested its way to how she presents in the present day.

New episodes of Found air Thursdays on NBC at 10 p.m. ET. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.