When Last Man Standing returned for its much-anticipated seventh season on Fox last month, the Baxter's beloved middle daughter, Mandy, looked strikingly different. Instead of the petite brunette played by Molly Ephraim, a tall, blonde version of the character skipped down the staircase of the Denver household.
"Mama, this is really weird," she quipped. "But I got lost upstairs!"
The line was a subtle play on a big change. When Ephraim, who played Mandy for six seasons, left the show for other projects after the sitcom was canceled by ABC last year, Molly McCook took over the role.
The 28-year-old actress anxiously watched the premiere at home with her real-life family, and prepared to receive the mixed social media responses about the shocking change from the show's many diehard followers. What she didn't predict was the barrage of scathing, hurtful messages that began flooding her feeds.
Unhappy tweeters used the hashtag #NotMyMandy to accompany messages like, "she is ruining the show" and "it's just not the same."
"At first, I took it pretty personally," McCook tells CountryLiving.com. "Then I realized that... the people who are trolling and being very negative are never going to be happy with such a big change. But the hardcore fans of the show have been extremely supportive, which was so helpful."
She typed out a response on social media, "Give it time, beauties!!! The show will continue evolving, as will Mandy. I'm so excited for you to discover it as I do. It's gonna be such a fun season! @LastManStanding."
While McCook was hurt by the backlash, show runners "fully expected" it, executive producer Kevin Abbott told Entertainment Weekly after the episode aired. “You don’t take a character played by an actress that’s beloved and suddenly switch them out. I’m glad they missed Molly Ephraim; that’s a good thing. And they’re going to go through the same process we did in casting." At first, Abbott was "a little" jarred by the change, he told the outlet, but "then you grow to love her."
McCook hopes Last Man Standing viewers will extend the same courtesy—and give her version of Mandy a chance, especially considering there's some really big "moments between Mandy and her dad" dealing with her struggle to get pregnant in forthcoming episodes.
"When you’re an adult living with your parents and you’re married and talking about having a baby... there will of course be friction, some sarcasm, and arguments," she says. "As an adult with parents that have intense opinions on everything... we’re kind of finding our relationship."
Off screen, McCook has a great relationship with Tim Allen, the-real life actor behind her sitcom father, Mike Baxter. The first time they met, she was star-struck. "He hugged me and said, 'Welcome aboard!' but all I heard was Buzz Lightyear's voice," McCook says of Allen, who voiced the beloved character in Disney's animated hit Toy Story. "It was the most accepting and rewarding moment of my career so far."
McCook says Allen, who is also a stand-up comedian, is "always joking around and working on new material" on set.
Together, they brainstorm ways to break the fourth wall (the conceptual space that separates a performer from the audience), with funny references while they film. "We did that in the first episode with me looking so different [from Molly Ephraim]," McCook says. "Everyone is a jokester on that set."
And while they do love having fun, McCook also calls the cast and crew her "safe space," as she navigates all the backlash on the character switch. "They have been so supportive [of the change]," she praises.
Among her sitcom family, McCook is particularly close in real life with Amanda Fuller, who plays the eldest Baxter daughter, Kristin. Fuller, who replaced Alexandra Krosney as Kristin after season one in 2011, understands the scrutiny McCook is under from fans. "She told me not to look at the bad stuff on social media [about replacing Molly Ephraim on the show] and now I’ve learned not to, because there’s no point," McCook says. "In this world, even outside of this industry, there’ll always be people to try and bring you down. Everybody has been telling me to keep my head up."
McCook also relies on support from her new fiancé, Broadway star John Krause, as she navigates the ups and downs.
The couple met performing in a musical adaption of Cruel Intentions nearly three years ago and "bonded over our love for the stage and for music," McCook says. "That turned into the deepest love that I’ve ever known."
This summer, Krause proposed at McCook's favorite spot, Terranea Resort, with both their families present. They've set a date in fall 2019 and are "slowly checking off the boxes" and confirming wedding details.
Last week, Krause "couldn't help himself," McCook says, and tweeted out his support for her, writing, "It’s so hard seeing my fiancé [sic] dealing with all this negativity from trolls online. But the positive comments and kind fans far out weigh the negative ones. Proud of @mollyjmccook for handling it all with grace and poise... and a ton of sass."
Krause also devised a method to keep McCook feeling positive. "[He] plays this fun game, where he goes through my messages and only reads the good ones out loud so I can still hear the good without accidentally seeing the bad," she says. "It really helps."
As fans get used to the new Mandy, it's important they "know that I can hear them and I can see them online," McCook says. "Trolls out there say things without thinking the person is every really going to see it. But I do."
"I... want fans to know that it's going to be OK and if they just take a deep breath and try and look at [the change] from a positive outlook, that we can do this together," she adds. "If they love the show enough, they’ll love me! If they can’t get past it, they can’t get past it, there's nothing I can do about it. Although I’m playing Mandy, I’m creating my own Mandy."
