Wetpaint | Shannen Doherty

What could be more magical than a road trip with Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs? Can’t think of anything? Yeah, we thought so. Then you’ll definitely want to go Off the Map With Shannen and Holly to get your fill of laughs and explore a handful of Southeastern states — complete with equal amounts education and hijinks.

Wetpaint Entertainment spoke to Shannen exclusively about Great American Country’s new series — which she created, by the way. The 43-year-old actress dished about her inspiration for the show, whether or not she’d move to the South from sunny Malibu, and she and her Charmed bestie dealt with the “scary” social media aspect.

Wetpaint Entertainment: How did you think of the idea for the show and how did Holly get involved?

Shannen Doherty: I’m a big Anthony Bourdain fan so I was always glued to his show No Reservations and now his show on CNN, Parts Unknown. I love him and the way his shows are and how they’re shot. You feel like you’re in these places and learning so much, so I wanted to so something similar but add my own spin on it. I came up with this idea of Anthony Bourdain meets Thelma & Louise. Also that the economy isn’t that great and what do we do to show people you don’t have to go out of the country. You can load your family in the car and travel throughout the United States — it has a lot to offer. I approached Holly and she was in!

Is it fair to say there’s a more wholesome Simple Life vibe there too?

I think when you watch this show there’s pretty much no comparison for me. It’s much more Bourdain and Thelma & Louise. We don’t go out and do silly things. It’s not like Dirty Jobs or Simple Life or anything like that. We’re actually traveling through these six states and showing you food, culture, people, the Blues, and almost in every state there’s an animal aspect.

One experience that sticks out to you the most from the trip?

At the time you go, “Oh my God, this is so much fun. It can’t get better.” Then it gets better! Every single experience was the best experience because they were all incredibly different, which I think is the point of the show. People think of the South and they think they know what it is, but the truth is every single state and every single city has something different to offer.

You live in Malibu now, but would you ever move to any of the places you visited?

I was born in Memphis, so I’m a Southern girl at heart. I haven’t spent a lot of time in the South and we were in Tennessee and I kept on asking everyone if land was for sale. I definitely think I have this dream of possibly having a place closer to my roots and where I was born.

Will we see any Charmed hijinks with you and Holly on the show?

[Laughs] No, what you’ll see is friendship and two girls on an adventure. It’s definitely not a reality show, it’s a travel show. That’s what I really liked about it was that neither of us had any interest in doing a reality show, we wanted to do something fun, informative, and educational.

How did the social media aspect of the show — fans choosing what activities you guys did — go?

It was very scary! Holly and I would often go online and look at the polls and be like, “Oh no! What’s winning?” But there’s something very fun about that. I really believe TV is heading toward a much more interactive role so it was very important to me to have that aspect to bring our fans into the experience with us so they felt like they had a little control with what we were doing.

It can be scary but in the end I think the fans always chose something we really wanted to do. And we would also give suggestions. We’d go on Twitter and say, “Hey guys, we’d really like to go to this speakeasy.” Then you’d see it winning in the polls. The power of Twitter!

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