Keri Russell on How “The All New Mickey Mouse Club” Avoided the 'Creepiest Part of Kid Acting'

"There were 19 of us," she explained to Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his podcast. "The adults were invisible to me.”

Keri Russell once again reiterated her long-held belief that she was “the least talented” cast member of the Disney Channel’s ’90s revival of The Mickey Mouse Club. But, she says, that’s not the reason she ended up leaving the show.

On the most recent episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s podcast Dinner’s on Me, the host and Modern Family star asked Russell, who left The All-New Mickey Mouse Club when she was 17, whether the series had rules about cast member aging out.

“Yeah, it’s usually, like, girls who looked like they were sexually active,” the Diplomat star, 48, joked. “Which, probably, I was one of the first. They were like, ‘She is out!’ ”

“Meanwhile, the boys stayed till they were like 19,” Russell added. “I was like, ‘By the way, I had sex with that person, so I know that they've had sex.’ For real.” (PEOPLE reached out to Disney for comment.)

Related: Stars of 'The All-New Mickey Mouse Club': Where Are They Now?

Russell has previously talked about feeling like she didn’t quite measure up to the rest of the show’s cast, which included Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. “I say this completely truthfully: I was literally the least talented one there,” she told W Magazine last year.

With Ferguson, however, she did admit to being “a great dancer,” a talent she says got her a spot on the show when she was 15.

“I was living in Colorado at the time,” Russell said of the audition process. “And some of my friends were going to a giant casting call for Disney at the downtown Denver Convention Center. And I went, I stood in line, and did my little nerdy, you know, dance. And they had me read a little skit, like, about a mermaid brushing her teeth, or something, with chocolate, or something stupid like that. And then I just happened to get it.”

“I think back then, Disney was looking for kids that were kind of, like, normal,” she added.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

Asked how she avoided some of the all too typical pitfalls of child stardom to become a serious, two-time Emmy-nominated actor, Russell chalked it up to the unique environment of The All-New Mickey Mouse Club.

“I think what's really the creepiest part of kid acting is usually it's one or two kids with all adults,” she explained. “So, that really accelerates the adultification of everything. And for The Mickey Mouse Club, there were 19 of us. The adults were invisible to me.”

“So, I wasn't completely alone with all the adults,” she added. “And I think that was helpful.”

Related: The Cast of Felicity: Where Are They Now?

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Like so many of her fellow cast members, Russell’s star only continued to rise after her tenure on the show. She went on to star in the beloved WB series Felicity, as well as films like Mission: Impossible III, Waitress and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

The mom of three earned widespread acclaim for her role as a flinty Russian spy posing as an American housewife in FX’s The Americans, and currently stars in Netflix’s political drama The Diplomat. She also recently starred alongside Ferguson in the 2023 horror comedy Cocaine Bear.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.