Suite Life's Dylan Sprouse Refused To Say One Disrespectful Joke About Kim Rhodes
Different productions handle actor pregnancy differently. Some are clever, like when "New Girl" hid Zooey Deschanel's character in a motorized scooter and then shipped her off to jury duty, or when "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" let Melissa Fumero's character be pregnant alongside her. On the other hand, "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" wanted to mock Kim Rhodes' character with fat jokes ... and her costars were having none of it. During a 2023 interview with "Back to the Best," a podcast devoted to reliving the 1990s and 2000s through a shared love of cinema, Rhodes said that Dylan Sprouse refused to deliver a fat joke that was written into the script.
"I got pregnant when I was on the show, and of course, the show dealt with it by making fat jokes," recalled Rhodes. "One of my favorite memories is Dylan had a line that was a fat joke, and he just kept skipping over it. It was like in the middle of a chunk of dialogue, so he kept skipping this laugh line... And finally, we get in front of the studio audience and he skips it, and the executive producer screams, 'Cut! Dylan, say the line!' And he goes, 'I would not disrespect any woman that way, let alone this woman. You write something funny and I'll say it.'"
Rhodes' anecdote lines up with interviews provided by the Sprouse twins in which they discuss a fervent protective nature in regard to their former cast and crew members.
Dylan and Cole Sprouse wanted to protect their cast and crew
Dylan and Cole Sprouse learned at an early age that their positions as the stars of their own Disney Channel original series came with a commensurate level of responsibility. According to Kim Rhodes, co-star Phil Lewis encouraged them to step up for their beliefs because they were the only non-expendable actors attached to "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody." They must have taken that advice to heart because it not only explains why they defended Rhodes, but also why they left the show as they did. According to an article from Digital Spy, in a since-archived YouTube video, Dylan Sprouse laid out the events that culminated in their duo's departure from "Suite Life."
"My brother and I actually quit the Disney show," explained the actor. "It had been six years and we thought that the glory days of the show were definitely in the younger series... We said, 'If we're going to do one last season it's going to be on our terms... We're going to produce it and it'll be a setup for a new show,'" the actor said. Sprouse also went on to discuss how the decision was made with the show's cast and crew in mind. "The reason we wanted to do that [is because] it would also set up all the cast and crew we've worked with for six years, so they would not lose their jobs [because of] our decision to go to college in real life."
Disney rejected their idea, the Sprouse twins left, and "Suite Life" — which by that point had become "The Suite Life on Deck" — ended. Despite production closing shop, however, the stars who appeared around the twins still remember them fondly, all these years later.