Candace Cameron Bure has played D.J. Tanner for 13 seasons, competed on Dancing With the Stars and starred in a slate of Hallmark Channel classics. But the actress says a daytime talk show provided her biggest career challenge to-date.
Bure covers the May issue of Good Housekeeping, on stands April 28, and opens up about saying goodbye to Fuller House, staying in touch with co-stars and her trying time as co-host on seasons 19 and 20 of The View.
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"That was a super tough job," she recalls of co-hosting the female-powered talk show. "It helped me grow a lot, but that was the most difficult job I've had to date… you always feel like you're fighting to speak your opinion."
Throughout her career, which began when she was just eight years old, Bure has made a point to always star in family-friendly fare, values she says were instilled by her parents.
"I always knew, even in my early 20s, that it wasn't my goal to do something that I felt kids or my own parents couldn't watch — even if a role was amazing," she notes. "Because of that, I've said 'no' a lot over the years."
The actress is best known for her role as the eldest Tanner daughter on Full House, and its followup series, Fuller House, which will debut its fifth and final season this year, though Bure admits she's not sure "reality has hit yet" when it comes to saying goodbye to D.J. for the second time.
"I don't think it will [sink in] until probably the summertime that we're not coming back," she says. "I'm definitely more at ease now than I was when we finished filming. But it was rough at the end."
"If I am forever known as D.J. Tanner and everyone's big sister, I will be thrilled and happy. Full House and Fuller House have brought so much joy, comfort, and love to so many people. There's nothing more I want to be associated with than wonderful and positive things. I embrace the show as an adult just as I embraced it back when I was 10 years old."
And it's not like she's totally saying goodbye to her on-screen family. Bure notes she chats with co-stars Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber over video chat and Marco Polo, and regularly keeps up with John Stamos, Bob Saget, and Dave Coulier as well.
"Bob was my mentor growing up on the set. Not because he played a dad, but because he is a dad, so he was very nurturing to us kids and making sure we were protected and everything was great," she recalls of her on-screen father figure. "Dave was just a lot of fun. Dave was like the uncle growing up. So he took me to the circus, he took me to my first hockey game. They were great, I learned so much from them."
ET recently spoke with Bure via video chat amid coronavirus social distancing, where she opened up about how the pandemic is affecting her next Hallmark projects.
"We were in the middle of filming a new Aurora Teagarden mystery for the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries Channel, and we got in one week of production and then we were shut down, which I was very happy about," Bure told ET last month. "I thought that was the most responsible decision, and it was the right decision. So I left Vancouver and immediately came home to my family, and we were all hoping that within two weeks or three weeks we'd start production back up, but now watching the news every day, I don't see that happening."
As for when she'll return to set and filming, Bure admits that she still has no idea.
"There isn't [a timeline] because the news is changing every day," she explained. "We're getting all these updates and it's getting pushed, so it's really hard to plan anything, but we're all in communication, and at this point, it's a waiting game."
See more on the actress in the video below.
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