Mary Louise Parker

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Shirt by Twenty Cluny

photos by Robert Todd Williamson
styled by Albert Medonca
hair by Gio Campora
make up by Torsten Witte

It is seven o’clock in the morning. The worst hour of any day. Somewhere between hair and make-up, costuming, and shooting another scene, Mary-Louise Parker, who has been at work for a while now, chats me up. I say “chats me up,” because my assignment, an in depth interview, alive with humor, charm, and relevance (my wife in fact thinks of me as the Mexican Jon Stewart), quickly detoured into my own misadventure. Why? Of course —and I blame the hour of day here— I had problems from the get-go.

Problema numero uno: I was not able to record our conversation, and thus was forced to frantically type what was being said as it was happening. Since I am completely incapable of multitasking I was not able to engage Ms. Parker as nimbly and as full of bravado as I would have liked.

Perhaps here I should make a confession… My intention with this interview was simple: I bring myself to the brink of journalistic fame by cracking through the barriers of the most wholesome drug dealer to grace the small screen. My mission — dethrone the Green Queen, Mary-Louise Parker. But typing away like a lowly court reporter, my powers of manipulation were dulled. My attempts to skewer her were foiled. Happily, a terrific side effect of the situation presented itself instantly after the “interview” ended. As I went through my notes, trying to figure out how I would nail Parker with nothing but a shorthand mess of notes on a computer, it dawned on me… None of my quotes were accurate! I could misquote her into oblivion! That would put this celebrity in her place!

This was now where problema numero dos reared its ugly head: I love my mother. Plus my father always said to be good to your mother (and vicariously to other mothers). Added to all of this, my mom once said to never lie about someone else, unless you’re trying to get away from the cops, or to get out of work for something more fun. No, I could not lie about Mary-Louise.

Since she is a real-life mommy, and since I have a soft spot for the mommas, I’ll cut her some slack and not misquote her. I’m sure her evil plots will reveal themselves.

The truth: Mary-Louise has started another season as television-mother and marijuana baroness, Nancy Botwin, in Showtime’s hit series Weeds. The show, in which Parker plays a lovable widowed soccer mom who once sat atop a suburban pot empire, charges into its sixth season. Consequentially, Mary-Louise has a lot of long days ahead. But that’s okay for this single mother. She claims to love her job (I think her exact words were: “I love my job!”), and, more importantly, her two kids have a playroom on set. And a lemonade stand, which I have been led to understand is quite popular.

“My son was eight months old when we shot the pilot for Weeds. For six years, everyone here has been watching him grow up. We’re family,” Parker continues as a member of the costume department offered to help her get her shoes on. They had just painted her nails and she needed to do a costume change soon.

As the conversation goes on, in fact, there is a growing sense that others are becoming concerned she won’t be ready in time for the scene an entire crew is working hard to set up. But Parker, like a good mommy, is never frazzled; gracious to anyone who approaches her. She has already said the crew was like family, and now here she is, acting like it. What is she trying to cover up by doing crap like this?

“I like to work, I like to be at work. I don’t understand when actors complain about [this or that]–you’re getting paid to act. How many people get to do that?” Parker particularly likes working in television, noting “there’s something about the regularity of working [on a show], getting to improve on it.” She claims to have made lots of mistakes during the run of Weeds as she worked to bring Nancy to life, saying that too much of herself would bleed through on occasions.

I suppose she’s made an interesting point. The following I am making up, and I may be completely wrong about it, but I would venture to guess that those mistakes are bound to happen more often in television, whereas in the theater, an actor works the same dialogue for months honing that perfect performance. A feat, by the way, for which Parker has received much critical acclaim, including winning a Tony Award for her performance in “Proof”. With television however, you get to set at five in the morning, grab a bagel, rehearse, costume, then shoot and move on. It’s fast-paced. The character is bound to become a
reflection of the performer.

Perhaps this was it! The point I could use to expose Ms. Parker for the celebrity nightmare she must be: How much of Mary-Louise comes through in Nancy, the equivocating mother whose very actions seem to contradict her stated desire to take care of her family?

So I asked.

“How much of you is in Nancy, or comes out in Nancy?”

“[Nancy’s] an extremist. She lives in a grayer area than I do. She’s always trying to achieve harmony, so she’s often not honest with herself. I don’t feel a kinship with her intellectually, she’s not a wildly self-examined person and doesn’t suffer from a lot of guilt…which I suppose might be nice,” says Parker, adding, “I’ve been able to fix moments that I was unhappy with by getting to re-shoot things, scenes. Everyone here is very supportive, the writers are great. Everyone wants the best.”

Touché, Parker. Tou. Ché.

Her supposed enjoyment of both the acting process and her Weeds family shows in how she treats others, saying at one point, “That I get to do what I love is amazing. I truly feel lucky that I get to do this. I don’t lose sight of that.” I still think it’s a ruse—she must be power hungry, being a good mother notwithstanding.

At a certain point, looking at the clock and getting a sense of people waiting (plus, I’m still searching for an equivocating evil celebrity that must lurking under her well-constructed front-—and my own powers of mental superiority are being taxed by my frantic typing), I offer to say ‘thanks’ and get out of her hair. To which she warmly says, “Tell you what, I’ll do this costume change so I’m ready, go shoot this shot, and get right back to you.”

Right! Sure, sure. You do that! That’s the oldest trick in the book! Oh, Ms. Parker, you just gave me the card I needed to prove to the world you’re insincere and self-centered! Your TV show job is obviously more important than a lowly Mexican writer and new father trying to make it in the world and to support his young family. (To be clear, I am speaking of myself.)

Check. Mate.

But she did! She returned! F! Okay, so, she’s not a flake. There must be some horrible reason she’s doing this and though it wasn’t particularly clear, in hindsight, the opportunity allowed me to over-caffeinate. Which, of course, made me very paranoid that the interview was going horribly, that I was the worst interviewer of all time, I was failing, and my brain started to misfire as I desperately tried to focus and seem cool and super-smart. Was this her strategy
the whole time?

Interestingly, the TV star was not allowed to watch television as a kid. Perhaps this is why she so desperately seeks fame and celebrity power! We shall see.

“I wanted to watch Sonny & Cher, but it was on really late. So I would sneak from my bed into the hallway and watch it,” says Parker, who adds that her favorite childhood show was probably Lidsville, a crazy Saturday morning children’s show from the early ‘70s, in which a boy falls into a magical hat and ends up in Lidsville, a world populated by giant living (and uber-characaturized) hat-people. I mention here what the show was about because Mary-Louise joked that I am too young to know what she was talking about. I guess I showed her!

“I love Flight Of The Conchords. But I wasn’t introduced to it until it was over, it’s really good,” she says, adding “I don’t really watch TV now. I know that sounds like a cliche, an actor saying they don’t watch TV, but it’s true. We never really have the TV on in the house, not as background noise during the day.”

A Southern girl, Mary-Louise is ever polite, if not a bit reserved, or outright shy. In this may lie her secrets, so I press. Reflecting a bit on growing up, she says “I’ve always been a darker person, a little Wednesday Addams girl. I wanted to be a pom-pom girl, but I could never pull it off. I think I was embarrassed by it.” Here we go! Fresh off the sofa from which I marathoned five seasons of Weeds in one sitting (this is actually something I recommend to anybody who likes television–buy a frozen pizza, turn off your phone and enjoy the ride), I have seen the dark side Nancy tries to cover up or suppress. Parker taught her that! I’ve seen her photo shoots and read her interviews. She has never come across as shy. In fact when I ask her about this she says,“I’m not self-conscious in front of the camera— I look on it
as a performance.”

“I was not a good communicator, this is the way I communicate. I was shy, [acting] is how I can express myself.” Well, Ms. Parker, is the shyness the act, or the acting the act? I’ll get to the bottom of this.

Mary-Louise would have us believe that somewhere in

the shyness a wonderful humility lives. That it is probably this shyness which has created her confidence by channeling her expressiveness and talents through performance. That her success is the unexpected result of hard work and solid values, and a commitment to providing for her beloved children. I say, perhaps. It might be looking like that, but I’m not done yet.

A few bios on Mary-Louise floating out there state that she prefers quality to quantity. To which she says, “I was never really career-driven. I still don’t have specific goals and never expected fame. Some actors just have an appealing vibe and that seduces the world. But I wanted to hide behind other people, to step into someone else’s brain and heart and psyche. I wanted a break from being me,” then quoting something that had stuck with her,“I never worried about going out of style, because I never felt as if I were in style.”

Hoping to blow her out of the water with her own words, I press her on one of the first films responsible for the respect people have for her craft. The movie is Longtime Companion, in which Parker plays a woman who experiences through her homosexual friends the destruction caused by the outbreak of AIDS in the 1980s, as directed by Norman Rene and written by Craig Lucas. “Can you talk about it?” I ask. “Yeah!” she says, with obvious fervor. “The guy who directed it was my mentor. I can’t watch it without crying.” Here I learn that the director has since passed away and it’s obvious how much this impacts Ms. Parker. I am now slightly embarrassed by what is looking more and more like a ridiculous effort to find fault in this performer. Is she actually genuine?

“I accepted that job (Longtime Companion) without even reading the script,” she says. “I worked with the writer, Craig, and Norman, the director, before. We had done a play together (“Prelude to a Kiss”). They called me and said, ‘We have a project with a role for you, we’d like to send you the script,’ and I said you can send it to me,
but I’ll do it anyway.”

Parker did another film with the same writer/director duo a few years later called Reckless. Both films are terrific.

Parker has two new films coming out. Howl, a film about the poet Allen Ginsberg’s obscenity trial, which also stars James Franco, Jeff Daniels, and David Strathairn to name a few; and RED (an acronym for Retired and Extremely Dangerous), a very fun looking action/comedy about retired CIA agents getting the ‘ol gang back together for funsies. The latter carries an additionally heavy-hitting cast, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Karl Urban, and Richard Dreyfuss.

It’s time for a subject change. “What have you learned from doing Weeds? How has it affected your life?” I ask Ms. Parker. “Wow,” she says. Then, after a moment, “that you can make marijuana into cupcakes and lollipops!” She laughs. I also laugh. She’s obviously wearing me down. “I think to work [so many hours] and to have kids is hard to negotiate. My instinct is to want to be home with [my kids]. It’s tricky,” she continues. Again with the good mom stuff. Could I have been way wrong about Mary-Louise Parker?

I don’t imagine anybody out there believes that fame makes being a parent easier in any way. How much time Parker connects success and concern and work and play with her children makes very clear what her priorities are. She is a mother—from the sound of it, a damn good one. She

is grateful for the career that allows her to provide, but nonetheless, I was curious if she would enjoy living a life off the grid. Could she say goodbye to the career and go far away to live a private life? Surely this question would expose her true desires: to maintain her celebrity status.“Yes, for sure!” she says very enthusiastically, hardly skipping a beat. “I would go to Calgary. Calgary has a weird vibe, I really like it. I
don’t really know why.”

Dang.

But Parker is a New Yorker. “It would be tough to lose New York. I would lose a lot if I had to leave New York,” she adds. I suppose I can understand this sentiment. New Yorkers have an
amazing town. Kudos.

There was a lot to be said about the various reasons she readily entertains the idea of falling off the grid, finding a private life. Her willingness to share some very personal feelings on celebrity and the romanticization of that kind of life was rather unexpected and incredibly honest. “There is a perception about celebrities. It has just gotten more and more mean spirited and voyeuristic,” she reveals.  “It’s interesting to look at people’s willingness to humiliate themselves publicly, like on reality TV, you can see how people are seduced by public exposure and it seems to be something a lot of people want. I think there are a lot of people who think it’s so desirable, they will do anything to achieve some level of fame or notoriety that there is a bizarre resentment that people have to celebrity. Joe Walsh’s song, ‘Life’s Been Good’ is a great song. But people really do treat you differently. And it’s usually the people you thought you knew best.”

I hate to let you down, dear readers, but I am not famous. I have met a lot of famous people, am even friends with some of them. I have lived in Hollywood for nearly a decade. This part of the conversation is personally the most honest anyone who understands that life and the stresses on such a life has ever been with me. Mary-Louise engaged me from our introduction and did not treat me like a vulture hoping to further my career by latching myself somehow to her (which, sadly, happens to be the case; I’m a latcher). In fact, when I let her know my wife and I had recently had our first son, she turned the tables on me, started asking me questions. When my son grows up, I can tell him, “You see that actress there? She said you had a powerful name! Nice, eh?”

After our interview, I reflected on the experience. There seemed to be none of the front or pretense that I had desperately hoped to expose for my own purposes. This brings me to…

Problema Numero Tres: I was completely wrong about Ms. Parker. She’s cool. In fact, one word comes to mind when I think now of Mary-Louise Parker: Genuine. Ms. Parker is Genuine.

Oh, crap! I almost forgot! Mary-Louise told me that we’ll be seeing the legendary Richard Dreyfuss in the upcoming season of Weeds. “It’s such an honor to work with him, he’s awesome! I saw Postcards From The Edge a month ago, he’s so good in it. He’s so good.” I told her I caught Mr. Holland’s Opus recently on cable. She had not seen it, but is going to rush it onto her Netflix lineup. I suggested she buy the soundtrack and blast the “Opus” theme at his trailer.

She laughed half-heartedly, but after a moment it seemed as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. I got embarrassed and dropped it. Our conversation came to an end. Mary-Louise Parker had won without even knowing she was in a fight. Hot.

I was fortunate to get the first episode of Weeds, season six– and it was awesome! Stay tuned for the premiere; August 16 on Showtime.

Meet Hank Moody: Crashing and burning through a California-style mid life something or other, sometimes I suffer from writer’s block, sometimes I suffer from an emotional-concussion, sometimes I’m this close to having it all. I fuck up a lot and I’m prone to repeat patterns over and over again. I’m also prone to drink and smoke and won’t say no to any drug or woman put in front of me. I romanticize my former life in New York with long term on again, off again partner, and baby mama, Karen, and along the way, I dispense my bittersweet brand of wisdom through my writing and relationships with my teenaged daughter, Becca, and best pals, Charlie and Marcy Runkle, as well as the many women and assholes I encounter in this Cali-journey. Self absorption and self loathing, yes, but self analysis be damned, this is Californication, and I’m Hank Moody, no therapy is necessary.

David Duchovny

Some important Back Story: Last season I was in over my head (and also doing a ton of damage control on a bunch of other people in over their heads), yet despite this, I finally managed to finish a novel I’m actually really proud of for the first time in a long time. Too bad, my baby mama’s fiancé’s 16-year-old daughter, Mia, who I accidentally bedded (she really did seem older and she seduced me in a bookstore) hijacked it, entitled it, “Fucking and Punching” (inside joke) and ran off with her writing career, leaving me holding the statutory rape bag. I bounced back, kept the intimate details of this relationship with Mia a secret to most everyone involved, and just when you think Karen and Becca and I might have a shot of moving back to our original NewYorkafornicated life, Karen takes off on her own, leaving me and Becca and Becca’s first real boyfriend standing in my Venice Beach digs parking lot. I knew she had to go find herself, and well, I needed to be alone again and do what I do best, be Hank Moody. This next season finds me playing professor to a bevy of don’t stand so close to me students; I’m a single parent, and I have an orgy of new people to play with, OW!

Venice Beach:  It’s a balmy day down at the beach as the paparazzi and twittering fans eagerly watch the intense scene being played out in an alleyway, steps from the ocean. Karen (Natascha McElhone) is hysterical and running after Hank, Becca (Madeleine Martin) runs after them both. That’s all I can say. And you know what, I have no idea what precedes this but I’m captivated and left to my own imagination and anticipation for the new season. And it’s nice to be down at the beach on a warm summer day. Cut. We head over to base camp for lunch and it’s steak and lobster and Yorkshire pudding. Welcome to the world of Californication .

I walk past the food and sit down with creator and writer, Tom Kapinos whose name I first heard back in Dawson’s Creek days. I ask him if he’d had David Duchovny in mind when he created the show. “No, when I wrote the script and when Showtime picked it up, I didn’t have anybody in mind, I wrote it as a screenplay originally. He was just one of the first people we ended up offering it him and I was a huge fan of his. I knew he was hilarious and had a twisted sense of humor. It was one of those coincidences where the material seamlessly fit with the actor.”

David Duchovny and Madeleine Martin

Was Hank based on any characters from your life along the way?

“Two things I was at a stage in my life where a lot of guys I knew had wild 20-something years and were starting to get married and settle down, and I was too. It was fun for me to envision this guy who was so the opposite of that, who wasn’t going to go so gently into the night, so that was a lot of fun for me. And like I said, I wrote it as a movie originally—I was sort of bummed out by the fact that there didn’t seem to be any real men in the movies anymore, I was thinking about movies from the 70’s. I grew up with anti-establishment comedies, and I felt like there wasn’t a lot of that anymore, so I wanted to create the guy who was the perfect romantic anti-hero.”

How did you feel about this season? “To be honest, doing this season was harder than the first or the second. There’s something about the third season, because you can do anything your first season and people if they love the show, they‘re going to hold that as the holy grail, and the second season, people just want to sort of shit on it and say it isn’t as good as the first. The third one is kind of a weird place, because hopefully we go for a couple more years, so you’re sort of in the middle. I don’t have a master plan. I know where the ultimate end of the series is, but I don’t really know year to year what we’re doing. I write myself into a corner and then the next year is all about trying to get out of that and say what do we do next?”

Do you feel the characters are growing up more this season? “I don’t know if these characters ever grow up and I feel like that’s a reflection of real life. I don’t know that people really grow up and change. Maybe they start to figure out what behavior works for them, but I think that is true to life -  men and women repeating patterns, it’s real, it’s the truth.” Food for thought and speaking of food, I see Natascha McElhone is quietly finishing her lunch; sitting amongst the group, she strikes me as that kind of bigger than life beauty, her calmness is refreshing in the emotional chaos that is Californication.

Natascha McElhone

Last time we saw Karen, she was driving away on her own heading back to New York to take on a new job and jump start her life. How does that play out this season? “Hank and I have a lot of sessions on the phone for the first four episodes, and then I come back to L.A..” Do you have a new love interest this season? “Oh, no (laughs), it’s always my one and only. I think I should actually make relationships up just to keep up with Hank.” Does Karen have any profound personal revelations? EXTREME LAUGHTER: “No, clearly not. I think Karen’s trouble is she goes round and round on a hamster reel, and it’s the same sight every time, she just can’t get off of it.” What is it about Karen and Hank that keeps them going – are they best friends at the end of the day? “I don’t think they are best friends at all, I think it is just chemistry – I think she can’t leave him alone and he can’t leave her alone.”

The rest of the day takes place at the studio they shoot at in Culver City.

Madeleine Martin

I meet up with Becca (Madeleine Martin) in her trailer where she’s going through some wardrobe choices with her mom and stylist. I immediately wonder if these wardrobe choices include her usual Goth gear. Last season, Becca was jamming with her band, bonding with dad, and experiencing her first love with a dark and charming kid named Damien.

What’s it like this season for Becca? “It’s pretty different for Becca, she’s not Goth anymore; clothing-wise, anyway, she’s mainstream.” Why is she not Goth anymore? “She’s acting out a lot this season, and she’s trying to be different and her new best friend, Chelsea, sort of influences her.” Acting out, how does that go down with dear old dad? “We’re fighting a lot this season. Becca’s acting out because she knows she’s a product of a one night stand, and she thinks Hank doesn’t want her around. She’s also feeling insecure about Karen, since she took off to NY for a job.” Are you as open with your dad in real life as you are with Hank? “No I wouldn’t say half the things I say to Hank to my dad. But they do have a great relationship, just different than mine. They are sort of both immature in a way. I think of David as my goofy older brother sort of.” Gotcha, any new boyfriends this season? “I hope so, then I get to meet some more teenage boys.”

Evan Handler and Pamela Adlon

I head over to the bedroom set where they are getting ready to shoot a scene with The Disgruntled Runkles, Charlie (Evan Handler) and Marcy (Pamela Adlon). Word is they engage in a War of the Roses battle (an homage to Kathleen Turner who joins the cast this season). I ask Evan if Charlie is anything like uber agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven, Entourage). He considers for a second and then smiles, “I’m the anti-Ari Gold.” Fair enough. So, Evan, over the last two seasons, you’ve sure had your fair share of shenanigans: you get busted for excessive masturbation in the office, you engage in some bad behavior with your young, hot assistant, oh and you have a threesome with her and Marcy, you take on a new role as porn manager and consultant on Vagina Town, then you leave Marcy for your hot new porn star discovery, and move to the Valley with her and start selling cars. What’s up with you this season, will you be quite so busy? Laughs, “Hmmmm. Well, I can say that season one does find Charlie inappropriately involved with an underling, yes, and this season the tables are turned as my new boss (Kathleen Turner) tries to be inappropriate with me. I can also say that I break down and cry a lot this season. This season is more of the same fun; maybe a little crazier, the hijinx is getting a little crazier!” Do you identify with Hank Moody? “My life has probably been more of a Hank Moody life than Charlie Runkle, but that’s not the part I would play on TV, but I certainly identify with the man caught twixt and between who, you know, he doesn’t know whether to search for permanence or embrace the temporary.” His partner in crime Marcy (Pamela Adlon) joins us, and I have to ask her about their chemistry, because it’s off the charts funny. “That’s what everybody says that it’s coming off great. I’m just grateful that he’s so great and he’s such a professional.” Evan Handler winks and leaves us to dish on Charlie and Pam’s War of the Roses situation.

So Pam, Marcy is at a crossroads and it really feels like Marcy and Charlie could split, and you never really felt that before. Are you going to become like Hank and Karen where you don’t really split but you kind of do, and are we going to see the relationship unfold, or do you go your separate ways? “All of the above,” she laughs, “you’ve covered it from every angle.” And how do you feel about the new season? “It just all fell into place and we were able to come together, the scripts are always outstanding and you can’t believe it because when you get to the table and finish the reading, you just like want to lay on the floor and smoke a cigarette, because you’re spent and you’re like okay this is not a half hour show, this is a full length feature, every single episode.” Peter Gallagher who joins the cast as the Dean where Hank is teaching, chimes in, “I had the time of my life, and it was reaffirming to work on this set, it was the closest thing to working with Altman – I had so much fun, it was sick.”

Kathleen Turner

Kathleen Turner is not on set, but low and behold, she calls me on my cell and in her rich and delicious voice, fills me in on her character who is as saucy as you can imagine. “I get to say cunt quite a bit, which was shocking to me because if my daughter weren’t 21, I would have lost all moral authority with her, and I was turned onto a whole new sexual education in the process. Here I am 65-years old, and I didn’t know a lot of this shit.” I ask her to fill me in on her character. “Oh she caught my mind and my imagination, she is essentially a nympho sociopath agent.” Well done! She sums up the series, sincerely, when I ask her what else attracted her to the show. “Somehow, the writers always bring it back to something valuable that touches you – a kernel of truth that makes sense of all the mayhem leading up to it.”

The Californication day winds down as the sun sets and the cast and crew share some pizza together. You can tell they’ve all had quite a ride this season and now the circus is shooting down, or the circuscation. I’m standing in the parking lot getting ready to leave when I see Hank Moody himself David Duchovny. Who better to end the On the Set with? What were the highlights for you this season? “Highlights would have to be directing the opener and thereby getting to break in the new characters played by Kathleen Turner and Peter Gallagher, getting to create that with them. I also got to work with one of my oldest friends, Jason Beghe, who does an unforgettable turn in the first episode.” What’s it like for Hank this season, will he have any wake up calls? “Hank is such a smart guy, it’s hard to believe he needs to wake up – I think what happens is that those that love him finally get fed up and then he has to make some tough decisions, tough but funny as is our style.” Did you have any Hank Moody type characters you looked up to as a kid? “I never looked up to any Moody types as a kid, my heroes were all athletes and journalists and at that time we were not so interested in their personal lives. My father was a writer and I looked up to him, that he wanted to live the life of the mind. That’s maybe what resonated for me first with the show—that here was this very funny character who was going to live, speak, and think the way he pleased no matter what the consequences.  He doesn’t care what music or movies or TV are popular, he makes up his own mind and lives in a world of his own making—truly a unique character to play in film or TV these days.”

And that’s a wrap until September 27.

by Jason Dean, photos by Robert Todd Williamson

Jennifer Beals is, by her own admission, fascinated by mythology. “What is it about vampires? There are so many metaphors,” she says, considering her own question. “It’s incredibly alluring, especially to young girls.” She has a point. Look no further than the “Twilight” books and movie and HBO’s new series True Blood, and one will notice that vampires are in vogue once again. “There’s that sensation of coming into your authenticity and being introduced to your own mythic power.” Beals is still talking vampires, but her words  could easily apply to the phenomenon of the Showtime series The L Word, now in its sixth and final season. Since its debut in 2004, the show has been a beacon of empowerment for young women while dispelling myths about lesbianism and gender roles. The storylines have never ceased being provocative. In the current season, pre-op transsexual Moira/Max (Daniela Sea), finds out she’s pregnant as she prepares to undergo gender transition.  

It’s been 25 years since Beals lit up the screen in Flashdance, as she helped to popularize leg warmers, loose-neck sweatshirts, and to a lesser extent, barely legal steel-mill welders. She’s stayed busy over the years, populating her resumé with interesting roles in eclectic films (The Bride, Vampire’s Kiss, Devil in the Blue Dress, Runaway Jury, Twilight of the Golds), but her turn as Bette Porter on The L Word has solidified her standing with a new generation of fans. 

After taking some time to decompress following her h photo shoot, Beals emerges from her dressing room to meet me. She looks stunning: Her smooth, flawless features seem impervious to the passage of time. Soft-spoken and verbally precise, she projects a cultured elegance befitting a museum curator. It’s a testament to how thoroughly Beals embodies her character, who has been portraying a dean of arts at a California university in the series. Picking up on the parallel, I ask her if she catches herself doing or saying things that are decidedly Bette Porter-esque. “Definitely,” she responds. “There are certain words that I don’t normally say. Intractable. Six years ago, I wouldn’t have used that word, but it’s found its way into my vocabulary.” 

Beals says she did not consider her character’s sexual orientation in her initial research of the role. Instead, she delved into Bette’s professional identity, “because work is paramount to her.” The L Word’s fairly graphic portrayal of its characters’ relationships did not faze Beals. “I didn’t really think about it,” she insists. “I imagined it would be as graphic as a heterosexual show would be.” As for preparing for a gay love scene as opposed to a straight one, she says, “There’s no difference at all, other than just trying to figure which position technically works. For me, when I’ve done love scenes or intimate scenes – however you want to characterize them, because they’re not always about love and they’re not always intimate – it’s just about the story. I didn’t think about it until the time came that I had to do the love scene. Then I thought, ‘Let’s just hope I don’t
come off as a total chump.’”

At the outset of Season One, Bette Porter seems to posses the most even-keeled presence in the cast, even though it’s perpetually career-absorbed. She’s in a committed, seven-year relationship with girlfriend Tina Kennard (Laurel Holloman), a driven Hollywood professional with a high-profile job; she and Tina are preparing to start a family. But over the next few seasons, their well-manicured façade begins to crumble, culminating with Bette kidnapping her and Tina’s child in the midst of a bitter custody dispute. This season, after a few ups and downs, Bette’s life has stabilized: She and Tina are a couple again and are trying to adopt their second child. 

Working on The L Word has been a gratifying, collaborative process, says Beals. Because the show uses different directors during the season, the actors bear some responsibility for maintaining character consistency. “Obviously, [series creator Ilene Chaiken] does that, but she’s taking care of lots and lots of different characters. You’re sort of the keeper of the flame—the heart and truth of the character,” she says.

One of the greatest triumphs of the show is the fluid interaction of its ensemble cast: a collection of vivid personalities, not drenched in stereotypes, that are authentic and believable. Whether it’s a delicate balance of female energy or just guilty-pleasure frenemy drama, the chemistry is still there. Five of the core actresses – Mia Kirschner, Katherine Moennig, Leisha Hailey, Holloman, and Beals – have been with the show from the beginning. Another central figure in the show, around which intrigue and occasional controversy revolves, is “The Chart”. Created by quirky journalist Alice (Hailey), The Chart is a massive “hook-up map” that diagrams relationships and connects people like a series of gigantic constellations. The idea is that there are traceable degrees of separation within the lesbian community among commonly shared sex partners. One of the main hubs on The Chart is the androgynous Shane (Moennig), whose reputation as a serial heartbreaker has only fueled her legendary status.

Then, of course, there’s Jenny (Kirschner). She comes to L.A. a naïve – if not completely innocent – heterosexual waif who discovers her inner lesbian early on. In the fifth season, her thinly-veiled memoir of her life with the rest of the series’ cast, Lez Girls, is developed into a movie. All the while she has fluctuated from being a sympathetic figure to being a cold, calculating manipulator. And so, no huge surprise, in the final season opener, Jenny has turned up dead. The answer to who offed her and why (there is a veritable tool shed of axes to grind)  will be ostensibly revealed in the remaining episodes. Plans are already in place for a spin-off series, The Farm, which is centered on Alice and set in a prison. (Whether this is a plot giveaway or coy misdirection is anyone’s guess.)

Over the years, Beals has been taking various photos on the set of the show. She’s planning on putting a book together for the cast and crew to commemorate six seasons of memories. While attending an L Word convention recently, she got the idea that making such a book available to fans could be a good vehicle for raising money for various organizations. She’s since gotten other cast members to contribute text commentary for the book as well. 

Beals has become much more informed on LGBT issues due to her association with The L Word. “I had no idea – no idea – that the gay and lesbian community wasn’t included in hate-crime law,” she says. (Legislation that added gays and lesbians to federal hate-crimes law finally passed in May 2007.) On a broader spectrum, Beals believes ensuring the rights of any minority has an overall positive effect on the majority. “Once one part of the collective sees themselves represented and is given permission to celebrate their own authenticity, then it helps the rest of the collective to see how everyone is connected,” she reasons. “It behooves all of us to have everyone experience their deepest, most beautiful, most profound and powerful self, because those people are more apt to give their gift to everyone else rather than shudder in fear.” 

I ask Beals if her experience on the show has caused her to reevaluate what a modern “birds and bees” talk should entail. (She has a three-year-old daughter, so the subject is still a few years off.) “It’s more inclusive,” she says. “There used to be whole realms of people who weren’t talked about—whose very existence didn’t seem worthy subject matter for pop culture. Now that’s starting to change a little bit. And so those conversations we have at home with our children about love and about sexuality will then therefore change. The first question of sexuality comes from love—who loves whom—and you realize that is the unifying principle.” 

Beals is clearly energized by the new direction the country is taking, and the positive impact the Obama administration can make on the world stage. “I think we hit the breaking point and the paradigm needed to shift or we all would have perished. I know that sounds so dramatic,” she acknowledges. “The biggest shift was for people to understand that they are all agents of change.” 

Beals volunteered for the Obama campaign early on in the primaries. She went to Ohio and Pennsylvania twice, working phone banks and knocking on doors. “As much of a hermit as I am, I realized after the first time I heard Obama speak that I had to become involved. He was the only candidate I saw that could bring everybody back to their most powerful self.” 

A Chicago native, Beals got pegged for the career-launching role of aspiring dancer Alex Owens in Flashdance while she was studying American literature at Yale. After allowing herself a moment to recall frat house floors coated with the sticky residue of keg beer, she says, “That girl – who I was – is very dear to me,” she says. “In some ways, I was older than I am now.” An admitted perfectionist, the actress rarely watches her own work. She’s seen Flashdance “maybe one-and-a-half times.” During filming, she likes watching the dailies, because the creative process is in full swing. “I like working with the director and carving out a communal point of view,” she says. “But when it’s all put together, there’s nothing left for me to do…. I’m too harsh on myself.” 

  As for what comes after The L Word, Beals replies that she would consider another series if the writing measures up. Beyond that, she’s not sure. “I don’t know what the next thing is for me, what way I can be useful and creative. I’m sure it will be revealed to me—sooner rather than later.” (Sooner, indeed. Just a few days after our interview, Beals signed on to star in The Book of Eli, an action/thriller that reunites her with Devil in the Blue Dress costar Denzel Washington.) 

I ask the former American lit student to name some of her favorite works. She’s a huge fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald and deems “The Great Gatsby” one of the greatest books ever written. When she’s traveling, she’ll usually have with her Walt Whitman’s “The Leaves of Grass” or Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” Lately, her shelves have become populated with child psychology books. Then there’s the “Twilight” series. She’s read them all. “I’ll take that to read in the trailer during shooting,” she says. 

So the question remains: What is it about vampires that makes them so intriguing?
“When I was a little girl, I was afraid of the vampire, but I still didn’t understand why Lucy didn’t want to let him in.” she recalls, referring to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. “It’s like, he’s so much more interesting than the fiancé.
So…what’s the problem?” 

While the myth of the vampire will always be cloaked in mystery, The L Word has done more than its share to bring lesbian issues and discussions of sexual identity into the light of day. And that’s a good thing—for the gay community and for society. 

(to see all the photographs of Jennifer subscribe to h)

words by Devoe Yates, photos by Robert Todd Williamson

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the legendary Sunset and Gower lot, where such movies as Dr. Strangelove, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were created, the cast and crew of Dexter sit huddled up in the cool innards of Stage 8, a stage that once housed the sets of Michael C. Hall’s former television series, the HBO classic, Six Feet Under.

For those unfortunate souls out there who have yet to experience Dexter, now in the midst of taping its eagerly awaited third season, it’s the tale of a stoic forensics blood expert named Dexter Morgan who works as a vigilante serial killer on the side, carving unpunished criminals into tiny pieces and dumping their remains into the depths of the ocean shelf just off the shores of Miami. The interiors of the show are shot here in Hollywood and most of the exteriors are shot just south of Long Beach, where there are no mountains to give away the California coast.

It’s hard to describe the joy of walking through the imaginary world of one of television’s finest shows, which is a clever and macabre mix of humor, drama and mystery, all held together by the mesmerizing acting force that is Michael C. Hall.  Today they’re shooting an office scene and a crime scene on the same stage.  A friendly Jimmy Smits and a very focused Michael C. Hall are rehearsing on the office set, listening to the wise guidance of this episode’s director, Keith Gordon, the actor (Christine, Back to School) turned director (A Midnight Clear, The Chocolate War, Waking the Dead).  While the lighting crew comes in for final adjustments, an exuberant Gordon stops by to give us the haps.

First off, he gives us a bit of backstory on what the devil Jimmy Smits is doing here.  When we last left Dexter, all seemed well with his world, the man on his trail, Sgt. Doakes, had been vanquished, as had been his oddly insane girl toy, Liza.  Dexter ended up back together with his trusting girlfriend, Rita, but there was no sign of a Smits-ing anywhere on the horizon.  But as with any good tale, Dexter’s character evolves this season, finding his first true buddy-buddy male friendship with Smits’ character, a DEA agent in town to help solve some nasty crimes.

Keith Gordon isn’t allowed to reveal too much, he himself has only seen the scripts for the three episodes he’s directing.  “I love the show as a viewer, I love watching it unfold.  I don’t even know what happens this whole season. I did the final episode and I still don’t even know how it all works out (laughs)!  I have some theories about some things, and then there are rumors on the set, which is always funny, you’ll hear from one of the electricians, ‘Well, I heard that so-and-so killed so-and-so,’ and you’re like, Really?”

I ask Gordon how the Dexter set is different from the sets of other TV shows he’s directed, House and Homicide: Life on the Streets among them.  “It’s an easy show in the sense that everyone’s great to work with, the cast and crew are full of really nice people.  I’ve been on TV shows where you’ve got diva actors, crews that aren’t very good, producers that are screaming lunatics, and then it becomes a nearly impossible job.  In a case like this, you’re really dealing with terrific people all around, and the cast is not just incredibly talented, they’re incredibly proficient working at this pace.  There are some great feature actors that you’d throw into this situation and they’d have a nervous breakdown.”

I want to ask more, but Gordon is summoned back to his directing duties. Extras mill about in police uniforms and I wander over to the abutting crime scene set where the special FX crew is busy getting the blood splatter correctly placed on the walls of a fake foyer.  They have a custom-made power sprayer throwing dots of blood on the walls and a blow dryer at work to keep the blood from running.  FX technician Steve King confides, “Man, sometimes the simplest gag is the hardest.  Sometimes you’re trying to get a mist like this, but it can’t have any drips.”  His difficult task soon completed, he invites me back to the FX trailer to meet his boss and check out the tools of their trade.  

Outside the stage, we enter the back of a semi-trailer which is full of workbenches and drawers and cupboards filled with odd mechanical items.  “This is kind of our rolling machine shop,” Steve motions about. There’s jugs of blood, a welder, a generator, rainmakers, a compressor, nearly every power tool known to man, and even the special scalpels and syringes that Dexter uses on his murderous escapades. Fixing a bad blood sprayer nearby is a bubbly British man in his late 50’s, the head of FX for the show, David H. Watkins. You might not be terribly familiar with his name, but you are most likely a fan of his FX work for The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Forrest Gump, and Alien.  What amazes me most is that this is the very man responsible for the legendary blood-flowing-from-the-elevators scene in The Shining.  He remarks they did that scene four times as Kubrick was very particular about the color of the blood.  Who better to be in charge of the FX for a show about a blood spatter specialist?

It is soon time to journey through Dexter’s laboratory (sorry about that) and the police station on a nearby stage.  There’s no one there, though the computer screens glow and the lights above hum, illuminating the strange details decorating the walls and desks.  There’s trophies, framed pictures of cops fraternizing at odd locales, and even a wall of blood splatter samples.  Within the offices is Dexter’s workroom where he re-creates the splatter of crime scenes on white walls with the help of a specially-created mannequin head.  The head is often full of eggs that have been bled of yolk and filled with fake blood so as to get some gushy and gory blood explosions.

Not too far away, attached to the same stage, is the prop department, where Propmaster Joshua Meltzer greets us.  He’s in the midst of cleaning Dexter’s signature knives that have been dulled down so as not to cause any unfortunate accidents on the set.  These knives are usually kept under lock and key, but today, they are enjoying some fresh air in the prop department.  “Any of the iconic Dexter props, the blood slides, the knives, we don’t let them out of our eyesight.”  In a nearby room, three seasons of Dexter props sit, waiting patiently for their time in the limelight to return.   Among their ranks are the body parts from the long ago corpse-in-the-empty-pool scene, the Dexter parade signs from the final episode of season one, and a dummy named Larry.  I ask Joshua if he’s been presented with any new challenges of late.  “Wow (laughs). Well, we just had the roasted pig on the spit, a real pig.  There’s an episode coming up where we’re doing some stuff with some large game fish and I’m doing the research right now to find out what kind of game fish are in the Florida waters, and what kind of fish I can get here.  I’m also finding out what it would cost if I wanted to get rubber fish made that could be puppeted and actually have some movement.  When you’re working with fish, which I’ve done plenty of times over the years, there’s a stink factor.  You put real fish on a moving boat in the hot sun, and well…I’ve had actors actually get sick working with the fish (laughs).  So if I can put a fake fish out there for the actors’ comfort and have it look real, I’d personally prefer that.  But it’s more expensive and sometimes the producers don’t prefer that.”

The bell to Stage 8 rings, signaling that more shooting is about to begin and it’s time to run back for one last visit with the cast of Dexter as they prepare to have their way with the aforementioned crime scene set.  Smits stands nearby, as does Dexter’s sister on the show, Jennifer Carpenter.   As the crew finishes up some last moment art department fixes, Michael C. Hall readies his prop camera.  Though he is deeply focused on the scene about to happen, he does offer up some assorted bits of info. I ask him if this season of Dexter is different than the two before and he offers this, “We have that much more history with the characters and the world. There’s more water flowing under the show’s bridge at this point.”  And it is a bridge into new territories obviously.  I wonder what it’s like building such a strong on camera bond with Jimmy Smits, a newbie to the set. “Jimmy is a wonderful and generous actor. We just jumped right in and started telling the story of these two guys. The context of their relationship is loaded to say the least.”  I venture further and wonder if this season presents any new challenges to Dexter’s twisted psyche, “Absolutely. Unanticipated developments force Dexter to face and experience himself in foreign ways. Life happens. And death, of course.”  

As Michael prepares to enter the fake door to a fake house in a distant Miami, I make my way from the set and into the blistering heat outside.  On the way out, I stop to ask Keith Gordon one last question, very curious as to how the voice over in the show is handled. “Michael is one of the most remarkably precise actors I’ve ever worked with, so, we do a timing of it so we know how long a shot has to last, and we shoot it.  Generally, what I assume he’s doing as an actor, and I see it on his face, is that he’s saying it to himself in his head.  So you’re watching his face sort of act the voice over without saying the words aloud. And so then he just goes off and records it himself.  It’s kind of remarkable, as far as I understand it, he goes alone in his trailer with a recorder, the sound crew doesn’t even go in there with him. They give him the tape recorder and he goes in there and he does it, often only one take of each thing, and it’s spot on. It’s creepy.”