The New Faces of The L Word, Exclusive Interviews with Sarah Shahi, Rachel
Shelley, plus guests Jane Lynch and Sandra Bernhard.
In the first season of The L Word, the show's audience was introduced to a
group of beautiful women whose lives and loves they followed throughout the
year. With friendships and relationships having evolved, the second season
will pick up with Tina (Laurel Holloman) rebuffing all attempts by Bette
(Jennifer Beals) at reconciliation and Tina finds out she is five months
pregnant. Marina (Karina Lombard) is gone, Alice (Leisha Hailey) and Dana
(Erin Daniels) cannot seem to resist each other, Jenny (Mia Kirshner)
prepares for an emotional farewell with Tim (Eric Mabius), Kit (Pam Grier)
catches Ivan (Kelly Lynch) in an awkward position, and Shane (Kate Moennig)
meets an attractive new lover, Carmen (Dallas native Sarah Shahi), a Latina
production assistant who spends her evenings as a DJ-all this in the
scandalous season opener. Causing a bit of turmoil in Bette's life will be
Helena Peabody (London native Rachel Shelley), the new administrator of a
foundation that provides financial support to the Art Center. When Helena
announces that she's taking the group's grant money in a different
direction, Bette becomes distraught, consoling herself with alcohol and a
one-night stand.
With new additions to the cast that will certainly heighten the level of
drama, season two of The L Word is sure to be just as addictive as last year
and will keep audiences tuning in and wanting more. She Magazine brings an
exclusive interview with these two beautiful women on their characters, sex
scenes, their relationship with the cast, being admired by gay women and
much more.
Christina Radish: Why do
you think you were chosen to join the cast?
Sarah Shahi: I paid them money. Lots of money. How can they refuse $12
million? [Laughs.] No. Why do I think I was chosen? I honestly don't know.
Maybe they just needed some new blood. I know the network has been making a
lot of changes since last year, and maybe they just wanted to do something
different with their shows. I will say that it was probably one of the
easiest things that has ever happened to me. I read for the casting director
and they put me on tape, and the next thing I knew, they were calling me
saying, "They want to offer this to you." So, it just dropped out of the
sky, in terms of how it happened. I couldn't have asked for an easier hiring
situation.
Rachel Shelley: I know that they'd been looking for the actress to play the
role of Helena for quite awhile, and I know that they were toying with the
idea of making her English. By the time I got on the set, they were two
episodes behind. Casting is all about tiny nuances of personality, which,
for the most part, people are unaware of. I think, to some degree, we all
have elements of our character that are innately in us. So, I guess they saw
something in me that was innately Helena, which is a little disturbing
because Helena is quite harsh. What's funny is that, in my acting career
previous to this, I've always played the sort of "butter would melt" kind of
character. I've never been cast this way before, as the one who sort of
ruffles peoples' feathers. Also, I think there's an element in American
television to often cast British actors, male and female. Americans love to
think that the English accent is kind of hard and slightly cruel and a bit
superior, and quite often we're cast as the baddies or the villains of the
piece, and I think that's partly true here. My English accent probably
really helped me get cast just because it does, for American audiences, seem
to lend that edge of arrogance or superiority.
Had you seen the first
season of the show before you were cast?
Shahi: I'd only seen a few episodes here and there, when I was home on
Sunday nights. I'd be like, "Oh, let's see what's on. Oh, okay, I'll just
watch this." I was familiar with it, but not as much as I am now, obviously.
Shelley: Not prior to auditioning, no. I was in England and the show only
came to England, I think, in the autumn of this year, and I was cast in the
summer. But, I had heard quite a lot about it and I'd actually read and
heard interviews with Ilene Chaiken. I'd read stuff with her talking about
her script and what she was trying to do, so I was quite intrigued by the
show and I knew the level it was at. I knew the kind of issues that it dealt
with, but I had not seen anything.
What about your
particular character attracted you most and made you want to do the show?
Shahi: Well, as an actor, you just want to try things that constantly
challenge not only your skills as an actor, but as a person, too. It was
just one of those things that you'd have to be dumb to pass up on. It's so
enriching, in my personal life, and as an actor. I feel like I get to play a
dream role, in a sense that not many actresses have the opportunity to play
the role that I'm playing. In the second season, you really don't get to
know that much of Carmen's story—her own personal background. My storyline
is intermixed with those I'm in relationship to. It's not until the next
season that we're actually going to go into Carmen's life and explore what
it's like being a gay Latina, and get to see her own family.
* Thanks to SHE Magazine
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