Shiri Appleby interview

This comes from Interview magazine.

Shiri Appleby
by Michael Musto

MM: Don’t you think that if your new TV show Roswell had been done a few decades ago, it would have been a sitcom, like My Favorite Martian?

SA: I never watched that show. So I don’t know.

MM: Do you buy the premise of the show — a waitress having a crush on a being from another planet?

SA: I think it’s kind of feasible. THe boys are not like green Martians. They look and act like normal people, except they have these powers that enable them to look into my soul.

MM: What kind of advice are you getting from people around you? “Don’t Get a swollen head”?

SA: I’ve been lucky. I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I’ve been able to know what I like and don’t like about certain aspects of it. That way you can basically take it for what it’s worth.

MM: A long time? What are you, fourteen or something?

SA: No, I’m twenty. [laughs]

MM: You’re not exactly George Burns. You did start acting at four, however. So many child actors end up suffering a horrible fate, like practically everyone on Diff’rent Strokes. How did you avoid that?

SA: My parents. I never went to any of the Hollywood child parties. I had a really normal childhood, except I acted. It was like, my brother played soccer, and I was on television sometimes.

MM: The mood of Roswell seems very X-Files. It’s very somber, and people talk very quietly. It’s not slow, but very deliberately placed.

SA: Most of the times we’re talking slow and whispering because we’re discussing things that have to do with the fact that they’re aliens, and we don’t want people to hear.

MM: And it doesn’t throw the relationships off-balance that you happen to have your own series, and they work in the mines?

SA: Well, they’re all going to college. So no, it doesn’t. They’ve known me for so long and they’ve seen me do like really ridiculous television and all kinds of crazy things. So this is kind of just Shiri being a little silly.

MM: Do you personally have a dark side, or is it all sweetness and light?

SA: There’re a lot of different sides to me. I don’t know if I’m always peaches-and-cream.

MM: Well, that’s good to hear.