Take Me To Your Leader

Thanks to Todd, and Jeffman9 for sending this in!

From Daily Radar:

Take Me To Your Leader

Before falling out of the sky onto television screens across America, alien queen Katherine Heigl had already starred opposite some of the world’s most remarkable faces — Peter Fonda, Gerard Depardieu, Steven Seagal, Juliette Lewis and… Chucky. That’s right, her biggest break might have been fending off the pint-sized terror and his latex lover in Bride of Chucky, as Heigl and paramour Nick Stabile (who?) unwittingly carted the deadly dolls on a road-trip murder spree. Heigl was the sweet girl on the run in Bride — we gotta admit that we’re much more taken by her alien bad-girl character on Roswell — but the film role opened the world’s eyes to the actress’ otherworldly talents.
In person, Heigl’s hardly the bad apple that she plays on Roswell. Instead, she’s a fidgety little number who can’t stop smiling and peppers every sentence with laughter. Daily Radar recently had the chance to sit down with the actress and get the lowdown on Roswell’s future (it got picked up for the 2000-2001 season), the actress’ theories on aliens and her show’s fascination with human-alien love.

Daily Radar: You were in Bride of Chucky before Roswell, sort of a progression from possessed dolls to teenage aliens. What’s next, are you gonna play Mulder’s long-lost sister on the X-Files?
Katherine Heigl: I don’t know. It’s interesting how it’s all come about, the coincidences of these different supernatural/horror… it’s all kind of the same genre. But whatever comes along comes along. I’m trying not to rule things out.

DR: Are you thinking about doing more movies, or are you going to concentrate on the show?
KH: I think that I can do both. I spend nine months playing Isabel. It would be neat to do a film for three months, just to do something totally different. At this point I’m really concentrating on the show, to really get it on its feet. But certainly I’d hope to do more film.

DR: Where are you on the whole aliens bit? Do you believe?
KH: Of course. I have to believe, because I don’t think I could do this if I didn’t. It just makes life so interesting to believe that out there, there are other worlds, other peoples, other species. It keeps your imagination alive.

DR: Is there something about the time we live in that makes Roswell and the X-Files more relevant?
KH: I think the advances in technology certainly help us out. Sci-fi and technology to me go hand in hand. If you think about things like Star Trek and Deep Space Nine, traveling about in their big spacecrafts, how far are we from that? People like to imagine we’re not so far away from living on the moon and sending people up in spacecrafts to travel through space. What keeps me interested in the Roswellian-alien-X-Files thing is the mythology, creating these stories that are so different from the basic stories we hear all the time. These are so different, they’re so out there. It’s just fascinating. Every new script we get, the more they develop the mythology.

DR: How has being on the show affected your daily life? Do people spot you a mile away?
KH: Not really. Lots of little girls in malls usually will recognize me. I live in LA and I think people there are really respectful. And it’s our first season on TV. I don’t think it qualifies us yet to be the Julia Roberts.

DR: How do you like living in LA?
KH: I think of it like a transfer. I’ve been transferred to LA, and I hope to get transferred out pretty soon. It’s okay. I don’t mind it; it’s just not where my heart is. This spread-out suburbia is a little weird for me.

DR: So I guess being a star makes it pretty easy to get a date?
KH: No, not at all! I don’t know where that theory ever came from.

DR: Maybe people are put off by your character’s tough-chick attitude.
KH: Okay, I’ll use that as an excuse. They just don’t know the real me [laughs]. It’s hard to meet people. And I’m really picky. I’m not intolerant, but I know what I need. If I know that I’m not going to get that from somebody, then I don’t go out and do the whole dating thing.

DR What’s been the most challenging thing about working on the show?
KH: Probably the hours. I always thought a TV show would move faster, because you’ve got so much to do and less time to do it. I’m totally passionate about acting. But on TV, you wait for two hours and act for five minutes. So I’m sitting there to do for five minutes what I love to do, and the rest of the time I’m doing what I hate to do, which is wait around. Thank God I have funny cast members who are entertaining.

DR: What is the rest of the cast like?
KH: They’re mostly crazy, fun people. A lot of the time we’re sitting in a circle on the set all just laughing our asses off. Nick Wechsler is hilarious — he plays Kyle — he’s such a funny guy. Brendan and Jason are both really funny people. Colin Hanks is really funny. Majandra Delfino has the driest, funniest sense of humor. Shiri does these weird skits. We get along well enough that we can sit there and entertain each other. Otherwise we’re screwed.

DR: Does being on TV every week mean that you never want to turn it on?
KH: I love TV. I know that’s really a terrible thing to say. I’ll sit there and watch TV for hours, but I’m not as bad some people I know. I love a lot of the WB shows. I should be watching things like The Sopranos and The Practice, but they’re on too late for me. I need to graduate to the more adult television circuit, but…

DR: So is it hard to play a bitchy character for you?
KH: I never think of her so much as bitch as I do she’s just strong. I see her more as somebody who doesn’t take any sh*t. I like a girl who can stand up for herself and not take any crap. She sort of commandeers a certain amount of respect.

DR: A lot of Roswell seems to about the steamier side of high school, with that whole “opposites attract” angle. How do you think it’ll handle the whole alien-human sex thing?
KH: I think we can have sex with humans. I don’t think there’s any problem at all. They’ve played it up a lot: the suspense of getting there, but having to stop because nobody knows what’s gonna happen. [The aliens] all have human boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s like the Buffy and Angel thing. She can’t have sex with him because he turns back into the evil vampire when he’s too happy. Those relationships never work out. But we can always have sex with each other, so that’s always fine.

-Chris Coe