Thanks to Michelle for sending this in!<\/p>\n
From: Winnipeg Free Press<\/p>\n
\nNo longer alien<\/strong><\/p>\n
Roswell star jumps from unknown to fan favourite<\/p>\n
Sat, Jan 15, 2000<\/p>\n
Brad Oswald \/ Reports from L.A.<\/p>\n
HOLLYWOOD — In real life, as well as the make-believe, showbiz universe
\nhe sometimes inhabits, the last six months have been out of this world
\nfor Brendan Fehr.<\/p>\nThe 22-year-old former Winnipegger is midway through his first season as
\nstar of a U.S. network TV series — the WB Network’s spacey,
\nteen-oriented Roswell (which airs locally on CKY) — and in just half a
\nyear, he has gone from being a complete unknown to full-fledged fan-mag
\nhunkdom.<\/p>\nFehr — who co-stars with Jason Behr, Shiri Appleby, Katherine Heigl and
\nMajandra Delfino in the popular new show about three teen aliens trying
\nto co-exist with human kids in the New Mexico hotbed of alleged UFO
\nactivity — said it has been something of a surreal experience to
\nsuddenly find himself the subject of numerous teen-magazine features and
\nphotos, not to mention dozens upon dozens of Roswell-related websites
\n(including several focused specifically on him).<\/p>\n“As the course of the season has gone along, it’s changed,” said Fehr,
\nwho showed up for an informal meet-the-press session on Roswell’s set
\nthis week, clad in full grunge gear — thick-heeled boots, faded jeans,
\nMetallica T-shirt, hooded sweatshirt and a strategically positioned
\ntuque\/sunglasses combo.<\/p>\n“When I started off, I got one fan letter, from this one girl who kept
\nwriting me, ‘I know you’re getting lots of fan mail . . .’, and she was
\nthe only one writing.”<\/p>\nDraw the line<\/p>\n
During the course of Roswell’s first season, that has changed. These
\ndays, mail pours in steadily, and Fehr said he has his manager
\nmonitoring activity on the Internet to see what fans are saying about
\nhim and the show.<\/p>\n“Obviously, it’s all worth something, because it tells you that you’re
\ndoing a good job and that they like the show and appreciate what you’re
\ndoing. But you have to draw the line — if that fulfills you as a person
\nand makes you feel important, then you’ve got to give yourself a
\nhead-check.”<\/p>\nPopularity north of the border hasn’t quite kept pace with Fehr’s
\nskyrocketing U.S. celebrity, mostly because the Canadian network that
\ncarries Roswell has not made a dedicated effort to give it a consistent
\ntime-slot home.<\/p>\n“CTV has kind of bumped it around,” Fehr said during an interview on
\nRoswell’s set, located on the historic Paramount Studios lot. “It was
\npre-empted for a long time by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, so it
\nhasn’t really been a smooth transition. People who did latch onto the
\nshow were constantly getting jarred around with reruns and stuff like
\nthat, so that’s been kind of tough.”<\/p>\nFehr said a recent visit to Winnipeg, to spend Christmas with his
\nfamily, resulted in only a couple of fan encounters with people who
\nrecognized him as Roswell’s conflicted alien, Michael Guerin.<\/p>\n“I was in the line at the Gap on Boxing Day,” he recalled, “and there
\nwas a girl in front of me — I think she recognized who I was; I’m not
\nsure — but she was, like, ‘You know, I hate that Roswell show, but I
\njust watch it for Jason Behr.’ My friends and I started laughing. I find
\nthat kind of thing funny.”<\/p>\nFehr, who was born in New Westminster, B.C., and moved to Winnipeg at
\nage 12, admitted it’s a bit of a culture shock moving from the Canadian
\nPrairies to the centre of the showbiz universe, but he feels like he has
\nmade the adjustment fairly smoothly.<\/p>\n“It’s a different lifestyle, obviously, coming from a place like
\nWinnipeg and then living in Hollywood,” he explained. “But I like it —
\nI went back to Winnipeg this Christmas holiday, and I actually found
\nmyself missing L.A. and missing coming to work, because this is like
\ngoing to school all over again. I enjoyed school, and I’d go back to
\nschool in a second and do it all over again.”<\/p>\nNew friends<\/p>\n
A graduate of Winnipeg’s Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute who
\nbroke into acting in Vancouver after starting out as a model (in such
\naugust publications as SuperStore flyers), Fehr said one of the things
\nthat helps him stay grounded in the face of sudden fame is the fact he
\nhas found friends down here who are a lot like his pals back home.<\/p>\nHis busy schedule doesn’t allow him tons of time for socializing, but
\nwhen he has free hours, he spends them with his fellow castmates and,
\nmore particularly, with some of the young actors on the popular Fox
\ncomedy That ’70s Show.<\/p>\nFehr explained that he met ’70s cast member Wilmer Valderrama (who plays
\nFez) at a couple of charity events, which led to connections with series
\nstar Topher Grace and a couple of others from the throwback sitcom.<\/p>\n“When you come down here, you’re afraid of a lot of the Hollywood kids
\nwho always want to go out to the bar and do this and that,” said Fehr.
\n“I’m not a huge bar-hopper — I go to the Pemby in Winnipeg, and that’s
\nabout it. It’s pretty low-key. I’m not someone who wants to go out to
\nthe Skybar or anything like that.<\/p>\n“And (the ’70s Show’s kids) weren’t interested in that, either. We go
\nbowling and we go to Jerry’s (Famous Deli) and sit there and have a
\ngreat time. That’s what my friends back in Winnipeg are like, and I was
\nreally concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find anyone like that down
\nhere, but I did.”<\/p>\nValderamma, who was born and raised in Venezuela and moved to L.A. just
\nfour years ago, said it somehow makes perfect sense that he and Fehr
\nshould connect.<\/p>\n“We became best friends automatically,” said Valderrama. “Topher Grace
\nand I hang out together probably three or four times a week — we get
\ntogether and play PlayStation, rent a movie or go out to dinner, and
\nBrendan just fits in perfectly. He’s one of the few very down-to-Earth
\nguys in Hollywood; I think it’s probably because he comes from Canada
\nthat he’s such a nice guy.”<\/p>\nFehr said his mother is understandably proud of his accomplishments, but
\nadded that she’s also a bit worried about having her youngster trying to
\ncarve out a career in a tough town like Hollywood.<\/p>\nHe insists she need not worry about her boy.<\/p>\n
“It’s really hard, because when you’re in this business and you make
\nmistakes, people blame it on the business,” he said. “But I would have
\nmade mistakes in university, as well. You’re just facing different kinds
\nof temptations.<\/p>\n“The person I want to be . . . I’m going to get there, whether I go back
\nto Winnipeg or whether I’m here doing this. And I’m going to make
\nmistakes along the way, and I’m going to fall. It’s just a matter of how
\nquickly I get back up. And I just need to be able to make those mistakes
\nwithout anyone blaming it on Hollywood.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to Michelle for sending this in! From: Winnipeg Free Press No longer alien Roswell star jumps from unknown to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[2376,3],"tags":[9],"coauthors":[2266],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brendan-fehr","category-leading","tag-brendan-fehr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27896,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/27896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}