Thanks to Jaymz for sending this in!<\/p>\n
\nNZ Herald – Saturday, February 19<\/p>\n
Living on a fault line<\/p>\n
The X-Files meets Dawson\ufffds Creek in Roswell, the latest high-school drama to spirit our teenagers away. Frances Grant makes contact with the star.<\/p>\n
Journal entry for Saturday, February 19: Four days ago, midway through an interview with Shiri Appleby, the phone line died.<\/p>\n
After that things got really weird. We got reconnected and there was this background static – like there was a \ufffdforce\ufffd operating on this phone call.
\nIt\ufffds just so ironic that stuff like this happens when you\ufffdre talking to one of the leads in Roswell, a high-school drama complete with aliens. Well, it would be, set in the town where the world\ufffds most famous ET sighting (and autopsy) took place in the 50s.<\/p>\n\ufffdSpooky,\ufffd I say to Appleby, who plays Liz Parker, a human teenager who discovers three of her schoolmates are extraterrestrials. She laughs politely, she\ufffds probably used to the odd paranoid journo.<\/p>\n
Before the line went dead, on Tuesday, February 15, at 11:22 am, things were getting interesting. Appleby was saying she was open-minded about of life not of this Earth.<\/p>\n
\ufffdAfter working on the show for at least six months now, I\ufffdve seen so many things that it makes it hard to think that there\ufffds not something else out there,\ufffd says the 21-year-old, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley.<\/p>\n
\ufffdYou see so many things, things I had never been exposed to and now I\ufffdm seeing somewhat first-hand. So you know, the idea seems a lot more feasible.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Cool! What kind of things? But like her character Liz, who is trying to protect her three alien friends from detection, Appleby is good at keeping secrets. Too much information might spoil the plot.
\nSuffice to say: \ufffdLater in the season you learn more about the aliens\ufffd history and I don\ufffdt think it seems as impossible as it probably had before.\ufffd<\/p>\nThere\ufffds one thing she can let us in on right away, however: why the aliens are always getting stuck into Tabasco sauce. It\ufffds just a matter of possessing an otherworldly palate. \ufffdThe aliens like the combination of things that are very sweet with very spicy.\ufffd<\/p>\n
And there\ufffds another question which gets an outright answer. Which is the coolest teen drama on the box – Dawson\ufffds Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Roswell? \ufffdRoswell, of course.\ufffd So that\ufffds official.<\/p>\n
(Against accusations of leading questions or bias, it should be noted that Roswell outrated both these shows in its first week on air here.)<\/p>\n
Aliens aside, the show takes a more realistic approach to the state of adolescence than many other teen dramas have done, says Appleby.<\/p>\n
\ufffdIt\ufffds written in such an honest way and they\ufffdre not really trying to make teenagers so mature or so worldly and experienced. They\ufffdre actually allowing us the opportunity to show how scared and frightened we are growing up in different aspects, like how we\ufffdre frightened of these aliens, the aliens are frightened of themselves.\ufffd
\nPerhaps we should forget all that conspiracy theory stuff about alien crash-landings and government cover-ups, then. Because, all that angst in the show about feeling like an outsider – that\ufffds a metaphor for the teenage condition, right?
\n\ufffdI think that\ufffds more the theme – that teenagers aren\ufffdt as confident or secure with their own identity as they\ufffdve probably been perceived in the past.\ufffd<\/p>\nThe show\ufffds six young actors are encouraged to voice their opinions about the dialogue, she says. \ufffdIf we read something and it just doesn\ufffdt seem, like, realistic, the writers are very helpful in changing it because they want to portray teenagers in the right way.\ufffd<\/p>\n
Appleby began acting in telly commercials at the age of 4. She has had guest roles in shows such as ER and thirtysomething, but the part in Roswell, which she went through eight auditions to land, is the big break.
\n\ufffdIt\ufffds the first time I\ufffdve had a part of this much substance before, where I\ufffdm actually able to create things. And people are really seeing my work for the first time, so it\ufffds been a wonderful experience.\ufffd<\/p>\nThe challenge of a role which is more than a one-off is keeping the character fresh, she says. \ufffdAnd showing she\ufffds a lot more three-dimensional, she\ufffds an intelligent and a deep person.\ufffd
\nViewers will know that journal-writing Liz is analytical and smart – smart enough to check the aliens\ufffd claims of not being \ufffdfrom round here\ufffd with a quick test of her cell structure in the bio lab.<\/p>\nShe\ufffds not the kind of impressionable person who hears intergalactic listening devices in every international phone call.
\n\ufffdSorry about the bad line,\ufffd I say at the end of the interview, hoping this covers both the static and dumb alien-interference joke. \ufffdThat\ufffds all right,\ufffd says Appleby kindly. \ufffdIt\ufffds not your fault.\ufffd<\/p>\nWho: Shiri Appleby
\nWhat: Roswell
\nWhere and when: TV2, Tuesdays, 8:30 pm<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thanks to Jaymz for sending this in! NZ Herald – Saturday, February 19 Living on a fault line The X-Files<\/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":[3,2374],"tags":[40,70,11],"coauthors":[2266],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leading","category-shiri-appleby","tag-article","tag-interview","tag-shiri-appleby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","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=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28020,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/28020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crashdown.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}