Rachel, The L Word, The Children ......and Other Things! (Part Two)

Angela:
We have some great clips on the site, tell me a bit about Robin Hood?

Rachel:
This was an American TV show made by Warner Brothers and was family viewing.  It was shot in Lithuania.  I went back twice. I auditioned for the first one in London and they nearly cast me as Marion but they didn’t in the end but they gave me an episode.  But they really liked me so when the first Marion left they asked me if I would do Marion, but this was a couple of years later and I said “no” because I didn’t want to spend years and years in Lithuania.  But they did bring me back for one episode.

Angela:
It was beautifully cheesy

Rachel:
I know, it was so cool, I played Boadicea, it was amazing!  It was crazy, we were also playing it in stiletto heels with fishnets, well not so much Boadicea but the character before.  The stunt where I die jumping off the trampoline and landing on the sword was such good fun.  Lithuania was beautiful, I would never have been there otherwise.  It was like Prague but not developed.

Angela:
Since you have become more popular you’re experiencing people following you all over the world, how do you cope with that.

Rachel:
In my season with the whole situation of coming in between Bette and Tina I knew I was going to be public enemy number one and I felt I was doing my job well if there was a strength of feeling against my character.  What’s weird is when the lines are blurred and people start saying things about you personally.  But then on the other hand the only way that people know me is through the TV and playing that character, and if that’s what they see then of course they are going to have those feelings.  I’m the same, I’ve watched TV shows with a character that does terrible things and you believe them so much that you think that the actor must have those qualities.  I try not to read things, even on this website.  I’ve occasionally logged in but I don’t want to know what people are saying, I think it’s dangerous, I think it messes with your mind a bit.

Angela:
I think that’s a very sensible thing

Rachel:
The internet is such an anonymous place it allows people to be really fierce and really say quite angry things, and often when you meet them they are often the shyest in person.  The internet allows then to be what or who they want to be but are too scared to be in real life.  The social etiquette just goes sometimes when you can be anonymous.

Angela:
The internet does allow your privacy to be invaded, and once it’s out there it’s always there, The “Run” video is an example of something that was private to you.

Rachel:
I had a big argument with the person who put that out, I didn’t know they had done it obviously.  They took it off but it had already been copied and then they told me there were bad copies out there where it wasn’t in sync.  It was over a year ago that it went out, the guy took it off but with the bad copies out there I told him to put it back on because if people were going to watch it, which they obviously were, I would rather they watch it in sync.  Having been angry about it I’m now like “whatever”!

Angela:
How do you maintain a private life?

Rachel:
I do fine, especially in England I don’t get approached that often, but when they do they are usually really nice and really respectful.  For the most part it would be very rare that I find it intrusive.  Obviously people have to choose their moments.  If I was having an intimate conversation with someone then I would hope they wouldn’t come up.  It hasn’t really been a problem

Angela:
Do you ever get starstruck?

Rachel:
I do, yes.  Oh god yes, definitely.  The last time I was really starstruck I was at a party and Robert Downey Jr was there and I think he is an amazing actor and I think he’s gorgeous.  Someone pointed him out to me and said “I know him, do you want me to introduce you to him?” and I said “no way”!  I couldn’t do that, I would be a mess I would be lost for words.

I worked with David Bowie a few years back and he was a real idol of mine as a child, he was the only pop star on my wall, well actually him and Sting.  I was sure I was going to be an idiot around him……and I was the first time I met him, a real idiot.  Then we worked together and he was the nicest man, he was so talented, so relaxed and lovely.

Angela:
These are some of the questions sent in by visitors to the site.  Some of them are a bit silly, so I warn you! 

What’s always in your fridge?

Rachel:
Dark chocolate, Green & Blacks dark chocolate with spicy orange.  Always, any fridge, anywhere.

Angela:
How do you maintain your figure with such a love of chocolate?

Rachel:
I don’t eat loads of it.  With dark chocolate one or two squares is enough of a fix.

Angela:
Now everybody will be rushing out to buy Green & Blacks just like they did with your favourite book and films!

Rachel:
I’ve just ordered “Of Human Bondage” for someone.  It’s such an old book but such an amazing, lovely book.  It’s a heavy read but it has me in tears.  Did I tell you, it was really weird, I had this old copy,  I don’t know where I had got it from but I read it a couple of times.  My mom reads a lot and she asked me to recommend a book and when I recommended it she said “I’ve read that about 4 times, it’s my favourite book ever”.  We had never discussed it before, it was really weird.

Angela:
Describe a day in your life, outside the show?

Rachel:
If I’m in London and not working I always try and have a slow morning.  I don’t get up early, I like to pad about in my jimjams, well not jimjams as such it’s more sweatpants.  I read the papers, answer emails and look at the news online.  I do some yoga, make phone calls, have brunch.  I have a sociable afternoon.  I might meet a friend for lunch.  I like to cook in the evening, maybe have friends over for dinner or go to someone’s house for dinner.  It’s all very low key really.

Angela:
What’s an L Word set day like?

Rachel:
Awake really early, which has never been a good thing for me.  So get up at 4am or 5am, a mad dash to leave the house.  I still try and do at least 20 minutes of yoga before I leave however early it is.  Get to work bleary eyed, maybe start shooting about 8am.  Have a nice lunch.  There is a lot of hanging around time.  I would be reading or watching DVDs or if we are in the studio we can go into the office and use the computers so a lot of us do email or sort through our mail.  A lot of the time we just hang out.  That can go on for a good 12 hour day finishing about 6 or 7 in the evening.  Usually I’m exhausted, in bed by ten to do it all again the next day.

Angela:
So you rent a house while you’re there?

Rachel:
Yes, close enough to the studio, close enough to town.  I don’t like living in downtown Vancouver, I like to be near the beach, or somewhere rural.  I think it’s because I live right in the centre of London, I want something different when I’m in Vancouver.

Angela:
Do you have to think about your diet all the time?

Rachel:
To some extent, yes.  I’m allergic to dairy so it’s like being on a diet all the time.  If I eat dairy I throw up and I stopped eating it because I used to be covered in eczema so I was one of those scaly kids that was bleeding all the time.  I cut it out when I was about 19 or 20.

Angela:
What were you like as a kid?

Rachel:
Scaly!  I was a little kid that was always snotty because of my allergies.  I was that little kid.

Angela:
Were you gregarious?

Rachel:
I don’t know really.  It’s always hard to think of yourself as a child.  I used to do local youth theatre and I used to do a few school plays.  I’m the youngest of 4 and my family is quite boisterous and loud.  2 boys and 2 girls and we were always loud so it was always who shouted the loudest, and I used to shoot as loud as they did! 

Angela:
So acting was always on the cards then as you were doing it as a child?

Rachel:
Yes, although when I was a kid I was doing it because I enjoyed it.  The idea of making money from it didn’t make sense then.  I didn’t know anyone who was an actor, nobody in the wider family was.  I was in a small village, I didn’t know any actors, that was for other people.  Some of the kids I was in youth theatre with were talking about going to stage school.  That scared the life out of me because I imagined it would be like “Fame” and everybody would be in tights and terribly flamboyant.  I thought that would be awful.  Even when I went to university I shied away from that and went for English and Drama.  I did that mainly because I loved English literature but also I felt I needed something more practical as I never thought I would make a living from acting.  It was only on graduation when I was asked to join a theatre company that I realised that someone would pay me to act.

Angela:
How did the modelling come into it then?   

Rachel:
It all came about because I was asked to join this theatre company which I did for a little while.  Then I set up a theatre company with some friends on the “Prince’s Trust” scheme where they gave you an extra £10 a week on top of your dole money.  That worked well for about a year, then I wanted to move down to London because that’s where the centre of acting is.  The way to achieve that and to make some money was to model.  So that was the move down to London.

Angela:
You’re obviously very close to your mother but your childhood was spent travelling around living in different places.  Does that make you closer to your parents?

Rachel:
My mother and I have spent a bit more time together than we would normally.  She has been amazing, and when your parents get to 70 you do start to feel that they won’t be around forever.  Yes it does bring you closer to your parents when you are moving around every 3 years, but it’s a classic thing they say that actors are often the youngest in the family that have had to adapt because of moving around and make new friends all the time.

My mom never really had a profession as such, she would find a different job wherever she was.  She was in broadcasting radio one time, she was in accounting at another.  All sorts of things. 

Angela:
How does she feel about you becoming an actor?

Rachel:
Oh she loves it.  The four of us do very different things and one of the things I love about my parents is that they say you should always do the best at what you do, that’s all you can do.  None of us have ever been forced to do better.  My mom has always supported me in everything I have done.

Angela:
So, she never said you should get a proper job?

Rachel:
My dad said that a little bit and one of my brothers says that to me sometimes.  He’s a barrister, and for a while he wanted me to join him.  The year that I went to Edinburgh with the theatre company was the year my brother asked me to do work experience with him.  It could have gone either way.  I might have done that and thought it was amazing, but I chose the theatre company.  I do like that kind of intellectual debate, there is a lot of performance in what he does and he really is a performer in a lot of ways.  I don’t know if I would have been capable of it but I might have liked it. 

Angela:
Back to questions from the folk on the site.  If there is anything you could change about yourself what would that be?

Rachel:
On a physical level I would rather not have the allergies I have, they are a pain in the ass a lot of the time, they prohibit me going places and being relaxed.

I am way too over critical of myself and other people.  I’m a true Virgo, I know I am.

Angela:
What is your biggest fear?

Rachel:
Being old, lonely and unhealthy.  Just the normal mortal fears of life.

Angela:
I can be woken in the middle of the night for…………?

Rachel:
There is one very obvious answer to that…….sex!
 

Part One