Teenage Kicks
Shiri Appleby is best known to science fiction and fantasy fans for her role as alien sympathiser Liz Parker in Roswell High, but among the many other credits of the talented young actress are two guest spots on Xena: Warrior Princess as the memorably feisty teenager Tara. Paul Simpson and Ruth Thomas discover that Appleby has fond memories of the role which endeared her to Xena fans the world over...
Official Xena Magazine: Issue 19
“I just love to act,” Shiri Appleby enthuses. “If I have a job, I'm okay.”
The 22-year-old actor has certainly had a wide variety of experiences in her 18-year career, including her two stints on Xena: Warrior Princess as the rebellious Tara, a role she's obviously not been asked about very much before. Dressed in a warm duffelcoat as the sun sets over the Californian location of the Christmas episode of her current hit series, Roswell, she chats away amiably about her experiences in the industry.
Appleby was born in Los Angeles in December 1978. She started acting at the age of four, at first in commercials for such goodies as M&Ms, before graduating to roles on television shows ER, Thirtysomething, Doogie Howser MD, Baywatch and Seventh Heaven. At the same time she was also starting her film career with an appearance alongside Kevin Kline and River Phoenix in the movie I Love You to Death.
More importantly, the actress made a point of keeping her feet firmly on the ground. Her high school years sound just like those of any other US teenager: she was a cheerleader, she edited the Yearbook, and she was part of the student union. “I never went to any of the Hollywood child parties,” she says. “I had a really normal childhood - except that I acted. It was like, my brother played soccer, and I was on television sometimes. And I actually had normal jobs,” she adds. “One summer I worked as a hostess, and I was also a camp counsellor. I wanted to have those experiences because all of my friends were having them.”
The name Shiri means ‘my song’ in Hebrew, which became appropriate for the actress’ second appearance as Tara on Xena, in which the young girl gets into trouble for her entertaining abilities. However, when viewers of the show first saw her, in the third season episode Forgiven, entertaining was hardly the word for Tara. Usurping, annoying, irritating - these were all facets of Tara, who decided that she was going to replace Gabrielle both by Xena’s side and in her affections. “She’s rude and obnoxious,” ran the promo on US television, “and she wants to be just like Xena. But for this young warrior wannabe it’s time for a little tough love.”
Forgiven was filmed in New Zealand in November 1997, and marked the first time that Shiri Appleby had left the United States. “That was a blast,” she recalls, three and a half years on from shooting the episode. “I auditioned for it and it was great.”
In an ironic twist, Lucy Lawless found herself having to mirror her character by keeping a close eye on the young actress - although, unlike Xena, it wasn’t because she felt happier knowing where she was all the time. “I was 18,” Appleby points out. “And Lucy Lawless was incredible. She kind of took me under her wing. I was kind of nervous because I was in a new country, plus I was playing this wild feisty character.”
As the episode progresses, it becomes clear tha Tara has a bigger agenda than simply taking Gabrielle’s place, and she finally has to choose between her old life and the chance of redemption that Xena has offered her. What did Appleby think of the way the character developed? “She was fantastic,” she enthuses. “It was an incredible experience.”
Tara made enough of an impression on the writers and producers that they invited Appleby to return to New Zealand for an appearance early in the fourth season. In A Tale of Two Muses, however, it’s Gabrielle, rather than Xena, that Tara finds herself allied with. As we catch up with her, she’s been imprisoned for the dreadful offence of dancing in a beguiling way, and is about to be lashed - before Xena and Gabrielle arrive in the nick of time, that is. Dancing is something that Appleby enjoys although she reveals that learning a lot of new dance steps for the movie she filmed during the gap between Roswell's first and second seasons, A Time For Dancing, made her realise that she wasn’t as co-ordinated as she thought she was.
“I got invited back after I’d done the first episode,” Appleby recalls of filming A Tale of Two Muses. “So that was nice.” However, viewers hoping for a third appearance by Tara will be disappointed. The Xena producers contacted Appleby's agents to invite her back for a fifth season story, but unfortunately by that point the actress was contracted to work on Roswell, and given that she plays female lead Liz Parker, there was no way she could take time out to fly to New Zealand. Appleby clearly regrets not having had the opportunity to reprise the role of Tara, but brightens up when she recalls the whole experience of playing the character. “It was great,” she smiles.
Xena was a change of pace for Appleby, introducing her to the world of fantasy that she now solidly inhabits. “I was never a science fiction fan before I started Roswell,” she admits. “I was always into romance or light comedy. I enjoy those kinds of things.” However, Xena did give her a chance to practice one of the aspects of acting that she enjoys most: stepping out of the normal day-to-day life. “As an actor, that’s fun, because it’s giving you things to play with, and it’s not just dealing with life. There are all these other kinds of aspects, and it’s nice, because there’s actually breadth. As an actor, there are situations that I’ve never been in, so I don’t have that much to relate to.”
Roswell (or Roswell High, as it’s known in some countries) has been one of the surprise success stories of the last couple of years. Appleby plays Liz Parker, a high school girl who falls in love with Max, one of the aliens who landed at Roswell in the infamous incident in 1947. Max is not alone: initially there are three aliens who are desperately trying to keep their identities secret, and as the series progresses, we discover that they are being hunted by the FBI as well as by others of their own kind. At the end of the first year, Liz has to come to terms with the fact that her love for Max may be doomed because he is actually the royal leader of his planet and betrothed to another alien.
“I feel like the show has finally found its niche,” Appleby says. “Liz has been through a lot, to say the least. I think she’s grown up a lot, or at least I hope so, and I’m trying to make her not seem quite as vulnerable towards the situations she’s put into as she used to be. I want her to be able to deal with them, and to stand up for what she believes in. By this point I don’t think that the circumstances are necessarily as frightening to her as they were initially, because she’s been through it all before.”
Appleby is enjoying working on Roswell, which began with a 13-episode commitment from the US Warner Bros. Network, was later extended to a full year of 22 episodes, and was then the subject of a major fan campaign when the network threatened to drop it after its first year. At present, she has no idea how long she will be tied up with working on the series, but she does have some clear ambitions for the future. “I want to do theatre,” she reveals. “Whatever sort. I’d just like to go and do it in front of people and get their reactions, and to have to be in the moment all the time.
“They say that theatre is the actor’s world, film is the director’s world and television is the producer’s world. I’m ready to go and really just act. Roswell has been such a great training area, because there are new pages and new scripts all the time. There’s no time to sit and ponder, so I want to go and develop a character on the stage, and just do it for two hours.” Appleby doesn’t plan to wait until Roswell finally comes off the air, though. “I’m going to do theatre in less than five to seven years," she stresses. “I'm so excited!”
So which medium does Appleby prefer working in - film or television? “Doing a film is a lot of work,” she responds, “because you only have an hour and a half to tell this human being's story. Everything you're doing, you’re doing so much more specifically because you want to get all those points in. In television, the character is changing as I change. The story never ends. You’re able to have more freedom to play around with things. So I actually enjoy both mediums.”
Ask her which role has challenged her the most in her career, and the actress takes a moment to consider before deciding on A Time For Dancing. “The film I did this summer was really challenging,” she says thoughtfully. “The girl I played was really opposite from me. She was very cynical about life. Her father left; she’s got a bad relationship with her mother; and she's a pessimist. She's very introverted, but she has one friend that she’s just completely involved with, and her friend has just found out that she has cancer. It was incredibly challenging and I felt so sympathetic towards her, but it was also very difficult. I went from doing nine months of Roswell to playing a completely different character the next day, so just to get different mannerisms and let a different side of my personality come through was definitely the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.”
Not that Appleby found it difficult to fall back into her role on Roswell. “It’s totally easy!” she says. “It’s really easy to play sweet and loving and dewy-eyed, so it’s always fun.”
Appleby is keenly aware that she can use her position of fame and recognition to help others. “I’m doing a charity event soon,” she says excitedly. “It’s for kids with cancer, and I’ve been donating some money to osteoporosis charities. There’s a big carnival for all these kids with cancer in Santa Monica, and I’m going to be the race car referee. It’s like you’re invited to come and do things, and they’re always fun things to do. To me, it’s one of the really wonderful benefits of being somebody that’s in the spotlight. You meet people from so many different walks of life.
“I’ve been really fortunate,” she says honestly. “Working for charities has given me the opportunity to share my happiness.”