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Entertainment Weekly

Meet Jessica Alba's outspoken sidekick. ''Dark Angel'''s Valarie Rae Miller says her lesbian character will finally be getting some play this season by Liane Bonin


DIVINE CALLING Miller turned down her own Fox talk show to play Original Cindy on ''Dark Angel''

As Original Cindy, the feisty sidekick to Jessica Alba's genetically engineered bike messenger, Max, on the Fox series ''Dark Angel,'' Valarie Rae Miller says exactly what she thinks. Offscreen, the Fort Worth, Texas, native is equally outspoken. Miller talked to EW.com about what fans can expect from the show's second season (kicking off Friday, Sept. 28, at 8 p.m.), what it's like to have lovebird costars like Alba and Michael Weatherly (who plays Max's hacker ally), and why she's frightened by the very thought of an Original Cindy doll.

Original Cindy has been all talk and no action when it comes to getting chicks. Is this due to network reluctance in depicting a lesbian romance?

This season she'll have more of a love life, but I can't say too much more than that. Before I was even hired that was a big discussion, so it's just been a matter of when to incorporate that into the series.

So what can we expect to be different in season two?
They're trying to go in a more science fiction direction, and they've introduced several new characters. Cindy's supposed to be more involved in a lot of the secret stuff that Max and Logan are doing. Since she found out Max's big secret last season, she's gradually been becoming more involved... Viewers should know that if there's something that they see and they dig it or DON'T dig it, they should feel free to write Fox; the network really looks at mail and what they think people want to see. Every fan letter is seen as comparable to what 500 viewers would say. So they take it kind of seriously and they test the heck out of everything.

You dropped the opportunity to host your own talk show when the ''Dark Angel'' role came around. How tough was that decision?

In a weird way, the decision was kind of made for me. I wanted to do both and the producers of ''Dark Angel'' were really cool about it and actually wrote it into my contract that I could do both. I was so impressed by their gesture that when the legal department for the talk show, which was another Fox project through a different division, wanted me to decide between the two, I picked ''Dark Angel.'' It seemed to me that this show was just more amenable to working with me. And you know, if you have to decide, you go for the place where you get the most love.

NO LOVE LOST Miller (with Alba) says on-set romance is kept to a minimum

Now that Jessica and Michael Weatherly are engaged, does that change the atmosphere on the set?

You could be working at the post office or anyplace and have two coworkers dating each other. When the show was cast, the producers wanted chemistry between those two characters, and there obviously was. Whether or not there would have been a relationship off camera, they needed that to play on camera. So it doesn't really affect anything at work. I've heard horror stories where people have worked together and the people didn't get along. So I guess if anything it's actually kind of a blessing. It's really not a big deal with anybody. Nobody ever comments on it. It just is.

How do you feel about the new ''Dark Angel'' merchandise that's in development?

I'm so afraid of what they're going to do to a doll of me. This may sound really stupid and it may just be because we're shooting in Canada, but they do not get the concept of skin color. I'm a relatively light-skinned black person from a multiracial background. Jessica and I are not that different in skin color. But on the website they have a cartoon, and the cartoon of me is much darker than I am. And they do that all the time. They had a stunt double for me that was a way different color than me. They had to paint her to be my complexion. She's a great stuntwoman, but she's taller than me with a different build and a totally different complexion. But they figured, ''Oh, she's black, she'll do.'' And they don't mean it in a nasty way; they genuinely don't think people notice. But you know, we come in all different shades.

Is it getting any easier being an African-American woman in Hollywood?

It's still nowhere near where it should be and it doesn't even reflect what I believe what the majority of the country believes. I've been up for a couple of really good parts that had no color distinction and had directors say, ''You'd be so perfect for this,'' and then the studio says no, it needs to be a blonde. Being the outspoken person that I am, I always tell them, ''Hey, I've got blonde hair in my trunk,'' but they don't usually see the humor in that. On ''Dark Angel,'' to the credit of executive producers Charles Eglee and James Cameron, the show's been so ethnically diverse. But will it continue? I think in some ways the diversity isn't as pervasive as it was last season. But that may just be that we're only in the early episodes and it'll get better.

Playing one of the few African-American lesbian characters in the history of network television, is that a sometimes overwhelming responsibility?

What I like about the show is that the producers pride themselves on making her part of an overall cast and not drawing too much attention to her sexuality. It's a part of who she is, not all of who she is, just like in real life. As an actress when you read the material and you're preparing to do it you're not like, ''Oh I'm so proud of myself, look what I get to do today for the lesbian and the black community!'' But when I step back and I look at it, I think it's really kind of cool.

Do you have lots of adoring female fans?

You want to hear the kicker out of everything? The fan mail that I get is typically from young males, and they think Original Cindy's just hot. And to them, the fact that she's a lesbian is definitely a plus.