Thanks a million to beanz for transcribing this article :D

by Laurie K. Schenden

Dark Angel fans know Valarie Rae Miller as the streetwise Original Cindy, the loyal friend and sidekick to Maz (Jessica Alba), the genetically enhanced tough-but-tender warrior woman who’s kicking ass Tuesday nights on Fox TV. Miller’s role, it turns out, is not all that much of a stretch. During a break in filming in Vancouver, B.C., Miller is back home in Los Angeles and chatting over an omelet at the Cash Coe, a homey-trendy diner she picked in the heart of West Hollywood.

It’s immediately apparent that Miller is prime best friend material. She’s disarmingly friendly, thoughtful, funny, wise, considerate and as “together” as any genetically unenhanced confidante could be. She’s also prettier and more refined.
Asked to compare herself to Original Cindy, Miller says: “She’s really clear. I’m a strong person too; I’m also kind of a protector. She’s just a little more than I am.”

Original Cindy also happens to be lesbian, a fact this is no longer an issue in the futuristic society in which the show is based.

“The first question I usually get is, “Are you a lesbian?’” Miller says. . “My only concern with that is, I think labels kind of put people in little boxes. A lot of times when you have heterosexual actors playing gay characters, they’re so concerned about other people’s perceptions that they want to step out in front immediately and say, ‘Oh, I’m not gay.’ So I just say it’s not a big deal and it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

And that’s what Miller loves about Dark Angel. When Original Cindy was introduced at the beginning of the season, it was done so matter-of-factly, as if in the near future a person’s sexuality is not longer an issue.
“I was actually kind of impressed” after reading the script, she says, “because they make everything so simple. It’s not a big deal. It’s just the way it is in real life.”
She makes a bigger deal about concealing her age, citing Hollywood’s obsession with youth as the reason an actress these days has to remain ageless to get the jobs.

If only things were as simple as they are on Dark Angel, the show that is destined to supplant Xena, now that the long-running series has been cancelled. Miller credits the writers and producers for wanting to portray a future where people aren’t fazed by another person’s race, sexuality or anything else. That’s an attitude she was brought up with at home in Fort Worth, Texas.
“When I would bring friends home, it would always be a surprise,” she says,” My parents never knew if it was going to be a girl or boy, what color they were going to be.”
Her family is originally from Louisiana., with “everything in the world married in,” she says. So she was brought up to be accepting of all kinds of people. One of her favourite uncles is gay.

“His boyfriend used to always come to Christmas with us and open presents,” she says.

Miller says she is “definitely a chameleon. ”Physically, she could be a different person from the one seen in television or in photographs.

“I’ve always been that way,” she says. “My mom used to say when I was little I would get into a costume because I dressed how I felt that day. She’s say, ” Oh, baby, that’s what you want to wear to school, go ahead, you’re going to make a lot of people smile today.’”

Miller, who also hosts the Saturday morning lineup of children’s cartoons on ABC, was set to host a talk show on Fox when she auditioned for the role in Dark Angel, a postapocalyptic action show created by Titanic and Terminator writer-director James Cameron.

Valarie Rae Miller’s Original Cindy plays sidekick and confidante to Jessica Alba’s Max in the sci-fi series Dark Angel, which debuted last fall on Fox TV.

She was hoping to do both. When the talk-show people told her she had to choose she didn’t know if she had the Original Cindy part or if the series would ever go beyond the pilot.

She chose Dark Angel and the gamble paid off.

The role actually had been cast twice before, but both actresses balked at playing a lesbian.

“One of them thought her Southern Baptist family would be upset; the other person was worried she was going to have to do a love scene,” Miller says.

Apparently, the actress was” really explicit about what she was going to have to do with another woman," so when Miller came to audition, the first question they asked was if she had a problem with playing a lesbian,
“I’m like, ‘No!’ They said, ‘You realize you’ll probably have to kiss a woman?’ I said, ‘How many men have I had to kiss that I wasn’t particularly interested in?’ And if it’s a woman, she’ll probably be fine. So why not?”

In this preapocalyptic age, there are still many people who don’ t share Miller’s enthusiasm for a live-and-let-live society. As for parents or certain civic groups who want to shield young people from homosexual images – negative or positive – Miller believes it’s a waste of time.

“You’re really not [shielding them] because in the real world you have a little bit of everything and you don’t know what straight people are doing in their bedrooms. So why are you so worried that somebody that seems attracted to somebody of the same sex?”

Even people she knows have ruffled Miller’s feathers over her role as a lesbian. She received an e-mail from a family friend who wrote to say how wonderful she is doing on the show and how proud they are of her- but how unfortunate that she is playing a lesbian.

“I was offended, “ she says. “First of all, you’re an idiot because you don’t know me that well. You’ve never met anybody I’ve dated; I could very well be a lesbian. You just stuck your big foot in your mouth. And then two, what’s the big deal? You know so many people and you don’t know whether they’re gay or not. It’s not your damn business. If you’re not sleeping with them, why do you need to know?”

Judging from the letter and the comments in the chat rooms on the Dark Angel website, a lot of viewers from all walks of life are connecting with Original Cindy, despite her sexual preference.

“People are drawn to her realness, her sense of humor, rather than worried about her sexuality,” Miller says.

She used to follow the online chats, but burned out on that. In her free time, when she’s in Los Angeles, she goes to the movies and catches up wither her few close friends, who include her roommate, who’s been a friend since college, and writer-director Patrick Ian Polk (Punks). When she’s on location in Vancouver, she’s “so boring,” she says. She goes to the gym, reads- currently Conversations with God – knits or does research on the computer.

“I’m always researching something,” says Miller, who was reading by age 3 and who was a straight –A student attended magnet schools and took advanced placement courses in High school. At the University of North Texas, she studied film production and child psychology.

“I wanted to do development for Children’s televisions programs,” she says, adding that she’s always been interested in working behind as well as in front of a camera.
Wearing many hats is nothing new to Miller, or to her family. Her grandfather, a chemist, had several degrees, she said and started one of the first black cosmetic companies. Her great-aunt, whom she calls her role model, owned her own catering company decades ago, at a time when women just didn’t own businesses.

She also cites her mother, who passed away a few years ago, and Oprah Winfrey as role models.

“She got a lot of stuff done, didn’t she?” Miller says of Winfrey. “I always thought that, because I acted and started in the hosting thing – nobody else does that; she’s the only person I’ve ever known to do that and make it work. And coming from the circumstances that she came from, to be where she is is pretty amazing.”

While Miller went to good schools because of her academic ability, her family was actually poor, and her upbringing wasn’t easy.

“We were poor, but my mom said we didn’t know we were poor,” Miller says. “We never had public assistance, but only because my mom refused to do that.”

Miller was close to her mother, and says her death and her own temporary paralysis after a tumor was removed were two life-changing events that altered her outlook on life.
“I used to worry so much when I was younger,” she says. “But because of [these experience], now, if I don’t have any control over something, I don’t have any control.”

Miller does have some direction over her character on the show, Original Cindy. She believes that out of all the characters on the show, Original Cindy is the most completely developed.