Dreamwatch

From the futuristic DARK ANGEL to hosting an American Saturday morning kids’ show, actress VALARIE RAE MILLER is emerging as a versatile talent.
Interviewed by Christina Radish

Valarie Rae Miller spends most of her time these days on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, filming James Cameron’s new series about a genetically enhanced superhuman prototype who is dwelling in the post-apocalyptic Northwest. Set twenty years in the future after a major computer breakdown has sent the nation into a depression. DARK ANGEL tells the story of Max (Jessica Alba), who is hunted by her former military handlers through the edgy, underground street life of 21st century America.

Every trained killing machine has to have allies, and friend to Max is her sassy lesbian co-worker Original Cindy. Miller is happy with the way her character is developing. “I think they’re doing great stuff with her,” she says. “My character as a whole is getting to be multi-dimensional which, a lot of times, is a problem when a new show starts, especially a science fiction show, because they tend to miss a lot of the personal elements, so I’m really impressed with that.

Born in Lafayette, Louisiana and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Miller had to make quite an adjustment to the cold and rainy Vancouver weather. “I’m a little more acclimated for there now, but I’m a person that’s always cold,” she says, “I’m grew up in Texas and it’s hot there, so I can deal with heat a lot better than I can cold. I come back here to Los Angeles and I’m so excited because it’s sunny and warm. Everybody’s like, “it’s not that warm,” and everybody’s shivering and I have on short sleeves. It’s never that cold here. We’ve been getting below zero weather in Vancouver at night. A lot of times we do night shoots and that’s when it catches you because you’re outside working someplace and it’s below zero.”

HIGHLY POLISHED

In order to give DARK ANGEL its highly polished look means long days for the cast and crew. “It’s an eight-day schedule for an episode,” Miller explains. “Some days you work on two different units, so you work on your main unit and then you still have to go and work somewhere else. You can easily have 16-hour days. A 12-hour day is a short day and you have no idea how many days a week you’re going to have to work. It just depends on what the script is.”

When spending such long hours together, it works in your favour if you get along with your cast mates. “It’s like a family,” says Miller. “I think it’s a testament to the powers-that-be in charge of this show because the executive producers, their staff, crew, and all of the cast are great people. When I went in to audition for the show I had to wait for a really long time. I was really tired and I didn’t feel like auditioning because I already had another job doing something totally separate. I sat in the lobby and the people came out and apologized because it was taking them so long. They treat everybody really well and I think that’s reflected in the people they hired.

Since she already had another job when she auditioned for DARK ANGEL, Miller had to go through numerous auditions so that the creators of the show could be 100% sure that she was the perfect actor for the role. “They had already cast my role twice before I came in,” she reveals. “They picked someone and she didn’t work out because, at the last minute, when they went to officially make the offer, she passed because she’s a singer and she didn’t want to be perceived as being a lesbian. She thought it would be uncomfortable for her family and her friends. Then, they cast a girl who was primarily a model, and they had the same situation with her. A lot of people passed on this project because they didn’t want to play a lesbian.

“Her being a lesbian was not a concern that I had. The only thing that bothered me about the character was in the description. It was that they used the phrase “ghetto fabulous”, and I didn’t want it to be a stereotype. It’s really hard, as an actress, to be able to put your whole heart behind doing something that may not necessarily be something you want to do, and I’ve been very fortunate because I have worked a lot and done a lot of things and I’ve never needed to do that. I went in and auditioned like it wasn’t any big deal. I wasn’t really stressed out about it ‘cause I already had another job and wasn’t even supposed to be auditioning for this in the first place! I then had to go through a million other steps because they had to get me out of the other contract.”

Even though DARK ANGEL hasn’t yet run an entire season, it has already received acclaim, including being bestowed with the award for Favourite New Drama Series at the 2001 People’s Choice Awards. “it’s impressive, but consider who are involved with it,” Miller points out, “I’m sure if our executive producer wasn’t Jim Cameron, we probably wouldn’t be getting quite as much attention.”

Due to the series’ popularity, it is only natural to assume that Miller has heightened her recognizability factor. “Some fans recognize me, but I look different than I do on the show ‘cause my own personality is kind of different,” she states, “I smile all the time and I’m a really happy person. I even carry myself a little differently. What I get is, people will freeze and they’ll stare at me and they’ll go, “God, she looks familiar,” and you can count to three before you hear, “That’s that girl.” People spot me more from ONE SATURDAY MORNING than they do from DARK ANGEL. They don’t put them together because on ONE SATURDAY MORNING I’m up and peppy. People just stare a lot and swear they know me from high school or whatever! I feel bad for poor Jessica because she’s plastered on everything. She’s gotten mobbed in Vancouver.”