Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bride of Kiefer speaks
By Gustave | Season 1 | Episode 25 | Aired on 05.30.2002
How did you get this part?
I may have been the only actor in Los Angeles who didn't know about this project. I was away doing a movie and I couldn't stomach the idea of going through another pilot season, and I knew nothing about 24. I came back to L.A. I had an audition the next day. I didn't have a script. I didn't know that Kiefer was involved. Off I go, and I audition my two pages or something.
And what did they tell you about the project when they sent you in?
Nothing. They never tell you anything. But I knew the casting director really well from various projects, so I went in and I really liked Stephen Hopkins. Bob Cochrane was there too, and I really liked him. I read a scene, and they insisted that I stay and go to the studio audition that night. That never happens in television. It's usually such a long drawn-out degrading process. I mean, no wonder I left town.
They said, "We want you here tonight, but please go home in the meantime and change your pants because they make you look chunky."
[laughs] Oh my God!
And I couldn't do anything about it. I live on the other side of town, so I didn't have time to drive home and back. And I'd forgotten my wallet, so I couldn't even go out and buy a new pair of pants or a skirt. So I sat in my car for three hours like a big loser eating Jack in the Box -- paid for with the little money I had. I did the studio audition and then they said, "We'd like you to come to the network audition the next morning." And that also never happens. You never go right from studio to network.
So at this point I was too embarrassed to ask for a script. I also didn't want to jinx it because things seemed to be going my way.
Did they say anything about the pants?
Oh yeah. They said, "Oh and by the way, don't wear those pants when you come back." So I came back the next morning and there were lots of other women there. Mia [Kirshner] was there reading for Mandy. Sarah [Clarke] was there reading for Nina. I just assumed they were all reading for my part, so I just knew that I didn't have the job. It wasn't going to happen. Although it turned out that I was the only person there reading for Teri, but I didn't know that at the time. I went in and read my scene and did okay…
What scene was that?
The scene with Kiefer from the pilot when we're in the kitchen and I say that Kim blames me for the separation. So they sent everyone home except for me and Sarah, and they told me I had the job. I absolutely refused to believe them. I had gone down so many other paths where it hadn't gone my way that it was not within my scope to accept this really great news. I still hadn't read the script! They all came out to congratulate me and I didn't believe them. I said, "You know what? Why don't you call my agent?" They were like, "Oh no! You really have the job!" I still refused to believe it until they sent me off to wardrobe. It wasn't until I had to make decisions about what I was going to wear that it finally started to sink in. I went to work the next day. And I still didn't have a script.