Emily Bergl got her big break when she landed the leading role in Carrie 2: The Rage, and has led a prolific acting career ever since. She has appeared in films, TV shows and on the stage. Known for her diverse acting prowess, Emily has become a familiar face in Hollywood. Bergl is currently appearing on the ABC drama Men In Trees as Annie O’Donnell. She was kind enough to take some time during shooting to tal with us about her career and Men In Trees.
Below you will find both the written transcript of the interview, as well as the full mp3 audio.
BuddyTV: How are you today, Emily?
Emily: I’m doing well, busy, busy filming. We just had a long sequence where I wear a prosthetic eyebrow. So that of course took a long time so I’m glad I’m able to make it to this interview.
Can you give us little bit more about the prosthetic eyebrow? Does that influence the plot structure at all?
I have to be careful not to give too many things away because we’re getting down to shooting our big season finale. But I will say that something goes wrong with my eyebrow and that it is close to my wedding date. But I think that’s all that I’m probably allowed to say.
So, bride’s worst fears possibly coming true?
Yeah. I think we can safely say that a lot of the bride’s worst fears and a lot of complications are going to be happening on this wedding. If anybody is getting married or has had a disaster wedding they should definitely watch this and they’ll feel better. It’ll probably make their own wedding look pretty good.
Just to go back a little bit, with your theater background, when you were offered your first film role, were you hesitant to break into that new industry?
You know it’s funny, I was actually, the second job that I ever did was I was offered the lead in the sequel to the movie Carrie. So it was very early on in my career. I wouldn’t say that I was that hesitant about entering that medium because it was a career making role, but I was hesitant after that to be type cast as a horror movie actress. And I was afraid that it would affect me being viewed as a legitimate theater actor so right after that instead of doing more horror movies, which everyone wanted me to do, I went out and did a couple Broadway shows to make sure that people would still see me as a theater actor because, I mean, that’s first and foremost my identity as an actor; how I identify myself.
Now I read that you’re not a New Yorker, but you seem to do a lot of things on Broadway and at Lincoln Center, is that because you feel that the theater district in Manhattan is better than that in LA or what’s that choice about?
Well, I did live in New York for a long time and I think everybody knows that the theater scene is better in New York. I’m a member of a theater company in Los Angeles and I’ve actually done a lot of plays outside of LA like in San Diego at The Old Globe, at La Jolla Playhouse and those are great theaters. And not only my heart as an actor but my heart as a person is in New York City. I just think it’s the greatest city in the world.
So how did you land the role of Annie on Men in Trees?
I almost didn’t land the role of Annie because I was actually doing a show on Broadway when they were casting and luckily the show I did closed a week early and I was just at the last minute able to get to LA for the audition. I mean it was really my first audition after doing this play; I wasn’t really expecting anything. And it was just one of those kind of meant to be things I guess. I came in and read for the part and they seemed to think that I was right and actually I was, along with Derek Richardson who plays Patrick, we were the first people to even be cast in the show. It was one of those. I wish every job was like that. I mean usually you have to jump through about 10 hoops on fire but this one just seemed to be in the cards for me I guess.
As far as stage atmosphere in theater versus set atmosphere in TV and film, what are some major similarities or differences that can tell us about having had both experiences?
Well I think we’re really lucky on Men and Trees, because I would say that usually differences, there tends to be more, I think, ease and camaraderie or unity in a cast in a play because you all get together every night, a lot of the time you’re sharing dressing rooms getting made up together and then you all go out and do this performance together. And in TV or film sometimes you barely see the people that you’re working with because the scenes don’t happen at the same time, you don’t cross paths, everyone kind of goes home at the end of the night. You know in a play, everyone goes out for a cocktail afterwards or hangs out. But I have to say that in Men and Trees we haven’t experienced that so much because we’re so close as a cast and we’re always doing things together. Every Saturday night we’ll cook together or go out together so that’s been a nice experience for me because I hadn’t really experienced that kind of feeling that you get doing a play doing a television show and we have that in spades.
And do you film on location; is that part of the reason?
I think that is part of the reason. We’re on location in Vancouver although some of the people in our cast are Vancouver natives; they live here year round. But that always helps I think when people, you know, especially when people have families it’s kind of a treat to go out and not have guilt that the kids are home, can’t see them anyway.
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