Interview: Claudia Christian

By Lisa Fary

I was concerned about becoming a mass of fangirl nerves while talking to Claudia Christian. Susan Ivanova, her character on Babylon 5, is not only one of my all-time favorite women in science fiction, she was also a personal role model for me when I first took charge of a classroom. So yes, there were nerves flitting about when I called her.

Nervousness dissipated immediately once Claudia and I started talking. She’s so friendly and funny, thinks of herself as a goofball, and still finds it odd when she’s thought of as a femme fatale.

Claudia is involved in a lot of interesting projects. Here, we talk about her new show on Showtime, her independent film work and, because I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring it up, Babylon 5.

Lisa Fary: Let’s start with your Showtime program. Tell me about Look.

Claudia Christian: Look was written and directed by Adam Rifkin, who I’ve worked with many times – we did a film called Never on Tuesday, The Chase with Charlie Sheen, and The Dark Backward with Judd Nelson and James Caan. Adam did a film a few years ago called Look, which he also wrote and directed. The film is a commentary on how we’re constantly watched and the whole thing is shot via closed circuit televisions, web cams, nanny cams, that sort of thing. Doggie cams. Elevator cams. When you go to an ATM, there’s a camera there recording you. That’s the style of the show. It’s very real, like watching people trying on clothes, shoplifting, picking their noses in the elevator.

The show Look is a dark comedy based on the movie and I compare it to Crash in that all these people’s lives are intertwined. The woman who’s waxing my character is the lover of my husband’s secretary and I don’t know she’s gay, so I think my husband is banging the secretary, not realizing that her lover is my waxer. It’s all of these little intermingled stories.

I play this married woman who is just a complete basket case. She’s a horrible mother to her two boys, she’s a horrible wife, she’s banging her drug dealer who is this scummy guy, she’s a coke head.  At one point she snorts coke off the ground at Chuck E. Cheese. She’s just not a good person, a train wreck, as they say. It was a lot of fun playing her!  Not a subtle performance in any way!

We shot nine episodes of Look, which I’m hearing will air on Showtime in January.

LF: You mentioned on your blog that it’s a guerrilla shoot. You were doing your own hair and make-up.

CC: Oh, yes. We were flying by the seat of our pants. It’s extremely guerrilla, very low budget. I supplied my own wardrobe, paid for my own parking. In fact, I think I paid them to be in it. It may be a new form of low budget.

LF: I’d like to talk about your short film, “The Experiment”. I saw the first two parts, but didn’t get to see the third because unfortunately, the audio is disabled. You wrote and produced as well as playing all three of the female roles. What was the inspiration behind your story and how was your experience making a short, indie film?

CC: First, addressing the audio. My friend Cameron’s father was a member of The Electric Prunes, this band from the 1960s. They had recorded the song “Amazing Grace” and gave us permission to use the song. Even though “Amazing Grace” is public domain, the record company put a hold on us using it on YouTube. I don’t have any of the original film, so I can’t re-cut it and put a different song in there; the original film has been lost somewhere. That’s why there’s no sound on the third part.

The film came about because my ex and I had met some people who were willing to finance a small budget for a short film. The impetus of the story was really that we had access to a phone booth. I went home and wrote “The Experiment”, sort of a story about a phone booth, in about two hours. I wanted to do three different characters in three different time periods and the idea was this phone booth that altered these women’s lives. I tried to make the phone booth sort of a last ditch hope, an oasis in the middle of the desert, for these three women who were struggling with different personal issues: abuse, insecurity, and making the wrong decision at the wrong time, a life or death situation.

I had this theme in my head that it all wasn’t even real, that there was someone manipulating it, an alien putting the phone booth down there in the middle of the desert as a human experiment, recording events throughout the years. I know it sounds very weird!

The experience was great. We shot for two days in the desert with a nice crew. We had a crane and everything! Even a real camera! We shot in different stocks because we didn’t have much money and were using short ends. So, we did some in black and white, some in saturated Fuji film, we shot on 35 millimeter. We even had a snorkel cam.

It was cool, one of those things where everything came together. I realized that if you put your mind to something and you’ve got good friends and talented people around you, you can pull something out of your behind pretty quickly before the investors lose interest!

LF: Do you have any interest in doing more indie films?

CC: Oh, yeah. My dream has always been to find a way to get to the point where I could finance my own projects. That’s complete freedom, to be able to just do it yourself where you don’t have complications from studios or people telling you who to cast. Once you bring in other players, it muddles the creativity. In a perfect world, I’d either be able to find someone who’s willing to back a great movie and leave us alone or raise the money myself and make a movie where I could showcase some of my friends’ talents and make everyone notice.

It’s very difficult now. You have to sort of do your own projects. I keep throwing little skits up on YouTube and I’ve been producing lighting DVDs for David Honl, a photographer. Those are the things I’ve branched off and have been doing because you really can’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring anymore for auditions. It’s become a much different world out there in the entertainment industry.

LF: Right. Making your own opportunities, throwing it out there and hoping something sticks.

CC: Exactly.

LF: Looking at your filmography, you have a lot of variety in the roles that you’ve played. Looking back, what required you to stretch the most as an actor. And is there a role that is particularly close to your heart?

CC: The biggest stretch was my role as Elaine Kilgore in a movie called True Rights and the recent role in Look. They’re two really despicable, histrionic characters. In True Rights, I had to wear a fat suit and a wig and all the jewelry and fake nails. I had to change the way I walked, the way I ate, the way I talked. Elaine was more of a real character type of character, which was wonderful. Then my character in Look is so unlikeable.

It’s always easy to play a really evil person or a killer or a tough guy, but to play somebody who has nothing redeemable about them, who is thoroughly despicable, the temptation is to bring a modicum of heart to them, a humanity because no one wants to look bad. But, with those two characters I looked bad. I was repulsive. And not just in their physical aspects. You just have to really let go and that’s what I did. If I was in my twenties, I probably wouldn’t have done as well with those performances because I had far more self-consciousness then than I do now. Now I’m like, screw it.

The roles that were closest to me. . .  there was a lot of me in the film Running Home and there was a lot of me in Babylon 5 in Susan Ivanova. I’d say Highlander was one of my most fun roles and had a lot of elements that I love: historical fiction, flashes back in time, fighting with swords. That’s the sort of thing I really dig.

LF: Fighting with swords, is that related to your line of daggers and knives?

CC: I’ve collected weapons since I was in my teens and have quite a few swords and epees and daggers and knives. I also design knives and manufacture them. I’m not as into it as I used to be when I was really into the Renaissance Faire, a big geek carrying around my sword and sparring with the guys. I don’t do that as much anymore because I feel I can’t justify it. I also just can’t do it anymore, that staying up partying all night! I just turned forty-four! I have to grow up at some point.

LF: I’m starting to believe that having to grow up is a myth.

CC: I couldn’t agree with you more. I actually think I’m regressing to even more childlike behavior, but I know my limitations now and I know I like to feel good in the morning. And also the RenFaires have changed. They’ve become Disneyfied. They used to be really raw and at the kissing bridge you could make out with people, people were taking herbal ecstasy and running around naked. Now it’s just a bunch of tourists.

LF: I would be remiss if I didn’t relay to you how much I appreciate your work on Babylon 5. I know this sounds weird, but Susan Ivanova actually helped me get through my first year of teaching!

CC: That’s great!

LF: When first started, I was this tiny thing going into some really bad schools and I was terrified. I wound up watching a few Babylon 5 episodes the night before my first day and thought, “I just have to pretend I’m Ivanova. That’s the only way I’m gonna get through this.”  And it worked. That’s what Susan Ivanova did for me.

CC: I love that story!

LF: I’m sure you’ve been asked just about every conceivable question about Babylon 5.

CC: Over the years, people do tend to ask similar questions. That’s why there’s a section in my book, My Life with Geeks and Freaks, that addresses the ten most commonly asked questions.  At the end of the day, I’ve done so many different roles in my career, comedy, drama, live theater, voice overs, but Babylon 5 is what people remember me for and I’m quite proud of it. It was an excellently written show, Ivanova was a beautifully well formed character, and I’m proud of my work on the show. It’s something that I’m happy to be associated with.

All in all, there wasn’t a day that I didn’t want to go to work in four years. I have only good memories from the show; it was one of the top three jobs as far as good times that I’ve had in twenty-six years of acting. Even on the episodes where it was awkward, like the one with the boom shocka locka alien sex dance, at least it was funny! I’d say one week to Joe [Straczynski] “How come I can’t do more comedy?” and then he’d give me something that was utterly, mortifyingly embarrassing that the fans would end up loving.

I was playing a strong, wonderful character. Fans would write in and say things like I’d made their daughters believe they could be the President. It was all positive. I’m blessed and grateful that I worked with such great people.

LF: Ivanova still does stand out among women in science fiction. There are so few who are as fearless and as in control of themselves as she was. So when I rant about the state of women in science fiction, which is often, I typically come back to Susan Ivanova as the gold standard.

CC: I think it’s also those many, many layers, which was the great thing about Joe. He observed the actors playing the roles and a lot of personal history went into the characters. He kept adapting with us. I always use the example of the one earring. My brother in real life died and I had said something to Joe about a talisman that I’d wear; then he did the one earring with Ivanova’s dead brother. Mira Furlan’s experiences in the former Yugoslavia had a lot driving her performance. All of the things we did off camera could become little personality quirks in the characters. I love how he handled it.

I had complained the first time an ex-boyfriend of Ivanova’s came on Bablyon 5. I didn’t want her having a boyfriend of the week. This implies that she’s screwed around when I thought she would have been studying the whole time because career was everything to her. Then Joe brought in Talia and that was great. Then Deep Space Nine had a female kiss and he said he didn’t have to do that with us. Ivanova and Talia just woke up and were in the same bed. There was no kissing, we never touched. It was really subtle.

LF: Babylon 5 remains one of my all time favorites. Prior to Ivanova, I had seen you in some other roles that seemed to emphasize or even rely on your inherent sexiness. But, then on B5, that took a turn where that entire aspect of the character was totally played down. Did that make a difference to you in your performance of the role?

CC: It’s interesting you say that. I was a very late bloomer as far as looks go. I got attractive around age 14 and then went through a second awkward stage. It’s still very odd for me when my agent says everyone sees me as a femme fatale. We all know ourselves intimately and I’m really a goofball. I’m a bit of a geek and a clown. I never saw myself as a sexpot. The girl I played in The Hidden was a stripper with a male alien inside and, to me, that was a goofy part. There were parts of that movie where I looked like a monster, but men remember the buttless dress and high heels.

On Babylon 5, I almost resented the scenes where Ivanova was in her quarters wearing a silky negligee because I didn’t think that was really her. She should have been wearing a tank and a pair of boxers. But, the silky negligee was Joe’s take on her, so I took it as Ivanova having a feminine side. The toning down of her sexuality wasn’t something that bothered me, but they started getting complaints from fans saying that her hair was up too much, and she has such pretty long hair, it should be down. So, we put my hair down even though in the military you don’t wear your hair down. It satisfied people’s desires and requests.

I just don’t see myself as the girl who was hired as the pretty girl. I’ve always played the cop, the lawyer, the crazy woman, the murderess, the FBI agent. So, I don’t see myself locked into that femme fatale role. However, I appreciate that people think I’m sexy. I was as shocked as anybody when I was asked to do Playboy. Since then, for the rest of my career, I’ve only had two other jobs that asked me to take my clothes off and both of those were recent. I had to be naked in Look for a scene at the age of 43 and I had to be naked in Nip/Tuck at the age of 42. That was interesting because when I had a perfect body, no one asked me to be naked. In fact, in Hexed, they used a body double.

I never did any of my own nudity I was never asked.  Playboy, Nip/Tuck and Look have been the only nudity I’ve done and I don’t feel objectified in that manner, so it doesn’t effect me. Had I spent the 1980s and 1990s doing slasher, nude films, I’d have a different take on it, but I never did.

LF:  What are you working on right now and what do you have coming up?

CC: I just finished the first double-disk DVD called Light that David Honl and I did together. It’s a great instructional DVD for teaching photographers, amateur and professional, how to light anything from an animal to a car, to a person, everything. That’s coming out in mid-September and will be available on my website and on David’s. The next one I’m doing with him is portraits of sci-fi icons. That’s one of my ways for raising money to do my own projects, is doing these DVDs. Hopefully, they’ll be successful and I can go make more little indie films.

Light will be available on Claudia Christian’s website and on David Honl’s website. Look is expected to premiere on Showtime in January 2010.

Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s almost 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.