Interview parue dans le numéro 272 (mars 2001) du magazine britannique Starburst.
As the Original Cindy, Valerie Rae Miller chats about genetically-enhanced best buddy Max in Dark Angel
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Valarie Rae Miller may co-star on one of TV's hottest new shows, namely Dark Angel, but she barely knew how hot it was.
"I missed a lot of the hype because I was up here in Vancouver [British Columbia] making the show when all of that stuff kicked in," says the actress who plays Original Cindy, best pal of the genetically revved-up central figure Max in the James Cameron-Charles Eglee sci-fi saga, recent recipient of a People's Choice Award as Favourite New Drama Series. "For me, that was probably a good thing. I liked it. We didn't have to deal with a lot of outside stimuli and could stay focused. When you're in Los Angeles and around the hype, a lot of things that are unimportant and should remain unimportant get way too much emphasis. You start to believe your own hype. Even the best can get got. My roommate always says, 'You don't want to get got.' You just want to stay real and want to stay focused, be professional and do the best job you can. Everybody keeps talking about how big a show Dark Angel is, but I swear to you that nothing has changed. We all go to work and do our jobs. We may see an article about us or hear something about us being mentioned on Entertainment Tonight or hear that we're doing really well, but we're too busy doing the show to see Entertainment Tonight or to get caught up in everything else. 'Did you see that?' 'No, I was working.' So it's a good thing, I think, that we're up here.
"Also, from actually reading the scripts end then seeing the finished product before it aired, I thought the show was great. A lot of shows that are hyped far more than Dark Angel was don't even have a leg to stand on. If people were expecting something different from Dark Angel, I don't know exactly what they could have expected. I was pretty confident that Dark Angel would be as entertaining as I perceived it to be. It's an unusual show. It crosses a lot of genres. It's an action show with storylines that are strongly character-driven. There's the Sci-Fi angle as well. Some shows that have similar elements tend to focus more on creating the world than on establishing who the characters in that world are. You don't get as involved in what's happening. Dark Angel lets you get involved with both the characters and the stories, and you can also get into it just because it looks so great."
While the series may revolve around Max and her complicated professional and personal attachments to Logan Cale, aka Eyes Only, it also makes time aplenty for its stable of supporting characters, including Max's relentless pursuer, Lydecker, and her Jam-Pony cronies, Sketchy Normal, Herbal Thought, Kendra and Cindy. The character of Cindy created a bit of a stir at the beginning as a result of the fact that she's a lesbian. Gay rights groups applauded both the creation and the depiction of the character, in no small part because Dark Angel suggests that one's sexual preferences simply won't matter in 2019. It's a non-issue.
"I love Cindy," raves Miller, whose street-smart, fashion-conscious, straight-talking character has figured prominently in such episodes as the pilot, Flushed, C.R.E.A.M. and, most recently, Rising, in which the reds used Cindy as bait to lure Max into a trap. "She's a cool character. She can be very funny. I love the scene in C.R.E.A.M. when she and Max squared off with the guys in the alley. It took forever to do the scene because of the weather and technical problems, but you got to see the unusualness of the show's concept and of the relationship between Cindy and Max. Cindy didn't even realize it was Max kicking all these guys' butts behind her and doing all these flips and moves, using her superhuman powers. Cindy thought [Cindy] was scaring off these guys with her own brute force. I thought that was so funny. Also Cindy is almost Max's grounding place, her touch of reality. Cindy is so real that she balances out Max's need to have reality in her life. Max has no family or anyone she can depend on, and Cindy is there no matter how unusual the situation may be. Cindy helps Max, in a way, be a normal person. You saw some bonding between them in Rising, but I'd like to do more of that. I also want to see what happens with Cindy's girlfriend situation. From what I understand, that's coming up soon."
Miller knew heading into Dark Angel that Cindy would be a lesbian. And, unlike several actresses that shall remain nameless, it didn't deter her from pursuing the role. "That didn't scare me at all," she says. "During the audition process I found out that they already had cast this particular role twice before I even came in to read. Both of the other actresses backed out because they were concerned about playing a lesbian. They got cold feet. By the time it got to me I already had another job and had stopped auditioning. The character seemed interesting and I liked the script. I was worried that they might make the character a stereotype and have it all in your face, but the basic idea of playing a lesbian didn't bother me at all. When it got down to the wire, they said, 'At some point in time, Valarie is more than likely going to kiss a woman. Is that a problem?' I was like, 'And?' How many times have I had to kiss a guy I didn't want to kiss? If I have to kiss a girl, she's probably going to be hot!
"I kind of want a hand in the casting, actually. I don't want the girl to be hokey. I trust them, pretty much, but every single girl that Cindy has been interested in has been this typical, all-American, stick-thin blonde with straight hair, who looks like she grew up on a farm somewhere. And that's nice, but I would just like it to be something a little bit different in there, because you've already seen that. Just mix it up a little bit."
Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Miller began displaying her talent early on, attending a performing arts school and then appearing in TV commercials while in high school and college. After a brief stab at stand-up comedy, Miller moved to Los Angeles in order to giving an acting career a shot. Soon enough, she was landing gigs as both an actress and the host of various sports-oriented programmes. Miller developed an appreciation for Sci-Fi. "I've watched it all," she says with a laugh. "It's funny but I'd never realized how many James Cameron movies I liked until I got the job on Dark Angel. I liked all the Alien films. For years I had this thing about mucus because those aliens were so disgusting. I liked the Terminator movies. [Aside from Cameron adventures], I like a lot of Star Trek. I liked the original series and The Next Generation. After that, I'm not really too crazy about them. If you name other sci-fi movies, I've probably seen them, too. I liked all the Star Wars movies. My brother and I used to have Star Wars action figures that we'd play with when we were really small.
"What's interesting with Dark Angel is that it's Sci-Fi, but, like I said, it's not about the sci-fi. It's set in the future but it's not far in the future. A lot of the technology, with Manticore, isn't far from what's happening now [with genetics and cloning]. What's funny is that some people who are die-hard Sci-Fi people seem to be a little upset that Dark Angel is not more hardcore sci-fi. I don't think a lot of the average viewers get that we're set in the 21st century. They forget that all the time. Random people will come up to me on the street in Vancouver. It's a different kind of place; they don't trip on the fact that you're on a TV show. They just want to come up and tell you what they like and don't like about the show. I've got bike couriers coming up to me saying they don't think the show reflects their life, their experience. And I keep trying to tell them that Dark Angel is set 20 years in the future. They don't understand the economic situation that Max and Cindy and the characters on the show live in. Everything is different. So it's hard to please everybody all the time."
Valarie Rae Miller, however, couldn't be more pleased.
"It's been the best possible experience," she says as the conversation draws to a close. "It's a very pleasant work environment. The people I work for are great. The scripts are great. The fans seem to have embraced the show. I'm very happy to be here."
So Dark Angel's original Cindy prefers girls, and nobody bats an eyelid. But how have other SF show treated the subject?