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April 11, 2006
A SHOW NEEDS A TOMBOY ? SHE CAN LOOK THE PART !
Katherine Moennig

POSTED APRIL 11, 2006

FINALE WORD Interviews With Kate From Entertainment AOL

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		Thanks To The Newyork Times.com A Show Needs a Tomboy? She Can Look the Part Richard Perry/The New York Times The actress Katherine Moennig at a rehearsal for the play "Guardians." She made a convincing debut in semi-drag as Christopher Robin in a Philadelphia children's theater production of "Winnie-the-Pooh" and, precociously in touch with her inner androgyny, went on to portray a cross-dressing teenager on WB's "Young Americans" and a transsexual on "Law & Order" before inhabiting her breakout role as Shane McCutcheon, a seductive womanizer who happens to be a woman, on Showtime's soapy lesbian melodrama, "The L Word." Now, at 28, she is � finally and anxiously � making her Off Broadway debut as, of all things, a heterosexual bumpkin whose libido gets her very much into trouble in Iraq. A dose of international infamy follows. In ripped stovepipe jeans and velvet Gucci jacket, which both cling to her angular frame like a second skin, Ms. Moennig, who possesses the bone structure and metabolism of a gazelle, an angelic sulk and a smoker's cough (her latest role demands a few antsy puffs), does not so much bend as transcend gender. Especially when she smothers Shane's trademark eye-obscuring postmodern shag haircut beneath a one-size-fits-all knitted skullcap. The tattoo of a violin � she got it the day after her father, William, a renowned violin-maker, died two years ago � that graces her lower back is not on view, either. "I don't think I look like a boy, but I don't think androgyny is such a bad thing," Ms. Moennig said. That is perhaps the best attitude to take after being typecast by label-conscious Hollywood as a classic androgynous type. "Let's call a spade a spade: when people look at me, they say, 'Oh, she's the androgynous one.' " she added. "I'll tell you what type of character I would never be offered out there," she said, referring to Los Angeles, where she lives with a pair of dogs who transfer along with her to Vancouver for the four-month shooting season of "The L Word." "The femme fatale. Or the white-trash heterosexual hillbilly." Not even a kinky one. Which is why she jumped at the chance to portray such a hillbilly Off Broadway in the Culture Project's production of "Guardians," a deliberately provocative two-character play by Peter Morris. In alternating, bizarrely colliding monologues, it explores the Abu Ghraib prison scandal from the perspectives of an opportunistic British tabloid journalist (the Golden Globe nominee Lee Pace), who fakes torture photos to advance his career, and a disgraced yet defiant American soldier (Ms. Moennig) facing a court-martial for posing in torture photos at the Iraq prison where she was stationed. Any resemblance to Private Lynndie R. England is purely intentional. "That was the tricky part," said Ms. Moennig, who said she studied television clips of Ms. England and read her recent comments from prison. "Not necessarily to imitate her. I knew the character wasn't solely based on her. We don't look alike, and I can't say Lynndie England has the most vivacious personality. When I first heard about the scandal, I thought, 'How could a girl do something like this?' " Since taking on the play, Ms. Moennig has revised those thoughts. "It's all about power, and how desperate people do desperate things," she said. "The message is so clear: that power can be completely misplaced, and, because of that, a lot of things go wrong. I fell in love with this character: she doesn't play the victim, and she's unapologetic." She is, from the start, similar to what Ms. Moennig said her "L Word" character is becoming in the show's third season: "an open wound." The play's director, Jason Moore, better known for his lighter side as the Tony-nominated director of "Avenue Q," said, "Kate got the part because she possesses, among other great things, the thing I value most in an actor: fearlessness. And this part demands it." ------------------------------------------ PART 2 BELOW A Show Needs a Tomboy? She Can Look the Part ( Katherine Moennig ) Published: April 11, 2006 In "Guardians," Ms. Moennig's primary wardrobe consists of a voluminous orange prison jumpsuit. She wears no makeup, and her hair is scraped into an unflattering ponytail. She calls it "exciting" to play a part "where I could get my hair off my face, and let my eyebrows grow in." "I can't even put acting on television and acting in this play in the same category," she continued. "This is taking me out of my comfort zone." Pleading privacy, Ms. Moennig makes it a personal policy to keep her own sexual orientation under wraps. "It's not for the sake of being mysterious; it's really that I believe it's nobody's business," she said. "I've seen up close what can happen when actors talk publicly about their relationships: their personal life gets dismantled. It's a show business game, and it's one game I won't play." The same goes for talking about her relationships with a couple of A-list relatives in the business, Gwyneth Paltrow (her cousin) and Blythe Danner (her aunt). Ms. Moennig makes it clear that her career has not been fast-forwarded by nepotism. "Thus far, I've never been in a position to pick and choose my roles," she said. "I have to eat, and I have bills to pay." She found herself in the final rounds of auditions for the role in "Boys Don't Cry" that won Hilary Swank an Oscar. But she understands why she did not get the role. "I was green as grass," she said. "Besides, the bitter pill is a waste of time. All it does is make you want to ... take a nap." When she got her "L Word" role, she hadn't worked in a year. "I liked the risk that was behind it, but I thought, 'This can either fly or flop,' " she observed. It flew. And, she said, the ensemble cast behaves like an ensemble even when off-camera: "I look at them as my sisters." In "Guardians," she is on her own. It is a risky venture of a different sort: darkly satiric, intermittently shocking, caustic to the core. "Just the amount of dialogue I had to learn was a challenge, and then everything behind the dialogue is a challenge unto itself," Ms. Moennig explained. "It's not like there's the chance to pull the wool over anybody's eyes with this character. It's bare bones. I was terrified to take the part � which is exactly why I knew I had to do it."

	Finale 'Word' ''L Word'' actress Katherine Moennig talks about the season 3 finale, her favorite sex scene, and what she sees for Shane's future by Margeaux Watson COME BACK, SHANE! Says Moennig of her ladykiller character, ''I don't know if I really want to see her in another relationship'' ''It clearly wasn't going to last,'' says Katherine Moennig, speaking in her seductively husky voice. ''People don't learn their lessons that quickly in life.'' The actress is talking about Sunday night's season 3 finale of Showtime's sapphic soap, The L Word. In case you missed it, Moennig's character, heartbreaker hairstylist Shane McCutcheon, left her fianc�e, Carmen (Sarah Shahi), at the altar. So what's next for the androgynous ladykiller? ''My instinct says the fourth season's not going to pick up much later from the end of the third,'' says Moennig. In the meantime, the 29-year-old Philadelphia native has relocated to New York City and is preparing to make her Off Broadway debut in Guardians, a two-character monologue play inspired by controversial events of the Iraq War. Opening at The Culture Project on April 11, Guardians finds her in a role loosely based on disgraced U.S. soldier Lynndie England, who made headlines for participating in the Abu Ghraib prison-torture scandal. Following an afternoon rehearsal, Moennig sat down with EW in the theater's dimly lit basement to discuss The L Word's past, present, and future. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Is this really the end for Shane and Carmen? KATHERINE MOENNIG: Shane and Carmen never had a breakup in the finale. There's no big fight � nothing. Sarah's been cast in a new sitcom called Teachers, but I hope she'll come back to do a few more episodes just to bring some closure to their relationship. How do you feel about the evolution of Shane, from starting out as a playgirl to almost becoming a newlywed? I guess it would get a little boring playing the same stereotype of a person season after season, so I was happy that a different side of her got to be seen, regardless of if people like it or not. Where would you like Shane to end up? I love Shane to pieces. I'd like to see her answer a lot of questions that she's been asking herself for the last three seasons: Why the infidelity? Why the fear? Her father appeared in the [season 3] finale, so I'd like to explore their relationship. I also think Alice [Leisha Hailey] and Shane have a strong friendship that hasn't really been seen, and I'd like to show that. Do you want Shane to fall in love again? I don't know if I really want to see her in another relationship, at least not right away. And if she's going to be in a relationship, it has to be with somebody really spectacular, because Carmen � just from the audience's point of view � was fantastic. That's going to be a hard chair to fill. What happened to Shane's old flame Cherie Jaffe (Rosanna Arquette)? She may come back. I don't know that for a fact, but it would be nice if she did. It would make for good television drama. What was it like shooting that sex scene with Rosanna Arquette by the pool at Cherie Jaffe's beach house? It was really cold out that night and the water was very warm, so it felt like needles on your skin when the air hit you after you got out of the water. Did we just go for it? Yeah, but you have to in a love scene. Of all the love scenes you've appeared in on The L Word, which has been your favorite? In season 2, Sarah and I did a scene in the third episode where she comes into my room and brings Shane some beers, and we're playing a game � I think it was [called] Too Hot or something � and at the end, finally, Shane's like, ''I can't do this.'' She does her usual Shane and gets up and walks out. That was fun to play, only because it wasn't a sex scene, but it wasn't not a sex scene either. That's real life, not just purely f---ing. But my favorite love scene that I have not been a part of was Alice and Dana [Erin Daniels] in season 2 � the whole montage when they finally get together. They were in all these crazy positions and that great CeCe Peniston song [''Finally''] was playing in the background. I thought that was great. Speaking of Dana, at the end of the season 3 episode when she died, there was a clip of interviews with the cast and creators talking about her departure from the show, and you seemed pretty upset. I was very sad to see her go. Before we shoot each season, we have meetings with [executive producer] Ilene Chaiken to get the broad stroke of the entire season. Erin and I are very good friends, so when she called and told me that Dana gets breast cancer, I remember being like, ''That's fantastic for you to play. It's going to be so much fun.'' And then Erin said, ''Dana dies.'' I replied, ''But that's even more fantastic because you get to do a death scene.'' That's when I stopped, like, ''Wait, what?! You gotta be kidding me!'' And she was like, ''No, that's what happens.'' How has Erin Daniels' departure from the show affected the dynamic of the cast? It's been hard. I think Erin is so important to the show. I don't know if the dynamic will be different for the next season because we haven't started shooting yet, but it certainly feels like something's missing. I don't know if anyone is ever really going to replace that either, because Erin was there from day one, just like the rest of us. It'll be interesting to see what the next season will be like because I think they're bringing in more people. Now that you're so closely identified with Shane, do you think it will be difficult to distance yourself from her as you move forward in your career? It seems to be kind of a problem with TV, doesn't it? When someone gets closely related to a character they play on TV, it's very hard to break that mold and go on to do something else. I expect that it won't be an easy road once The L Word is over, but I'm gonna do everything in my power during my time off to do other things that show another side of me. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this play, because it was such a far stretch from Shane. How much longer would you like to see The L Word go on? I don't think it's a question for me because it's not natural for actors to play the same role for 10 years, which is why I'm amazed by all those actors on Law & Order. I think it's more of a question for the audience � it depends on their level of tolerance for these characters, not mine, because these characters have done some really crazy s---. (Posted:04/10/06)

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