Courtesy of Tamie Kwist

An interview with Faye Grant from The V Files
"Back in 1982, Ken Johnson sent me his
treatment for the first V miniseries. He wanted to get
my opinion of the female characters. I called 
him and told him that it was the most extraordinary,
innovative thing I  had ever read in my life, especially
for television.
"I was so excited, I told him I would do production work on the project if  he
wanted me to. Seriously, I was willing to do anything
related to V. Ken told me he wanted me to star in
it. I humbly said all right."
So began Faye Grant's transformation from budding young television
actress into Dr. Julie Parrish, daring guerilla
leader of the human underground in  the NBC series
V. As the blonde, blue-eyed Grant, the former
co-star of  The Greatest American Hero and frequent
guest on numerous network series, explains it, the
transformation is practically complete.
DR. FAYE GRANT?
"I've never spoken about a character in the first
person," Grant reveals, "but I've been doing this for
almost three years. It's like Julie has become me.
In the beginning she was just a character. I did
research at the UCLA biochemistry lab, so I'd know if
the medical tasks I'm called on to perform in
the show are portrayed accurately or not, and at that
time I referred to Julie as her. Now I'm having
dreams of giving emergency tracheotomies! If
something happens to someone in a supermarket while I'm
there, I find myself telling people what they
should do. And I've recently noticed that I now
refer to Julie as me." A natural enough progression, as V creator Johnson purposely visualised 
Julie with a lot of his friend Grant's characteristics
in mind. Although by no means a scientist
herself (besides acting, Grant spent a year and a
half as one of Mexico's most successful models), the
actress shares with her character an activist's
intolerance of injustice and commitment to peace and the
betterment of mankind. Grant also shares Parrish's 
vulnerability. When Julie's trying to be very strong in the
midst of fear, frustration or anger, those tears
she's so bravely fighting back are really Faye
Grant's.
"There are so many things that I like about
Julie. She's absolutely real, she's very strong in
her beliefs and convictions, yet there are times when
her doubts about herself are just overwhelming.
"I guess I have thought of myself, at times, as a
rebel or a crusader. Sometimes I can't hold myself
back; there are injustices that just infuriate me.
In the past few years, I've learned how to be
diplomatic, how to bring things up at the right time,
instead of just yelling or lashing out at something
that I think is wrong. That approach is 
counterproductive. What I've learned is how to go about getting what
I want, whatever that means or whatever that
takes."
Grant's pragmatic approach to combating evil
is echoed by her on-screen character. "Some
people in the Resistance accuse Julie of being a
traitor, because she works for Nathan Bates (the
turncoat industrialist played by Lane Smith, who has
made a separate peace with the invading alien Visitors
to advance his own power and influence). But the
reality is that Julie realizes this struggle is the
big time; this isn't just smashing heads, it's
biochemical warfare. So I eat a lot of crud in my
relationship with Bates, especially since he's always
coming on to me. I put up with it because I know
it's ultimately for the good of the Resistance.  "Maybe that sounds like martyrdom, but it's really not.
I don't believe people are martyrs when they're getting what they want."
PEACE WITH VICTORY
Dr. Parrish does manage to get what she wants
most of the time, despite the best efforts of Bates, Jane Badler's man-eating Visitor commander 
Diana and a plethora of evil aliens and their Terran
flunkies. However, unlike other Resistance fighters
such as Marc Singer's Mike Donovan, Michael
Ironside's Ham and Michael Wright's Elias, Parrish only uses
violence as a last resort to achieve her ends.  "If you'll notice," Grant points out, "Julie is a
doctor, and as such it  would be almost literally impossible for me to inflict damage on another person.
The physical fighting I get into is only in self-defense. If there 
is any possible way I can think of to get around a situation without violence,
that's what I go for. "Julie's goal is to get rid of the Visitors in such a way that they would 
want to leave Earth of their own volition. Because
they are going to breed, and it's like having a
war between two major powers. One side can't  kill all of the people on the other side, and vice
versa. There will always be a few survivors
somewhere. The point is, killing them is not going to
get rid of them. Making them want to leave is going
to do it." Grant hopes that this point of view, which she shares with Parrish, will have a
stronger influence on future V episodes. The actress would
like the show, which has been cited by several television watchdog groups as the most violent series
on the air, to take on a more intrigue-oriented flavor. "My original vision for V was something
different from what the show has become. I've been with it since its inception, and my idea for it as a
series was that it could be sort of like Mission: Impossible mixed with a little Hill Street Blues,
suspense combined with the interrelationships between the eleven main characters. "I really felt that
it would be more effective if, instead of smashing heads, we used intrigue and disguises and
infiltration as our main weapons. If the show goes on, I hope we do more of this. Use our brains  instead
of putting bullets and lasers into people. 
"Force, inevitably, is necessary sometimes to protect
oneself. But again, the way to get these people off
of our planet is to make them leave because
they don't want to be here. There are ways to do that
utilizing intrigue and covert operations, which I think are a lot more interesting  than car chases."
JUST LIKE PLAYING COPS AND ROBBERS
Grant's distaste for violence doesn't prevent her
from fully enjoying the action scenes she is
often required to perform. She does most of her own
stunts, and when she has to fire a gun, it's nothing strange or fearsome;  she has been a trained
markswoman since the age of thirteen.  "My favorite
moments on the show," the actress reveals, "are usually
the ones involving interactions between the characters. But one of the best times I've ever had,
which sort of surprised me, was when we filmed the Encapsulator episode. (First aired November 23, 1984, it
involved a rebel attack on a posh, ocean side villa where an alien inventor is introducing her new
food-processing device, a kind of cuisine art for human beings, to a gathering of Visitor officials.)  "We
got to run and tumble, it was like playing cops and robbers in the fifth grade. It was all choreographed
and we were shooting everywhere at  imaginary things. We blew up half of Malibu! We started at 3:00
p.m. and went until 6:00 in the morning. It was like being a kid allowed to stay up all night.
The only problem was, when we wanted to stop and watch TV, they wouldn't let us!" 
Playing dress-up is also a part of the role, although not as much
for Grant's underground warrior character as it is for the glamorous/spit and polish alien
women played by Badler and June Chadwick. "I buy my own wardrobe," Grant says, "and what I'm wearing now in the series is just a kind of hodgepodge, whatever Julie could pack into a couple of suitcases
before she had to drop out of sight.  "Julie's look
is absolutely practical. No heels! One of my pet
peeves is  with action shows that show women running
around in high heels, chasing  robbers. What I wear now are just regulation army boots.  "I don't
wear jewelry anymore. Underground, that just doesn't make sense. And I hardly ever comb my hair. To me
that's important. During the six-hour miniseries we had constant complaints from the network. 'Why 
doesn't that girl comb her hair'!' Listen, if you were fighting a war, my dear, and you were up for
three days straight, would you stop and ask to borrow a brush'! Please!  "I think this also sets up
a very nice contrast with the look of the Visitor women, who probably go into some room on the ship
and come out looking perfect in 30 seconds, like George Jetson. They probably go into their closets,
pull out their hair and faces and just glue them on.
BIG PEOPLE'S GAMES
V, of course, isn't all childlike fun. One of the most interesting aspects of the show concerns the
very adult, hence very confusing, relationships between the main characters. By far the most fascinating
of these is the one between Julie and her fellow rebel leader, Mike Donovan. 
"I'm trying to figure out what Julie's relationship with Donovan is myself," Grant confesses. "It's pretty
ambivalent, isn't it'! Frankly, the writers don't know what to do about that. They don't know whether to
bring in different love interests for us or not. "It's interesting because we are two powers, and
it might be dangerous if we were really shown together. It might become like Mom & Pop 
revolutionaries. You can't go a lot of places with that in a storyline, or at least the writers think you can't.
"The thing is, Julie and Donovan found themselves very, very attracted to each other when they first
met, and they know that under different circumstances they never would be together. She would be a
doctor and he would be off somewhere with his camera, filming wars. "They hit head-on at almost
every opportunity because they are both very strong-willed and stubborn. It's really not a committed
relationship on the surface, but they deeply, deeply care about each other. If either of  them gets in
trouble, the other one is always the first person there to help. "But neither of them are going to
admit that it's love. They both feel  that it would ultimately go nowhere. Yet it is almost a compulsion that
they can't help; they really care very deeply about each other." 
WOULD YOU DO WHAT FAYE DOES?
Julie Parrish has been the easiest role of Faye Grant's career. The character's personality is so
similar to her own that she just reacts naturally to each situation, without having to ask herself the
perennial actor's question of "What would this person do under these circumstances?" While she admits
to having had more fun portraying other kinds of characters in the past, Grant can't disguise
her overwhelming enthusiasm for the V part. "As I said, I don't even think of Julie as a character
I'm playing anymore. I feel that if I, Faye Grant, were not an actress-if I were a person who
went to medical school and worked in a biochemistry lab, who was faced with an invasion of Visitors
from another planet I would be doing exactly what Julie does. It's just the opposite of Jane and June,
because they are completely playing characters.  Julie Parrish is me.  "The reason I thought V was
extraordinary from the moment I read Ken Johnson's treatment was because of its message. Ken has an incredible
way, and you can see it in his track record, of mixing wonderfully commercial ideas with meaningful
messages. He developed The Incredible Hulk series from the comic strip, but every episode had something to
say. Everything Ken's done has. "The first four-hour miniseries, to me, laid the groundwork for
everything that's followed. It simply asked the question, 'What would you do if this  really happened?'
It showed the reactions of people throughout our world to an invasion from space. What they would
do with their children, how they would be pitted against one another. I thought it was just 
incredible." "I've never spoken about a character in the first person, but I've been doing this for almost
three years. It's like Julie has become me.