RACHEL TRUE

Interviews

INTERVIEW 1

4/12/02
http://www.agirlsworld.com/rachel/hangin-with/racheltrue.html
We're Hangin' With....
RACHEL TRUE
Cute, spunky actress Rachel True first impressed teen fans as one of the "witchy girls" in the film The Craft a few years ago. She's done tons of guest shots on t.v. shows. Now she stars as a bulimic college coed in New Best Friend. We talked with Rachel in Los Angeles and she was just so "normal". She had put Retin-A creme on her face and it was peeling so, reacting just like any of us, she was freaked! We assured her that she looked great in an African-print, multi-colored shirt and cool necklace. She told us about her struggles as an African-American actress, her career so far, feelings about Halle Berry and Denzel Washington winning their Oscars and plans for her future.
AGW: What was growing up like for you?
Rachel: I was sort of mixed up middle class. My parents moved to upstate New York when I was about 11 and I went to an all white kindergarten through 12th grade. The whole tri-county area was all white except me, my brother and my stepmom. My brother sucked at basketball and I was awful at track so they were just really disappointed in us (laughs). On another level it freaked them out because we were smart. I got the highest SAT scores the school had ever gotten and they weren't that high. They were disappointed that this interloper had come in and outdone them.
AGW: Was it really hard fitting in?
Rachel: It was quite uncomfortable. I'd never had my hair in cornrows ever in my life but my stepmother decided to put my hair in cornrows. So I went to school with cornrows and I'm a little freaked out already about where's my hair. I go out during the lunch hour and two kids are fighting and they're screaming at me. So that was my introduction to upstate New York and the school system. As I got into high school, I tried to start a theater company. We were going to do "The Miracle Worker" and they wouldn't even let me be a blind kid. They were like 'you have to be a maid'. I was like 'I just want to be a blind girl. I don't have to be Helen'. They wouldn't let me so in the end I scrapped the whole idea. That's when I came home and I remember saying 'I guess I'm going to have to write my own parts' and I still think that's true.
AGW: How did you feel about Denzel Washington and Halle Berry winning Oscars this year? Do you think things are changing in Hollywood for people of color?
Rachel: Sure. Slowly. For the first Black female lead to win, I think that's very meaningful. I was at the Vanity Fair dinner and I got a little (teary-eyed) when she won. Not just for her but the whole thing. Just taking in the magnitude of it all. This has never happened before so, on that level, I think it's a really big deal and there are a lot of nay Sayers that say 'I don't think she deserved to win'. But I just feel like she was in a really good movie. I think I'm clever enough to be a little cynical though. As soon as Halle Berry won they're running around trying to snap pictures of the four black people at the (Vanity Fair) dinner. That's not a bad thing for me because I'm one of them. Smile, absolutely. Do I know why they are doing it, yes. I think Black is beautiful. If I'm going to call myself African-American then I want a round trip ticket to Africa so I can go there and come back to my country where I was born because it seems to change. At the Vanity Fair dinner Artie Shaw was sitting next to me and said 'oh Black, African-American, I prefer Colored'. He's 94 so you're like 'oh, okay', Mr. Shaw'. I get that it's his generation. There's always a new label for it. I think I'm just tan and lovely!
AGW: Do you want to direct a film?
Rachel: Yes I do. I think I thought for a while that if you're an actor that's all you could or should do and just focus on that and then I realized that, as an actor you work a certain part of the year and then have time off and what do you do to utilize that time? So I write and I love editing. I love that you can have technology in the home now and I can edit on my laptop wherever I want. People seem to love the little shorts that I've made so I'm happy with that.
AGW: Do you act in your own movies?
Rachel: Oh yes. In way too many of them because I get these ideas late at night and just set up the camera and go and people are mocking me because apparently I star in all of them. I think that technology is bringing great things to the masses and I'm hoping that it will make it a more global world and more people can take advantage. I loved the library when I was a kid. That was my second home. So if you use the internet properly and don't make it just a catalogue (to buy stuff) you can actually learn something from it.
AGW: What films do you get recognized from the most?
Rachel: I've always been in these weird kind of culty movies. All of them, even the silly, silly ones are all specific and culty and they all have their fan base which is kind of neat. One of the last films I had out was "Groove" which was a rave movie so little ravers come up with their glow-in-the-dark sticks and try to talk to me. Then I did a pot movie called "Half-Baked" where I can't tell you how many stoner boys tried to hug me which is lovely but I'm like stay back..I'm an actor. And like with "The Craft" quite a few young Wiccans have given me hemp bracelets so in a way, even though they are sort of silly and off the center projects I like the way they have sort of garnered their own little base.
AGW: What would be your ideal role?
Rachel: Hummm, I think every girl says this now but I would love to run around and save the world.
AGW: Action hero?
Rachel: Yeah. I was talking to a friend that's Canadian about the Wonder Woman movie. She was saying 'Oh, I'd love to be Wonder Woman'. But she's Canadian. She didn't quite have the same American perspective on it that I did. No. It's WONDER WOMAN! Woman of Wonder. That would be really exciting to me to be Wonder Woman. Plus I love mythology so characters out of mythology. Almost any of them and that's where it gets to be a struggle as a black actor. I'm like 'They'll never cast me as Hera (Queen of the Gods)'. Certain things like that or period pieces. This t.v. movie "Dinotopia" coming up, I would love to be in that. But there's nobody who looks like me in that. I like the Morgan Le Fay story "Mists of Avalon" because I loved that book. I throught the lead girl that played her (Joanna Marguiles) was really good. But, I want to be in that and wear fluffy costumes. I feel like there's a limit on that for my type.
AGW: What movies are you looking forward to seeing?
Rachel: I talked to George Lucas at the Vanity Fair party who is amazing and really nice too. It was lovely to talk to him and I couldn't geek out because I through that's the last thing he wants to hear so I had a normal conversation but I'm very much looking forward to (Star Wars).
AGW: Okay, totally off-the-wall but fun question. What was your favorite toy?
Rachel: Oh, I have to say I had that big Barbie head with the hair.. Loved it. Kept doin' her hair. I didn't have the black one. I had the white one but she had copper wire in her hair so I could make it curly like mine. That was my favorite toy so I guess I am a (girly) girl.

INTERVIEW 2

TRUE STORIES
Neil Mahoney gets the dish on Rachel True, over a plate of duck hash
Photos by Carlos Batts
Styling by Dee Anderson
Make-up by Karen Scherer
I’m sitting in a faux Italian bistro, listening to the bubbling of a fountain. It reminds me more of the sound of poor plumbing than any sort of bohemian oasis, but I’m not picky. It is a perfectly suitable environment for an interview, but I’m guessing that she chose it more for the ashtrays on the table than the ambiance. I busily write in my notebook, hoping to fill at least a page before Rachel True, star of The Craft, Half Baked, Nowhere, Embrace of the Vampire (opposite a very naked Alyssa Milano), CB4 and the upcoming Mary Jane’s Last Dance, arrives. I’m banking on the fact that she’ll see the full notebook page and perhaps give me some credit as a reporter despite the sub-optimal setting.
She is slightly late. I am nearing the end of my coffee and excitedly anticipating the morning’s first beer. Just when I decided that everyone in the restaurant is staring at me, she arrives.
Rachel True split her childhood up between New York City and a rural area of upstate New York. “In the city” she says, “the Puerto Rican girls would kick my ass, because I was short.” Her mixed heritage meant that moving upstate wasn’t the answer, either. “I was walking my dog once and we got onto this guy’s lawn a little, and he came running out with a shotgun! I don’t think those people had ever seen a black family that wasn’t on TV.” Somehow, she manages to relate these tales of growing up as the only brown face in a series of white schools without a hint of bitterness. Instead, she gives them the kind of off-handed annoyance that I might give to a story of someone farting in a cab. As an ironic close to our racial discussion, she adds: “I’d just love to be in a period piece and not have to be a slave, but I guess I’ll have to write that one myself.”
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m not working at McDonalds and how come I have the life I have. I don’t know. But I’m happy that I have these choices. That’s kinda sappy, huh? But whatever, acting beats pumping gas.”
There have been victories, like going to auditions and being the only brown skinned girl in a room full of blondes and getting the part. In The Craft, her agent at the time wouldn’t submit her for the part because it wasn’t specifically written for a non-white actress. She convinced her manager to submit her, nailed the part, and promptly fired her agent.
“If you don’t believe in me, you’ve got to go.”

Interviews are strange. Personally, I don’t have an easy time talking to people I don’t know. However, in an interview setting, I can easily go from “how old are you?” to “have you ever experimented with bondage?” in the course of a half an hour. Sit down, make yourself comfortable, and watch…
As of press time, there were no Valentine’s Day plans for the 26-year-old beauty, and we both agreed that it’s more fun getting drunk and smoking cigarettes than buying into the Hallmark holiday.
“I didn’t really have a boyfriend till I went to NYU. I missed out on the high school ritual dating shit; I never made out in a basement. So,yeah, I was pretty inexperienced.”
Looking at her now, I can’t really imagine that it was awkward teenage years that kept her out of basements. “As soon as I hit puberty, I got really curvy. Sometimes I love having curves, and sometimes I hate ‘em. But the town I grew up in, everyone is skinny and like a stick until they’re eighteen. Then they go right into looking middle-aged. It took me years to realize that guys love curves. They want something to hold on to, and I GOT IT!”
She discusses her looks with a hint of sarcasm, in a way that suggests that she realizes the clichÈ nature of my line of questioning. She makes bold statements and accompanies them with facial expressions that both back up those statements and recognize the humor in them: “I’ve got great tits, by the way,” – followed by smoky laughter and a wry smile. “Now, I’m trying to take on a personal journey to find out the deeper side of sex. There’s something very deep about letting someone go inside you.”
She is interested in Tantra (the shit that Sting does that makes him have four-hour orgasms), but she hasn’t tried it yet. An ex-boyfriend brought it up, but she realized she wanted to do it with someone special. And he wasn’t that person. Sucks for that guy.
As far as more populist expressions of sexual curiosity, she admits to once being spanked, without permission and not finding it sexy in the least. “I was like, what the fuck are you fucking doing? Save that for the white girls.”
I start to dig in deeper, asking about stories of decadent Hollywood sex, hanging out with porn stars and the like. To my dismay Rachel is, in her own words, a “real girl.”

“I know you want me to ‘insert fabulous orgy story here,’ but I can’t. You just want me to say I was a big slut.” (It would help, yes). “Actually, once a friend of mine went to Europe and tried to get with my boyfriend while she was there. When she got back, I was like ‘I can’t be your friend anymore,’ and I think I called her a cunt. So then I’m walking into my apartment one night, and out of nowhere, she sucker punches me and yells ‘I could’ve fucked your boyfriend!’ and I went down hard. I still have the scar, I really fucked up my knee.”
In her upcoming movie Mary Jane’s Last Dance, (which I found out is not a follow up to her “pot movie” Half Baked) a bunch of “haves” adopt a “have not” into their high school clique. All hell breaks loose when the simpler folks refuse to take the manipulation lying down.
“But wait,” you’re probably saying. “You were just talking about sex and stuff, what does this have to do with that?” I’ll let Rachel tell you:
“The director took us [Rachel and Dominique Swain] into a back room in the house we were shooting in and had us practice making out for her, because apparently I was a little stiff. As I was standing there, I thought ‘I get paid to do the weirdest things.’ But hey, if you’re going to make out with a girl, it may as well be Dominique.” She then added with that same smoky laugh, “I was bummed it didn’t make it into the final cut, we got the tongues working pretty good.” Ooh, la, la.
Our entire conversation has been peppered with hints that she’s a New Yorker (“In New York, FUCK is an adjective. I’m supposed to be working on that now that I’m out here.”). This is a good thing in my book. I, too, am from the East Coast and tend to trust people more quickly when I know that they’ve shoveled snow and had pipes burst. It’s sort of a litmus test of credibility that East Coast people give each other.
My hour-long tape comes to an end, which is my signal to not take up any more of her time. She offered to pay for lunch, and I nearly fell in love. She has the kind of credibility and genuine character that is so rare in Hollywood, but it’s in keeping with her character. Rachel True has chosen a path that pursues artistic expression rather than a check, feeling that the best perk as an actress is the acting itself. On the way to our cars, she thanks me for coming all the way to the West Side, and I, in turn, thank her for her candor. As I drive home, I feel pretty good about the interview, but one thought plagues me. How am I going to get my hands on her and Dominique’s missing kissing footage?

INTERVIEW 3

Rachel True on making THE CRAFT
interview by Douglas Eby
Rachel True plays Rochelle in THE CRAFT, one of three high school girls dabbling in magic to get better test grades and making the right boy pay attention. But they are having only limited success until, adding a fourth girl to make their secret circle or coven more authentic, they start to have some real power.
"In the film," True explains, "my group of high school friends are into - I can't even say witchcraft, because it's not not even witchcraft - they're just into gaining their power, so they start off doing little chants. In any other world, they'd be prayers, but they take it three steps further. Their friendship strengthens as their power grows, but we know what happens when people corrupt power, right? To me, that's kind of the lesson in the film, because one of the lessons of witchcraft is that whatever you put out comes back times three, so if you're putting out flowers and love, that's what you're going to get back, and if you're putting out 'I hate you - Die' that might come back as well.
"We're talking about four girls who don't have any power in school - they are the misfits, the outcasts that everyone makes fun of and nobody wants to talk to, so in the beginning it is them just trying to say to the world, hey, I'm here and I'm okay - and nobody listens, so they take it ten steps further: 'I'm really here. I'm going to show you I'm okay!'
"Not to make it sound pat, but each of the characters has a problem," True adds. "Mine - Rochelle's - is that she has an overbearing Dad, and she's the only black student at this school, so it's a little more subtle than some of the other characters; Bonnie, for example, was burned in a car accident, so she's dealing with scars in the outside world, whereas my character's dealing with scars that are on the inside world, and how she deals with that. And I can relate to that, because I went to an all white school, so I knew what that was like. And it was hard at the time, but anything that's difficult you learn from, don't you?"
There were a lot of reptiles and snakes used in the movie, but True "got off really lucky," she admits. "I'm fascinated and repelled by insects and reptiles, so I was kind of looking forward to working with them, but when I found out I didn't have to, I was perfectly okay. That was just fine with me. The character Sarah, who is the fourth girl in the group, runs into problems and she's the one who ends up covered in snakes: poor Sarah!
"Even befor doing this film, I've always been interested in mythology. Ever since I was a kid, and when I was young I focused on Greek and Roman myths, because that's what you learn, and then I sort of opened it up and started reading Robert Graves and certain other books that weren't so much about witchcraft, as much as Goddess mythology, and I find that really interesting.
"Once I got the role, they had a Wiccan priestess as an advisor for us, Pat Devin, and she was very helpful in recommending books on the subject. And of course to her, it's truth and it's religion, it's not four little made-up girls doing fantasy chants, so it was interesting trying to put the two together, to bring her truth to making a movie in Hollywood.
"I think the producers were interested in making it truthful. You're going to bend some stuff - it's a Hollywood movie - but, at the same time, having Pat Devin there was really great on their part, and a lot of the chants are true chants, which was a little freaky to me at certain points, because you think 'Oh well, you know, I'm not really into this but I am conjuring up something here'.
"We filmed one scene on the beach and there was definitely weird energy around, and we were followed around by a white owl to several different locations, and little things like that, or certain mishaps would happen and you'd have to wonder what that was about. So I'm not going to say anything was following us around, but I definitely felt like there was energy. I think some Wiccan groups are going to be thrilled this film is being made, and some not.
True had not worked before with any of the other lead actresses [Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk], but says she had known most of their work, and really respected them, so was very happy to get the job.
"My stepmother is Verona Barnes," True notes, "and she's no longer working, but she was a New York theater actress, and came to New York with "The Great White Hope" with James Earl Jones. She was absolutely an inspiration to me, because when I was a little kid the first time I saw her on stage when I was five or six, all I could think was that is so much power, seeing her onstage was just the most powerful image, and that's always stuck with me, even when I wasn't necessarily thinking I was going to be an actress.
"The first work I did was three 'Cosby' shows in New York, those were the first actual on-camera things I did. Then I did the movie CB4, a rap parody in the SPINAL TAP vein. Then once I moved here, I did a lot of television, a lot of sitcoms - any black sitcom you can name, I've probably done. Then I did a Movie of the Week called STALKING BACK, which was a really good experience. Doing EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE was actually a blast, because I was working with a really good director named Anne Goursaud. She was an editor for Francis Ford Coppola - she edited DRACULA and a lot of his films.
"So it was great working with a good director, doing guerrilla filmmaking - shooting a feature film in two weeks, mostly on night shoots (which I thought was perfect, because it was a vampire movie). I think everyone probably has a horror movie tucked away. The director was just going to have the vampire break my neck, and I said 'No - no way. If I'm in a vampire movie, the man is biting my neck. I will not be in this movie if I can't get my neck bitten!' I mean, isn't that the whole point of being in a vampire movie? Well, I got my wish. And I got to work with good people like Alyssa Milano and Jordan Ladd."
Her new film, called NOWHERE, is directed by Greg Araki - "an independent guy, really talented," True comments. "I had the lead in that, so I was kind of thrilled to get to work with him. It's sort of like a '90210' on acid. That would be my description.
"I saw a roughcut of THE CRAFT, which I really liked. When you work on a movie, you just have no idea how it's going to come out; you hope it's good, but you don't really know, and you don't see it until about six or nine months afterward, and I saw it and was pretty pleased. I was happy.
"As far as developing a career as an actress, I think it's a fine balance between trying to just work, and also be true to yourself. If you're fortunate enough, you get to a position where you can be a little pickier about your roles. Which is not to discount everything I've done in my past; everything I have learned tremendously from. So now I feel I'm lucky in the respect that I can sort of pick a little more carefully, which is tricky because as a black actress, there aren't that many roles to pick from. Which is why I felt I was truly blessed this year, with leads in two nice films, and also the luxury of being able to do a studio film and an independent afterwards was fantastic."
There is some more opportunity now for black actresses in film, True thinks. "It must be said to the credit of a lot of the people I read for, I do get to read for roles that are not specifically black. That's double-edged: it's amazing that they're bringing me in and showing people new ideas, and at the same time it's a little hard because seventy percent of the time or even higher I'm not going to get those roles.
"But I do feel it's worth it to go in. In fact, EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE was not written as a black role at all; I think I was one of the only black girls to read for it, but the director and I connected, and she like my reading, and I got the part.
"And that was amazing, that here's someone who's willing to take a chance, and change something a little bit. Also with a movie like THE CRAFT: that could easily have been done with four white girls; I was actually amazed when I got the script - here's a regular little high school script, and there's a black character in it, and she's not selling drugs, she's not selling her body, she's just a high school student, and a middle class high school student at that, which I think is an area that does need to be represented in film and television. It's starting to be a little bit."
But also it needs to be in a realistic format, she says. "Like the 'Cosby Show' is a sitcom, and was ultra perfect. They're starting to open that up a little and bring in realistic middle class, upper middle class, lower middle class blacks, showing the whole spectrum, so it's not just 'Got to be in a gang to get out of my life.' So it's nice to be in a movie that's breaking that a little bit."
[originally published in Cinefantastique magazine, 1996]

INTERVIEW 4

Rachel True Talks About "New Best Friend"
by Rebecca Murray
RACHEL TRUE (Julianne)
Can you describe your character?
My character is Julianne, who is part of the elite group in this town. They let in a townie girl and there's the whole issue about how power corrupts. But my character is a bit of a follower, which I think a lot of girls are in college. They haven't decided how to get out there and do it themselves yet. I thought that was kind of interesting to play and also the fact that she's bulimic and I'm kind of a normal-sized girl. I thought it was good for them to cast me, rather than someone who looks anorexic, because there is a difference between bulimia and anorexia. Also, there's nothing wrong with a girl with hips in a movie!
You described your character as a follower. Were you a follower?
I don't think I'm a follower, frankly. Here's the thing, in the end is it that much of a stretch? Not really. I just have to think back a couple of years to what it was like when I was tortured and in school, and how weird that was, and in the end, especially with a movie like this, it's not so far [to stretch]. You're just thinking of yourself and perverting certain aspects of your personality.
Was this a fun set to work on?
It was. It was like we were on vacation. It's like Summer Camp; it's a blast. We filmed it in Wilmington, North Carolina on the Cape Fear River. It was beautiful. It was very hot and humid and my hair couldn't have been any bigger - it was a black girl's nightmare, frankly (laughing).
What's next for you?
I'm actually developing a project so that I can have a lead. In the end, I play a lot of friends and I really think it's about time that some ethnic girls get out there in the lead part. So we're developing something.
I edit too, by the way. That's my new thing. I love editing. Lock me in a room by myself and I love it. I just think it's the neatest thing.
How did you get into that?
I like to make collages - paper collages. Editing is a natural extension of the collage making. It's actually one of the few areas that women were able to excel in in the film industry from the beginning. I think it's kind of a neat thing. I'd like to do both. For six months I'd do movies and make it all about me. Then the other six months, it's not about me and it doesn't matter what my hair looks like or what anything looks like.

INTERVIEW 5

Rachel True Hangs Out with the Gals and Makes 'New Best Friend'
By Joe Fein
Fri, Apr 12, 2002, 03:04 PM PT

Art is in Rachel True's blood. Her stepmother was a stage actress in off-Broadway productions in New York City. And when her parents moved to upstate New York, when she was 11, her parents encouraged her to read books and go to museums.
"My parents wanted my brother and me to live the artistic life," True tells Zap2it.
In high school, she started her own theater company to put on a production of "The Miracle Worker."
"Instead of playing the part of the blind girl," True said, "I got the part of the maid."
While in high school, "I got the highest SAT scores at that school. But not 1600.
She describes her upbringing as "mixed-up middle class" Her family was the first black family in Northville, N.Y. "Even in the whole tri-county area, we were the only ones in the whole area."
True's career started with TV's most popular family "The Cosby Show" and has expanded into a wide range of films and shows. She starred in "Beverly Hills, 90210," "The Drew Carey Show" and "Once and Again."
In films, she has played alongside wtih Chris Rock in "CB4," worked (and befriended) the cast members of "The Craft," and was directed by indie filmmaker Gregg Araki in "Nowhere."
In the movie "New Best Friend," she works alongside Mia Kirscher, Meredith Monroe and Dominique Swain. The movie is about a poor girl who tries to become friends with the rich girls. True plays Julianne, a rich girl who is bulimic.
"I didn't really have to study for the role because being an American girl gives you insight into the issue," True explains. Bulimia is more of a control issue, she says.
During the filming of "New Best Friend" two years ago, "I didn't know what to expect." She had worked with a group of girls before in "The Craft." Also, Zoe Clarke-Williams was the second female director she worked for.
"It's a different vibe working on the set with woman directors," True said. "Zoe [Clarke-Williams] grew up in Malibu and knew the difference between Alicia and Hadley [the characters in 'New Best Friend']. She also knew the vernacular of the girls for the movie," True said.
"In Hollywood, it is not equal for men and women." True continued. "Men get the meatier roles." Also when it comes to the future of the women in the industry, "There is no mentorship in this field [movie industry] right now because everyone is fighting for their little piece."
In her spare time, she is not waiting for the roles to come to her. She writes and edits her own ideas.
And late at night "I get the camera and say 'Come on! Let's go!' and I film my own movies" She still hasn't played the role of the blind girl yet.
"My ideal role would be to run around and save the world," True says. "These hips were made for guns. I would also like to play Wonder Woman or a mythological figure such as Hera."
Some movies she regrets not being cast in is "Mists of Avalon." "I would like to wear fluffy costumes. Also, I would like to play in a Victorian piece and not play a servant."
Right now, she is developing a script with Steven Hoe, director of "Sound Man," in which she plays the lead.
"How many times can you play the role where you ask someone, 'Are you okay?'" True continued. "I want someone to ask me if I'm okay."
She is grateful for the years that have kept her continually working in front of the camera. The groundbreaking awards given to Halle Berry and Denzel Washington also gave her time to think on how the industry treats African-Americans.
"For Halle to win is meaningful. I got verklempt when she won." True continued.
"'Monster's Ball' was a good movie," she continues. "Being black means you have to be more of a realist. I always feel that there is a limit to my type."
Yet, as she continues to write, edit and act, she thinks the roles will open up for her. She's proven herself as an actress with more than just a pretty face, but also a literate and thoughtful one.