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© 2004 gloryisagod.com) |
Text of videotaped interview
Copyright
© 2004 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G) |
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forum |
Link to Clare's Site Forum |
Orientation
5/02/04
Clare Kramer
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Interviewing
Clare Kramer at Starfury Fusion - 5/02/04
by
gloryisagod.com
Richmond Room, Norbreck
Castle, Blackpool ... about 12:25 PM
Clare
Kramer
Interviewer: Gloryisagod.com
(GIAG)
Camera: Sean Harry
Thumbnails are linked to
larger images.
Images are not necessarily
matched to the text timewise.
But are mostly
sequential in time.
Interview
Orientation Notes:
A
summary of some of our pre- & post-interview not-recorded
discussions is in Clare
Vignettes.
We worked on the draft questions into the wee
hours of Sunday morning.
Without benefit of access to our site or the
internet, having left a laptop at home.
Clare has a most charming
and distinctive voice. It's just plain fun to listen to her talk.
She sort of draws out
and rolls certain syllables of many words is the best we can do to describe
it.
It's not what we expected
as the norm for growing up in Ohio, via New Orleans and Atlanta.
Though we had heard her
speaking this way in BBC Cult video clips and the ESPN interview.
When Clare goes into
loud rapid-speak during her MC spiels, this charming pronunciation disappears.
Clare's also an interviewer's
dream. Adding to and elaborating her responses.
When Clare's talking.
she's usually very animated with her facial features, laughing or smiling.
And almost always using
her hands and arms to illustrate her words.
As the video captures
give a glimpse of.
The universal description
of Clare at Starfury is that she's a hard-working trouper
and more guest/staff
than guest, plus being a real sweetie-pie personally.
No disagreement here.
|
Preliminary
 |
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[Clare looks at the camera
as Sean starts to record]
SEAN:
Here we go.
[Clare waves to the camera]
Gloryisagod.com (GIAG):
We'd like to take a couple
of stills. Don't trust just one camera.
CLARE:
Yeah. No. That's cool.
I'm open.
And I want to say I appreciate
everything you do so much. I know I said it briefly before.
but honestly its such
an honor and a pleasure. I mean, really, it's people like you that make
people like me. So, thank
you.
[Clare
uses her hands and arms to illustrate her words]
GIAG:
It's not just us.
We represent the groups here, Michelle, Emilie and you.
CLARE:
Right.
GIAG:
We have three Yahoo groups.
There are about 300 in yours. Emilie's is gaining on yours.
And [one of many assistant
managers on] the Michelle MSN group, with over a thousand.
[Clare
nods]
So there are a lot of
people out there that are silent. That follow you.
CLARE:
Wow.
GIAG:
Like those that did a
bang-up job for Michelle in getting everything she ever did online.
CLARE:
Right.
GIAG:
That's enough of that.
That's not part of the questions.
CLARE:
OK.
|
Q1
NOTE:
We're still selecting
Clare video captures
and making linked
thumbnails
to put in here.
They will be put in
over the next few
days. |
GIAG:
The first thing we want
to talk about is that the Q & A starts here.
How did you get to the
first Starfury in 2001?
What are the steps?
How did you do it the
first time?
CLARE:
Well. If I remember correctly,
Sean contacted my manager. Who I don't think he met or
worked with before. And
just sort of introduced himself. And I'd already appeared on Buffy.
But not in the UK. The
episodes hadn't aired over here yet, I don't think.
Right? [Clare
looks at Sean and the camera]
SEAN:
They had it on satellite.
Hadn't on terrestrial TV.
CLARE:
And said, "Hey. My name's
Sean and I work these conventions." I'd never done a convention
before. So I felt that
it'd be a pretty cool way to meet friends of the show and meet people who
are passionate about Buffy
the Vampire Slayer. About Glory. And kinda get like feedback from the
people who the show is
made for,
So I decided that, yeah,
that was something that I was definitely interested in doing. And
when
I came over here, I was
completely blown away with the passion and excitement of the fans.
And just with Sean's organization
and the whole Starfury kind of like theme. You know,
it's all fair. Every one
has fun, everyone enjoys themselves.
That's why I've continued
to come back and work with Sean.
|
|
Q2 |
GIAG:
Thank you very much.
Since this is the fourth
year that you've been not just to Starfury, but a large number of other
events, scattered between
now and the end of June, are you in-country all this time? Or
are you going back and
forth?
CLARE:
I've been here, I got
in on Tuesday the 28th, Wednesday the 28th. Tomorrow I go to Paris
until the 8th. And then
I'm coming back to London for the two signings. Next Saturday and Sunday.
And staying until Tuesday.
Then I'm flying back. And I'll fly back over in June.
GIAG:
Is the Paris thing an
event or just personal?
CLARE:
That's just a vacation.
I've never been. [Clare laughs loud and long]
GIAG:
You finally get your Paris
vacation.
CLARE:
[still laughing]
I finally get my Paris
vacation! And I'm really excited to do all the Paris stuff though.
|
|
Q3 |
GIAG:
OK, now we get into the
less easy stuff.
CLARE:
OK.
GIAG:
OK. In the BBC Cult interview
in May 2003, we believe, when you were over here last, you compared
your movie "Mummy
an' the Armadillo"
to some of Mamet's work.
CLARE:
MAM-et.
[Correcting our Louisiana pronounciation of MA-may]
David
Mamet. Yeah.
GIAG:
We accidentally discovered
that he was on the faculty at NYU at one time.
Was that when you were
there?
CLARE:
It wasn't when I was there.
No. I wish it would've been. I love his stuff. Some of the movies he's
written, "Glengarry
Glen Ross", adapted from a play that he wrote.
He's just amazing. The thing
that really reminded me
of his earlier work, 'cause "Mummy an' the
Armadillo" is
a very dark
character-driven piece.
All takes place in one location. So that initially when I read the script,
I was like this is familiar
to me.
And then I found out that
the writer, J. S. Cardone of "Mummy an' the
Armadillo" wrote
it in '79,
which was when Mamet was
writing some of his first stuff. So yeah.
GIAG:
Did you ever make it to
the showing out in Arizona, in Sedona?
CLARE:
Yes I did. It was good.
It was fun. Yeah.
GIAG:
We remember that it was
snowed in.
CLARE:
Yeah.
[Clare
laughs]
GIAG:
But the newspaper never
reported anything about it [Clare's visit].
CLARE:
I don't believe they did.
GIAG:
A followup question is
- your familiarity with Mamet.
CLARE:
Yeah, MAM-et. [Correcting
our revised Louisiana pronounciation of MAM-ay]
GIAG:
Is that part of the curriculum
or is it your personal familiarity that you obtained somewhere?
CLARE:
I think, well, I would
have to credit NYU for that. When we, the way the NYU program works
for your BFA, which is
what I have, is you spend 2 days actually at New York University studying
your academics. Like your
histories and your languages. Stuff like that. And then you spend 3
days studying at a studio
in the city.
So I studied at Lee Strasburg
Theater Institute 3 days a week when I was going to college.
And there they really
are - it's a theater school. It's method acting.
And so we did take not
only Chekhov and Shakespeare, we worked all the way up to Mamet.
So that's I first
became familiar with his work. But I've always had a passion for his writing.
Him, Sam Shepard, Chekov.
Those are probably some of my favorite playwrights.
GIAG:
Have you ever done Shakespeare?
CLARE:
Not since college, No,
just scene study work really.
GIAG:
Meant in college.
CLARE:
Yeah, yeah.
GIAG:
Had a Shakespeare question,
but it was too esoteric.
CLARE:
No.
[Clare laughs loudly]
GIAG:
You just reminded us of
that.
|
| 5
Q4 |
GIAG:
In about the "Bring
It On" time, this is something people ask
about, there are photos of you with a
butterfly tattoo [on
your back left shoulder]. And we've seen another photo of a tattoo.
CLARE:
An angel [Clare
reaches down toward the inside of her right ankle]
GIAG:
Oh, an angel. We thought
it was a buttterfly, too.
Is there any significance
to these?
CLARE:
I got them a long time
ago. I love 'em. And they just faded. But I personally love 'em.
I may get them touched
up some day. But I just haven't felt the need to.
GIAG:
Thank you.
CLARE:
I like my little tattoos.
[Clare laughs uproariously]
GIAG:
They're not as large as
the one Bianca [Kajlich] has.
CLARE:
Exactly.
GIAG:
Hers is like a shield.
CLARE:
I know.
|
|
Q5 |
GIAG:
At the Grimsby event [2003].
You
mention that you moved out of rooming with Bianca. We heard
she'd moved in with a
soccer player.
CLARE:
She actually just moved
to another apartment. Yeah.
GIAG:
We thought we'd seen that
she'd moved in with her soccer player.
CLARE:
She may have now at this
point.
GIAG:
But you said you were
living in a house, we guess as opposed to an apartment.
CLARE:
Uh-huh.
[Clare nods yes]
GIAG:
But that's not part of
the question.
With your two famous cats.
CLARE:
Yes, Zoey and Waker.
[Clare laughs]
GIAG:
Waker, not Walker?
CLARE:
Waker.
GIAG:
Waker? They've been spelling
it all wrong.
CLARE:
Um-huh. They spelled it
wrong in the "Bring It On"
popup thing.
GIAG:
Is it Zoey or Zooey?
[Zo-e
or Zoo-e?]
CLARE:
Zoey
[Zo-e]
and
Waker.
W-A-K-E-R. [Clare
spells it out]
It
came from, I'll tell you the history behind the cats' names,
if you're interested.
I got two cats. And
I wanted names that matched. Like, I don't know, Jack and Jill,
or whatever. But I wanted
them to be different.
I'd read J. D. Salinger's
book "Franny and Zooey" and
I thought, 'that's cute. I'll do that'.
Well, Franny, they were
really little abandoned kittens when I got 'em, and Franny died
a couple days later of
feline distemper. So then I have Zooey, so I'm like 'Oh, my god, what
am I gonna do?'
So. I'm like, first of
all, Zooey [ Zoo-e], I'll change your name to Zoey [Zo-e],
you know.
[Clare
laughs] And then in the book, I decided that
if I'm gonna have one cat, I might as
well have two. Because
they can keep each other company when I'm gone. And it's really
no more work or anything.
So, I had Zoey at that
point. I'd already changed his name. And I looked in the Village
Voice.
I
was living in New York at the time. I found 'Abandoned kittens, come get
one' and went and
got this cat. And in the
book the cousin's name is Waker, who comes to visit. So I'm like
'Ah', just name her Waker.
And she has a tendency
to wake me up at night [Clare pats her left
shoulder with her right hand]
and
everyone's like 'Oh, is that why her name's Waker?'
I'm like 'Nooo!'
It's from the book. [Clare laughs]
Waker's
the girl. Zoey's the boy.
GIAG:
What are their colors?
CLARE:
Zoey is sort of long-haired
black and white. He has like a white tuxedo.
[Clare flips her hands
down in front of her to illustrate]
And Waker is gray and
white. And she has, I call it a bikini, because she has
white like here and here,
[Clare draws her hands
across where a bikini would be on her to illustrate]
and
Zoey has white here.
[Clare
illustrates in front of her with her hands again]
They're
really beautiful cats, for being both of them were abandoned.
GIAG:
And you've had them how
long?
CLARE:
10 Years, 9 years?
GIAG:
That's a long Time
CLARE:
Yeah.
GIAG:
Are they well-behaved?
CLARE:
Super. They're great cats,
really.
GIAG:
Who takes care of them
when you travel here?
CLARE:
I have a lady who comes
in twice a day. So they won't have to go into boarding.
They can stay at the house,
Relax. And she comes. she works at the vet where I take them.
She's a real cat lover,
so.
GIAG:
Excellent.
CLARE:
Yeah.
|
|
Q6 |
GIAG:
On to "Skulls
III" DVD.
CLARE:
OK, yes.
GIAG:
In the extras you have
a long segment where you talk about your underwater stunt work.
And we were impressed
particularly with your calmness hanging there underwater,
[at
this point Clare is barely supressing her laughter, like she has a secret]
when
there was no shooting going on.
Were
there any difficulties associated with that?
Were there any problems?
CLARE:
I was petrified. Look
I was scared. We trained in the swimming pool. No problems at all.
And I thought 'This is
great. This is going to be easy. Going to be fun'.
We got there to shoot the
scene and went through the rehearsals. And we shot the easy
stuff. [Clare
illustrates all the actions from here on with her hands and arms]
The swimming down to the
place. That wasn't hard to shoot at all. Then all of a sudden
it was time to get the
tanks and the goggles and everything.
And what they required,
we shot it in a big tank, and what was required was to go down
with the breather thing
[Clare
continues to use her hands to illustrate her actions] and
the
goggles
on. And then the director would call through, 'OK, take your goggles off'.
And then like 'Air gone
Take your last breath. Throw it away." Then you have to wait for
all those bubbles to clear.
[Clare
twirls a forefinger to show bubbles rising above her head]
So it was like 10 more
seconds.
And then we'd start filming.
And you couldn't see anything. Especially by the end of the day.
You couldn't see a thing.The
water was so chlorinated. Supposed to look like a river.
And I found I am very buoyant.
So I kept floating up. [Clare illustrates
with her right arm]
And
they're like "No, you have to stay down'. So I ended up wearing like 30
pounds of
weights [Clare
puts her hands behind her and then down her outer thigh area] in
my
pockets and in the "the"
[that's what Clare said every time we re-listened].
But when I first
went down to do that, the second half of it, I was just scared., you know.
I felt like, not hyperventilating
necessarily, but, I don't know, it's the only time I've ever been
scared doing anything.
And so I came back up.
I'm like 'I'm floating away'. And that was before they put the weights
on me. 'Like I'm floating
away and I can't see anything'. So they're like "OK, just calm down'.
The safety guys were great.
We had like two safety guys each, you know, to help us in case
anything went wrong. And
so the safety guy would like grab my feet and hold my feet down
[Clare
illustrates with her right hand] if I wasn't
in camera. I acclimated to it as the day went on.
And wasn't scared after
the first couple takes doing it.
But it was definitely hard.
GIAG:
That's great information.
Because it looked like it was easy.
CLARE:
Yeah. I had to say, 'Clare
you're just going to have to do this. Like Don't think about it. Don't
think about the fact that
you're underwater with this and that [Clare
hits near her right knee area
lightly several times
with a karate chop to emphasize her words]
blah-blah-blah. Just put your
mind to it and do it.
So that's what I did.
|
|
Q7 |
GIAG:
Prior to "Skulls
III" there was "Skulls
2". There was a sign on the [locker room]
wall
that
said:
"Glory is forever, Pain is temporary".
The
same sign [much larger] was above you
when you got out of the
pool in "Skulls III".
[Clare
starts smiling knowingly]
What
was your reaction to it?
CLARE:
[Smiling broadly] I
looked at that sign when we were filming, and was like, "Yeah"
I'm like I don't want
to say anything about it because I didn't want them to move it.
I didn't know if they'd
put the two and two together.
But I knew it was there.
And I kinda positioned myself so it could be seen.
[Clare
laughs loudly]
GIAG:
That was one of the captures
we did.
CLARE:
Yeah.
|
|
Q8 |
GIAG:
Are you still boxing and
hiking for exercise?
CLARE:
Yes. And I do a lot of
different stuff.
GIAG:
How do you handle exercise
when you're travelling?
CLARE:
You know, I went to the
gym yesterday, but most of the time you just have to work really hard
when you're not travelling.
Just kinda hope that it pays off. Especially doing something like this,
you just don't have the
time.
And when you're filming,
same thing, there's just not the time. Maybe time for a 10 minute walk,
or a 20 minute walk, but
not the time to put in your normal hour, whatever. So you just kinda
cross your fingers.
[Clare laughs]
|
|
Q9 |
GIAG:
There are a couple here
for other people. In a prior discussion you mentioned Emilie de Ravin.
["Beastmaster",
"Roswell", "Carrrie"(2002), "Brick", "Santa's Slay", etc.]
How did you first
meet Emilie and how did you become friends?
CLARE:
I love Emilie. I met her
through just auditioning. And she's managed by Darren
[Darren Goldberg, Clare's
longtime manager]. And she's a great girl. Really sweet.
GIAG:
When did you first meet
her?
CLARE:
I don't know if I can
even remember. A while ago. A year or two.
|
|
Q10 |
GIAG:
When you were on "Tru
Calling" with Eliza, one of the things that
happened before, in 2003,
was when she was Punk'd
by Ashton Kutcher. And she went kinda crazy. It was almost all
bleeps.
[Clare is on the verge of breaking out in laughter]
Very
earthy. And we were wondering if she's that excitable in person.
CLARE:
[Loudly] Oh,
yeah.
[Laughing uproariously
for a bit, well, a chortling laugh in the true definition of the word]
Well you see, the thing
I like about Eliza is what you see is what you get. There're no false
walls put
up. So, yeah.
|
|
Q11 |
GIAG:
Hmm.
When you worked with Michelle
Trachtenberg in Season 5 there were a number of tense scenes
between Glory and Dawn.
When these were over, what was Michelle like when the camera stopped
rolling?
CLARE:
You know what, she was
very professional. But I think she had a difficult time because she
was being tutored. And
had her Mom there. She had a lot of obligations. I didn't necessarily
hang out with her a lot
on the set. I just don't really remember what she was like afterwards.
GIAG:
She's gone on to make
an R-rated movie and a lot of other stuff.
CLARE:
[Smiling] Yeah.
GIAG:
She's broken out of her
image.
CLARE:
Yes, she has.
[Laughing]
|
|
Q12 |
GIAG:
Your first movie role
was in "In and
Out". Were you still at NYU, theater touring
or what?
CLARE:
Yes, I was at NYU. Yeah.
And I actually had a line in that movie
[Laughs] that never made it in.
"I'm gay" was my line.
At the very end where everybody is standing up
[Clare moves her arms
alternately up and down] saying "I'm
gay. I'm gay. I'm gay." [Laughing]
I
was like Student 1 of 3 or something. It was very exciting, you know, my
first time on a big set.
|
|
Q13 |
GIAG:
And that's the next question.
"In
and Out". Not the burger place.
CLARE:
OK. [Laughing]
GIAG:
While you were playing
with your pencil, smiling and doing other things in the classroom, were
you ever aware that on
the back wall was a Shakespeare quote that read
"...
how like a god..."
CLARE:
Nooo! [loudly]
GIAG:
And a few years later
you were playing Glory.
CLARE:
That's great. I didn't
know that. That's amazing. [shaking her head]
GIAG:
We noticed that [in
2001] while capturing from the movie's tape. It's on the site somewhere.
CLARE:
Oh my God! That's amazing.
|
|
Q14 |
GIAG:
What are you reading for
leisure or inspiration?
CLARE:
Let's see. I just finished,
I read, all of Dan Brown's books. "The
Da Vinci Code"
"Digital Fortress", Deception
Point", "Angels and Demons".
Of course, after reading
"The
Da Vinci Code"
I'm so set to go to Paris.
[Laughing
heartily]
I just finished the
"The
Life of Pi" and I just started yesterday "The
Alchemist". Which I'm
about 25, 30 pages in
it. It's about a serial killer in New York City in 1894, 1896. So that
should be good.
[added 5/10/04 - Clare probably means "The
Alienist", which has this plot]
What other good books have
I read lately? Oh, "Five Till We Meet in Heaven"[as
we hear it]
was great,
a quick read. "Seabiscuit",
I loved that. So.
GIAG:
Pretty varied.
CLARE:
Yes it is. I try to go
fiction, non-fiction. Fiction, non-fiction.
[Illustrates with her hands alternately]
I try to go back and forth.
But I love to read. I can go through a book a week. If I have time I can
go through a book a day.
I read a ton.
|
|
Q15 |
GIAG:
That's good.
You don't have to answer
this next one if you don't want to.
Any comments you'd care
to make about your role in "D.E.B.S.",
that some people consider
controversial?
CLARE:
[with a serious expression
on her face]
You know, I can
comment on that. Sure.
"Lucy
in the Sky", she was a character just like
any. Acting is about being someone you're not.
And, you know, I
had a great time playing her.
If people, I always feel
that it's better for people to dislike a performance than to be neutral
about it. So if people
like something, or dislike it [Clare gestures
left and right with her hands]
I'm
fine with that. If they're neutral, 'Ehhh, it was OK', then I feel like
I really haven't done
my job.
You know, it's better to
have passion one way or the other, than no passion al all.
|
|
Q16 |
GIAG:
Thank you very much.
This is the last one,
not really a question but a bonus for you.
CLARE:
A bonus? [Laughing]
GIAG:
Yeah.
In October 2002 Lions
Gate's property manager put the Diesel pants you were wearing
["Rules
of Attraction"] and the camo top up on
e-Bay. And we rescued them.
CLARE:
Ohhh.
GIAG:
Always intended to to
send them back to you, if you still wanted them, via your manager.
CLARE:
Oh my gosh, that's great!
But you can keep 'em if
you want 'em.
GIAG:
We have no personal use
for them.
CLARE:
Yeah, I wanted that stuff.
GIAG:
The property tags were
still on them. And you could read them in the photos he had online.
One said, 'Claire [Clare]
wants to buy these'. [Clare looks up and rolls
her eyes]
The
property tags are still on them.
CLARE:
Oh my Gosh.
GIAG:
They're yours.
CLARE:
Well, thank you. [big
smile]
GIAG:
And that's it. Thank
you.
CLARE:
Did you get everything
you need?
GIAG:
This all we wanted to
do. We tried to be within 10 minutes.
CLARE:
No It's great.
CLARE:
[looks at camera and waves]
Thank you, and Gloriana.
[Clare does her chortling
laugh again]
|
| Related Links |
We'll add some links that
are related to the various questions backgrounds soon.
This transcription from
the videotape audio to a user-friendly format took much
longer than we expected. |
| |
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Copyright
© 2004 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G) |
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