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This week, Penny Landau, aka: The TV Junkie, takes a break from her usual column. Instead of talking to the TV, she's talking to actress/singer EMILY BERGL, who, on Thursday, August 26^th will be making her New York cabaret debut. Born in the UK to an Irish mother and a British father, Bergl grew up mainly in Chicago. Although she films in LA and other locations, she considers New York City her home. Emily talked about her film, stage and TV work (she joins the cast of “Desperate Housewives” this fall), but foremost on her mind, is her cabaret debut this week at Metropolitan Room.

Before we really begin, you appeared on “Star Trek: Enterprise.” You know that you’re now an important piece of Sci-Fi history, once you’ve been on any show in the franchise?

EB: I’m a big Sci-Fi fan and I loved the original “Dr. Who” and “Star Trek,” so I was thrilled to do it. I also got my own trading card. I was doing Where Do We Live Off-Broadway at the Vineyard, and I would run back to the dressing room when I wasn’t on stage to autograph the cards.

Then you followed with Spielberg’s “Taken,” one of the best Sci-Fi mini-series ever. 

EB: That was my first my first series and the second longest mini-series in TV history. It was intense playing someone at 19, and then

aging to become a mother. It was the first adult role I had ever played. Before then, I was on “Gilmore Girls,” then I filmed “Taken” in Vancouver, and then went back to “Gilmore Girls.” I went from ingénue to a mother, then back to the ingénue.  That’s when I realized, no more ingénue roles for me. I loved “Taken,” but it was more than sci-fi. It was the human element of the character that I loved. It was a fantastic concept, but at the end of the day it had substance.  

 

 

 

 

I must confess, I was a huge fan of “Men in Trees.” I loved Annie. 

EB: I loved doing that show. Anne Heche is so talented. The whole cast was wonderful and Annie was a great character. We were working during the strike and were the last TV show to be shooting, since we had scripts in the can. And then, they just canceled us. We all emotionally needed to have closure, but we couldn’t. They should make a TV movie and wrap it all up.

But Cynthia Stevenson as your prospective mother-in-law was hilarious.

EB: She is such an incredible comic talent. Her timing is unbelievable.

This past season, you were on “Southland,” a really gritty show, in a really interesting role. 

EB: She was a very different character that I really had to admire. It’s difficult for me to hear people describe her as crazy, because she’s just misunderstood and no one appreciated her. It’s hard for us, as actors, to hear people describe our characters. It’s like looking in a fun-house mirror; people project their own feelings onto the character. I’m planning on going back to Southland.

And now, you’ve been cast in “Desperate Housewives.”

EB: Yes. I’m playing Paul Young’s wife, who married him while he was in jail. She’s certainly an eccentric character full of intrigue & mystery.

 

 

Talk to me about some of your film work, after the Rage: Carrie 2! 

EB: That was my first big film break. But, I just finished an Indy film, Grassroots, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, and it’s one of the best scripts I’ve read in a long time. It’s based on a true story about a writer with no political experience, who ran for city council in Seattle & won. It was a character actor’s dream ensemble, Jason Biggs, Tom Arnold, Lauren Ambrose, Cobie Smulders, Christopher McDonald and DC Pierson. As a director, Stephen encourages you to be creative and to improvise, but he always knows the story he wants to tell. We’re paid to look at our part of the story and what the character has to say. Am I telling the story of my character, or the whole story?

You refer to yourself as a “character actress.”

EB: I’m definitely a character actress. Once people get older, they write the characters as much more interesting. While playing leading roles you don’t come to see Emily Bergl. I’m not that movie-star person. I try to bring a different character to every role I play and I love playing more eccentric people that I connect to, as opposed to women in Hollywood who are asked to just cry and be the victim. I don’t play the victim; I play the killer. Also, character actresses can age gracefully.

Do you ever watch your films or any of your episodic TV appearances?

EB: I never watch anything while I’m in it. It’s difficult. It’s important to work from the inside, and when I see it from the outside, it colors my perception of the character.  

TVJ: I’ve know you’ve done extensive stage work, including Wendy Wasserstein’s Old Money and Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw. Which do you prefer, comedy or drama?

EB: I love comedy and I do a lot of it. Most of the characters I play on stage are comedic and you have to replicate that every night. In 1998, I did Romeo & Juliet at The Old Globe, directed by Dan Sullivan and Neil Patrick Harris was my Romeo. He was one of the best stage kissers I’ve ever met. I used to be a snob about the LA theatre scene, but the companies I work with, Antaeus, does only classic work like Lear, and Black Dahlia Theatre, is where Secrets of the Trade premiered before coming to New York. I made my stage debut in Lion in Winter at Roundabout; I did Lydia Languish in The Rivals at Lincoln Center and then A Touch of the Poet, directed by Doug Hughes, back at Roundabout. I didn’t really have a dream role in my mind, but that role in A Touch of the Poet became my dream role. O’Neill is my favorite playwright.

Well Becky Shaw was an interesting sort of comedy. The NY Times called it a “comedy of bad manners.”

 EB: I loved doing that show. You know it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist?

TVJ: So why cabaret? Most cabaret performers aspire to do Broadway, film and TV, things that you’ve done.

EB: Ever since I sang a song on top of the piano in my high school variety show, I knew that I wanted to do cabaret. I’ve been singing my whole life, but didn’t pursue musicals in my early career because I felt I’d have more opportunity as an actress. Then one day I said to myself, “why am I waiting around for someone to put me in a musical?” I have always dreamed of being a cabaret singer. I’ve never had my own show before. It’s incredibly liberating.

TVJ: How did the idea for the show come about?

EB: I met my musical director, G. Scott Lacy, doing a production of Our Town in La Jolla. We talked about it years ago and I realized that I’d reached a point in my career where I felt I needed to challenge myself and scare myself shitless again.

TVJ: Doing the show scares you? You say that like it’s a good thing?

EB: In a way it is. If you want to live a creative life, you always have to do something that scares you. You have to keep doing that. Interpreting songs is such a unique challenge. I’m an actor who sings and I’m here to tell a story, entertain & bring a song to life. No pretty songs at the piano. I consider myself an entertainer.

TVJ: Tell us about the show, "Kidding on the Square, a vintage cabaret experience."

EB: Some of the songs are from the 20’s & 30’s. I also do modern songs, but I do a vintage re-mix of them. I have nostalgia for an era in which I never lived; an era of love songs. It’s not only because it’s a romantic era, but it’s my love of an era I never knew. It’s also one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We did the show in Chicago and LA.

TVJ: And now, New York City and Metropolitan Room.

EB: New York is my home and I’m making by big debut in my home town. I love LA, when I know my home is in NYC. We worked the show out of town, but I feel like this is the first time I’m doing it. I’m also having some special guests joining me on stage, Michael Cerveris, Anthony Rapp and Angelo D’Agastino, so that will be fun.

You have this love of music and laughter, which seems to be the theme of this show.

EB: I love to make people laugh. I’m hoping I’ll die on a laugh, make ‘em laugh on my way out. Or a grand piano falls on me. But not just any grand piano; a Bosendorfer. They have those extra bass keys and that’ll make my death swift and painless.

****

Kidding on the Square, a vintage cabaret experience starring Emily Bergl and featuring G. Scott Lacy, August 26th @ 7pm, August 28th @ 7pm w/Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris, August 30th @ 9:30pm w/recording artist Angelo D'Agastino and August 31st @ 7pm w/Broadway/film star Anthony Rapp.

Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, (212) 206-0440.
www.metropolitanroom.com

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