Strike Back S02E05

Playing a lesbian isn't so different from playing straight. I've played a whore, a doctor, an aristocrat lady, and believe me I'm none of those things either...

With dozens of TV appearances from Highlander to Miss Match and an award-worthy turn in the Oscar-nominated Bollywood film Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India under her belt, Rachel Shelley is no stranger to Hollywood. The L Word seems to have cemented her role as a leader of lesbian fiefdom; a fact further cemented by her turn, opposite Heather Graham, in lesbian film Gray Matters. First she was the reserved rich Brit, the pent up babe we loved to hate before evolving into a whole new person: sexy, sultry, nice. When Dylan — the gayest straight girl ever to hit the small screen — joined the cast and gave Helena a little boot knocking, well, this chippy fell hard. And even though Dylan turned out to be a bit of a cad, lovely actor Rachel Shelley, the woman who gave life to Helena, is still basking in that post-coital glow.

Her immaculately coiffed brunette locks are suitably long and flowing. Her complexion is flawless, minimally made up, but just as beautiful in person as on screen. As she talks I note that the cut glass accent is also present and correct. There’s just one thing throwing me off, she’s dressed in what look suspiciously like sweat pants. Admittedly they’re expensively cut and stylish, but still, trust fund brat Helena Peabody would never be seen dead in public wearing something so casual. During our conversation over the next hour, I occasionally glance down at the trackies, seeing them as a kind of symbolic passport into the woman behind the character. It seems to help me mentally separate Helena, someone I feel like I’ve gotten to know quite intimately over the past few years, from the very real actress sipping cranberry juice a few feet away from me.


Following her stint as a part-time north American during the filming of the L Word, Shelley has been keen to work in her home country. “I’d love to do some British TV, but that’s not in my hands, I wish it were.” She does feel that her time in the US has changed the perception of her as an actress. “Before I did the L Word, I’d get cast as very vulnerable characters with wide eyes, and something awful would happen, like they’d be heartbroken or killed. Then I went to the States with Lagaan [Oscar nominated Bollywood film]. As soon as I started getting cast in the States it was as much sharper, tougher characters, people who are a bit devious or who use their sexual prowess to control a man, the kind of roles I’ve never been cast in before.” Relaying the story she is clearly proud of this breakthrough but she also seems slightly uncertain as to why it happened. “There was a big casting director in London who once said to me ‘You’ll never get cast as the baddie, ever.’ Then literally three weeks later I got cast in L Word and I was like, ‘Actually, they think I can do it!’ I don’t know if it was just the accent.”

Shelley claims a strong connection to the lesbian community, having been such a high profile part of its popular culture for five years. “By doing the L Word, I’ve got to know so many gay women and I feel much more of a connection with them. I feel a really strong friendship with Alexandra Hedison who played Dylan, and I’m much more on a level with her than some of the women in LA who were straight. It’s interesting how easily I fitted into that group and not be gay. I don’t know if it comes from having brothers. I’m not that groomed luscious woman that Helena is, I’m much more casual and relaxed so I think I probably fit into that gay corner better. I can play the other role but I don’t fit that stereotype.”

Fans often call you the most beautiful woman on TV. How does it feel when you hear something like that?

Oh, that’s ridiculous, that’s funny. [Laughs] That’s funny. That’s because they see me after seven hundred hours of makeup and hair. They don’t see me when I wake up in the morning and get out of bed. They wouldn’t say that if they saw that. That’s funny. That’s crazy.

You’ve had some really racy scenes. Are they getting easier to film?

It’s funny. I talked about this with Alexandra Hedison, who played Dylan on the L Word. Actually doing them, filming them isn’t that hard. That’s not hard. But, sometimes, there, there’s like a hangover from it. There’s like a aftertaste, that you can’t get rid of. It’s not while you’re doing it, because I think you just get on, you know, you know what you’ve got to do. You have to throw yourself into it totally, otherwise it doesn’t work. And it’s afterwards, when you might feel a bit, just a bit weird. Like physically, I felt … kind of detached from my body after … you have to do a lot of intimate scenes with each other and I think afterwards we both felt a bit disconnected … your brain and your body have stopped talking to each other because they’re not, they’re not listening to each other anymore.

Because you have to turn it off while you’re filming?

Yeah, I suppose so. I suppose you have to, you have to just over ride that … you have to act all these things which normally are so natural, you know. Your body’s impulses tell you who you want to be intimate with and who you don’t want to be intimate with and suddenly you’re have to override that impulse. I did feel a bit jangled up after. I’m usually quite, physically, I’m quite free with my body, and I’m quite open and I found afterwards, I felt a bit, I felt a bit, what’s the word? Sort of shattered by it. And after that, for a good few days afterwards, I felt … inhibited, I felt like I wanted to curl up.

That’s interesting.

I think that scene with Alex was the most intimate and the most prolonged scene that I’ve had to do like that. And, God, I was glad it was with Alex because, she and I got on so well and still do, you know, so I was really glad it was with someone [where] we could look after each other and be very comfortable with one another.

Have you done love scenes with men before?

Yes, nothing quite that intimate though; nothing as intimate or as kind of prolonged as that was. We shot that for quite a while.

Have you learned anything from doing these scenes?

I’ve learned about how different positions makes your breasts look better than other positions on camera. I’ve learned that the other actresses, we can help each other a lot, I think. I’ve learned that they … can have an affect on you that you might not think they will.

When I remark that she seems very cool about being a sex-symbol for lady-loving ladies, her reply is typically blasé. “Oh yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” She mentions that she’s now a celebrity columnist for DIVA magazine. “My column is called ‘The Insider’. Which is interesting because I’m trying to be an insider!” she laughs. “Every issue has a theme, and I take that theme and weave in my own stories, and any inside info about the girls on the show. The first theme was good news and the second is sex.”

Television Series: Strike Back (S02E05- Project Dawn 5)
Release Date: August 2011
Actress: Rachel Shelley
Video Clip Credit: Zorg











Fsonic

FServe