Heather Graham
by Douglas Eby
She has acted in some twenty seven films over the last ten years,
and Heather Graham has portrayed a wide range of some of the
most interesting female roles, from Nadine, the drug addict teenage drifter
who overdoses in "Drug Store Cowboy" to nun Annie Blackburn
in "Twin Peaks, Cowgirl Heather in "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues"
and Lorraine in the acclaimed "Swingers". She is currently in "Boogie Nights"
and will be seen next year in "Lost in Space" and "Scream: The Sequel".
Graham says getting those kinds of roles is a choice: "I think it's something
I'm naturally drawn to, and that I go after, and hopefully can do it more.
And those kind of unusual roles are one reason I've been more involved
in independent productions rather than major studio movies." She finds
that now is a good time for her and her career: "I'm getting offered more
things than before, but I come out of doing a lot of independent films, and
haven't been offered tons of studio movies. Sometimes when you don't have the
passion for something, it translates. But it's not like all studio movies are bad.
Certain ones that are formulaic are boring, but other ones I really like."
Heather appreciated the chance to do one of her earliest recognition roles,
as Annie in "Twin Peaks": "I just loved the show so much, and it was really
exciting to think of being on it. And David Lynch was a nice person, as well
as an interesting director. He makes you feel really welcome.
A lot of directors are not as friendly to the actors as he is, so it's nice being
around someone that friendly."
In her current film "Boogie Nights" she is Rollergirl, so named because she
never takes her skates off. It's a story about an extended "family" that
includes Burt Reynolds as director Jack Horner, Julianne Moore as his wife
Amber Waves, who's also a featured actress in his films, Mark Wahlberg
as actor Eddie, who's renamed himself Dirk Diggler, and Graham,
whose character Rollergirl is always on her skates, and finds a home within
this supportive group of filmmakers. It just happens the films they make are
hardcore.
With its subject being the 1970s porn scene in Los Angeles, Wahlberg and
Graham do have a sex scene together, but she keeps her roller skates on even then.
Heather has generally avoided nudity in her work, and says "Sometimes I
watch movies and [the nudity] seems not necessary, and sort of stuck in there and
slightly exploitive. I don't think it's wrong, but I don't particularly respond
to it, because I feel like I'm being manipulated into watching something that's
supposed to be titillating, but isn't part of the story at all. So when I read a script,
I look a little more carefully when there's nudity to see if I'll be comfortable
doing it. And then I have to look at the director a little more carefully and think
how he's going to be, because I'm going to feel vulnerable in the situation, and will
he make me feel safe?"
Compared to her work on "Lost in Space" Graham found acting in
"Boogie Nights" was totally different in terms of subject matter: "It was stuff you
could imagine more easily than thinking you're flying through space. So it
was really fun working on it." But she also enjoyed "Lost in Space", and
joining a cast that includes Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc,
Mimi Rogers, Lacey Chabert and Jack Johnson. Heather, as Judy Robinson,
is for the first time playing a scientist or someone involved with technology,
and she liked that aspect of it: "This is the first job I've really done where I
got to play science fiction, technology, all that stuff. It was cool playing a doctor,
because I'm really fascinated by that." As Judy, Graham points out she gets to
"create these cryo-sleep tubes that freeze us for ten years." She says cryonics
is "very interesting" but probably not a choice for a career: "I'd be more
interested in general medicine than in that. And that's an area where no one
has figured it out yet. It's cool just thinking of the power of the human mind
to create."
She appreciated the others in the cast: "It was great working with experienced
actors like Gary Oldman and William Hurt, and I've admired their work for so long.
And I really liked the director; he was a very interesting person and had cool ideas.
And it was fun working with little kids, like Jack, who's ten and Lacey,
who's fourteen. Kids are people who just go and do it. It's amazing how
good some little kids are; you wonder how they got this good."
The film uses hundreds of visual effects using computer-generated imagery (CGI),
nearly twice as many as in "Jurassic Park". Graham had not worked with CGI
before, and found it challenging to react to objects that weren't actually visible,
but were to be added later: "It's very hard, just imagining these things that weren't
there, and flying around in a space ship, and not seeing the things you're supposed
to be seeing, and you'd have to make them up with your mind. And all the action
and everything that adds in later that seems real when you watch it [onscreen]
but isn't there when you're doing it. You have to sort of simulate it for yourself."
She credits the director with providing a lot of help to do that: "There's this character
in the movie who sometimes wouldn't be there, and we'd have to pretend to be
holding him. The director would have these puppeteers come in and we
would do [the action] once with the puppets, so we would see sort of what the
animal would look like and wouldn't have to completely think it up, which is cool.
Being in London on the set and having all these amazing effects was so different
than just shooting in L.A. with a bunch of people who were sort of friends and
really liked each other, which is what "Boogie Nights" was like."
Playing Judy Robinson was "really fun" Graham says, "because it's kind of a
setup where Matt LeBlanc and I are sort of unattached and stuck in space together.
And my reactions to him are completely unpredictable, and I just give him a
really hard time and constantly attack him. So it was fun to go against that whole
romantic thing where the woman's like 'so in love with him because he's the pilot.
' I get to be just like 'Oh, get over yourself.'"
Another of her 1998 films will be "Scream: The Sequel", a part she took because
of her response to the original: "Just watching the first movie, I thought it was
very clever, and sort of turned horror movies on their head, and it was just funny.
I really liked Drew Barrymore. That was so scary, that sequence." Like a number
of other actors who has worked with him, she found famed horror director Wes Craven
"very nice, a very easy-going person, and fun to be around."
Life as an actor can be very demanding physically, emotionally and
psychologically, and Heather has been following a spiritual practice that helps her
keep growing as an actor and a person: TM or Transcendental Meditation.
She notes "I'm not really religious, but feel I have spirituality. I meditate twice a
day for twenty minutes. I've been doing it for six years, and I've gotten into the habit
of finding the time for it. Sometimes it's hard. But it definitely pays off for me."
Other things that help her keep growing as an actor, Graham says, include
"having good friends. They're always supportive and encouraging." She also appreciates
the value of going to therapy: "I have this amazing lady who's my therapist,
and I just find her brilliant, and she has been so incredibly helpful." Graham admits
to being a little unsure about talking about such a personal thing: "At first, I wasn't
going to say anything, but then, who cares? Lots of people go. In some ways it helps
more than acting class. You realize why you operate in certain ways."
Through all her very different films Heather manages to keep a quality of grace and
sweetness that inspires a sympathetic appreciation for her characters. Referring to
how kids such as the ones she worked with in "Lost in Space" seem to so easily take
to acting, she observes "They just naturally know what to do." Her performances
show that Graham also knows what to do. For a recent magazine photo, Heather wore
a black T-shirt that said "Ready to Rock". Obviously, that's true.
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