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Shiri Appleby's latest film: When Do We Eat?

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A beautiful brunette with a charming freshness and likability, 27-year-old Los Angeles native Shiri Appleby has been acting since the age of 4. Successfully turning her three-year stint as Liz Parker, a teenage girl who is miraculously healed of a gunshot wound by a smitten classmate who confesses he is really an alien, on the TV cult favorite Roswell, into a burgeoning film career, the rising star sat down exclusively with MediaBlvd. Magazine at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to talk about her latest role, her proudest career moment thus far, and her hopes for the future.

Currently starring as part of the ensemble in When Do We Eat?, Appleby plays Nikki, the sex surrogate daughter, home to join her family -- made up of such Hollywood veterans as Jack Klugman, Michael Lerner and Lesley Ann Warren -- for Passover Seder dinner. On this rather unusual night, secrets will be revealed, fantasies fulfilled, barriers broken down and some food consumed.

Playing a character that was so different from herself was a big part of Appleby’s attraction to the role. “She’s just kind of over-the-top,” says the former USC English major. “She’s crazy and a bit neurotic, and she takes herself too seriously, which is sort of funny. I just related to the fact that, at the end of the day, she really loves her family and she wants things to be right. I can identify with that.”

For the audition, Appleby had to read a couple scenes from the film, so in an effort to stand out from the other young actresses who would be reading for the same role, she changed the intention of the character.

“Instead of having Nikki really be into her job, I did it while I was filing my nails, just because I wanted to do something a little bit different, and I guess they responded to that. I just wanted to give the character as much personality as I could. And, I didn’t want to play it exactly the same way that I felt like a lot of other people would be playing it.”

Known previously for playing primarily dramatic roles, Appleby knew she’d have to just walk in the room and make an impression right away, if she was going to convince the filmmakers that she could pull off comedy.


“You just have to be confident enough when you go into the audition. It’s definitely difficult, when people are used to seeing you in dramatic stuff, to say, ‘No, no, no, I can be funny too.’ It was nice to be able to have that opportunity and, hopefully, this film will bring me more of that.”

Once she was given the role, Appleby had about a week of rehearsal to bond with the rest of the When Do We Eat? ensemble, and she says that the connection was pretty immediate. “It was just a bunch of crazy Jews in one room together. We were really friendly, during the time we were making the movie, so it was all very natural. Working on a comedy is so different. When you’re on set and it’s a dramatic moment, you’re quiet. In terms of this, everyone was having a good time. You still have to remember that you’re making a movie, but it’s a more jovial set.”

Naturally, that environment led to some improvisation among the actors, as well as some pranks on the set, one of which was directed specifically at Appleby. “One day, Max Greenfield and Ben Feldman photocopied the cast photo from Roswell and taped about 100 of them, all over the set,” remembers Appleby. “It was not cute. It was weird.”

When Roswell finished, Appleby admits that she had a lot of interest, but she has made a concentrated effort to be cautious in the projects that she wants to get involved in. She has no interest in playing girls that are just there for guys to make fun of, or that are just discussed because of the way they look, and for her to even consider doing a project that involved nudity, she says that it would have to be something really amazing that was not exploitative in any way, especially in the Internet age that we live in now.

“I could have gone off and done another television show, and I was going to, with 1/4 Life, which I did a pilot for. If that was going to go, I would have been really happy to do that, but it didn’t get picked up. If I do another television show, I really want to make sure it’s going to be something that I like, so I’m just sort of waiting. I’ve been really picky with what television shows I’ve wanted to do, and I want the movies I do to be different. I want to have different opportunities, and I want to play girls that I respect.”


Although she isn’t actively seeking out another science fiction series, Appleby says that she wouldn’t classify Roswell strictly as a sci-fi show, since it explored various aspects of teenage life as well. “I liked the love aspect of Roswell, and the friendship aspect, and all of that stuff,” she says, also admitting that it is the project she is most proud of, so far, in her career.

“Those are things that I’m drawn to, anyway, so I would do something similar, in that regard, again. I just think it really depends on who the character is, and the story.”

Having played a variety of roles in both film (Undertow, The Battle of Shaker Heights, Swimfan, The Thirteenth Floor, The Other Sister) and television (Xena: Warrior Princess, Beverly Hills 90210, 7th Heaven, ER, Doogie Howser M.D.), Appleby hopes for the opportunity to give theater a try.

“I really want to still do a play, really badly. I’d love to start Off Broadway. I want to do something different, where the actor is totally in control. Film is a director’s world, television is a producer’s world, and they say theater is really the actor’s world, so it would be fun. You get to take your performance from the beginning to the end, and I’ve never really done that before. It would be nice to see what’s working, right then and there. Hopefully, it will come up soon. But, in the meantime, I’m pretty happy right now, making movies.”

Appleby says that she’s really not discriminatory in the medium that she will work in, wanting just to do good projects and work with different people of whose work she has been a fan. A look at her upcoming slate of releases really reflects that.

“I just finished two movies,” says Appleby, who hopes to one day work with the likes of Cameron Crowe, Steven Spielberg and Michael Mann. “One is called What Love Is, which is a comedy about love, with Cuba Gooding Jr., Matthew Lillard, Sean Astin, Anne Heche, Gina Gershon and myself. It’s a big comedy and it’s just really funny. Basically, it’s a group of five girls and five guys, and we’re all out one night, on Valentine’s Day, and everyone’s sort of ranting and raving about what finding love is all about. My character is more the voice of reason. She really wants things to be right, and she really wants men and women to fall in love for the right reasons.”

“The other film, The Killing Floor, is a psychological thriller with Marc Blucas (Buffy) and Reiko Aylesworth (24). My character is the uptight assistant to Marc Blucas’ character. She’s sort of shy and reserved, and a bit scared of everything. She wants to be the greatest assistant and she wants to make him happy, and she secretly has a crush on him.”

In looking to the future, Appleby strives to take on a role where she could just completely transform herself, like Charlize Theron did for her Academy Award-winning performance in Monster, and do something that people wouldn’t expect her to do. “The entire time I watched Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, I was like, ‘This is amazing. I would die to do something like this,’” reveals the self-proclaimed Extreme Makeover: Home Edition junkie. “I’d love to learn to sing for a film, or learn another language, or any of that kind of stuff.”

April 10, 2006
by Christina Radish
Media Bldvd Magazine