Pictured Karina Lombard as Marina, Katherine Moennig as Shane, Jennifer Beals as Bette with Laurel Holloman as Tina, and Leisha Hailey as Alice. Group photo, from left back row: Mia Kirshner as Jenny, Eric Mabius as Tim, Laurel Holloman as Tina, Karina Lombard as Marina, Pam Grier as Kit, and Erin Daniels as Dana. Front: Katherine Moennig as Shane, Jennifer Beals as Bette, and Leisha Hailey as Alice. Photo by Matthew Rolston/Showtime Next to last photo: Erin Daniels as Dana. Last photo: Rose Troche, Director on set. Photo by Carole Segal/©Showtime
Sunday, Jan 18, 9 p.m., Star Gaze. The premiere of Showtime's new lesbian series, The L Word, 5419 N. Clark. (773) 561-7363. T-shirts, giveaways, drink and food specials, $1 pink pussy shots. Star Gaze, the only lesbian bar in Chicago showing The L Word.
Rumor has it that the makers of Showtime's new series about a group of lesbian friends in Los Angeles, The L-Word, were looking for other title suggestions. Taking into consideration all the comparisons to a certain HBO series, how about ... Sex and the Clitty?
'We'll call that the affectionate title,' laughs actress Erin Daniels, one of L-Word's stars. 'One night we were sitting with one of the producers coming up with all these different names. 'Mommy Queerest!' 'Sex and the Clitty.' But in our defense there are very few similarities to Sex in the City. It just happens to be a show about women.'
Indeed, while the ladies from The L-Word may be as stylish, frisky and prone to slumming in cafes, and both shows offer glimpses into their respective close-knit social circles, the similarities really do end there. Executive produced by Ilene Chaiken and co-created by Chaiken, Kathy Greenberg, and Michele Abbot, The L-Word's ensemble of nine gorgeous core characters stand to redefine lesbian iconography: there's not a Birkenstock, mullet, vegetarian potluck or O'Donnelesque woman to be seen.
'It's really funny and ironic because when Go Fish came out in 1994 everyone was like 'not all lesbians are ugly, you know,'' notes Go Fish/L-Word pilot director Rose Troche. 'And I think what will happen with this is that people will say 'not all lesbians are beautiful and skinny and fabulous.' Certainly we know that, but we have to start somewhere. If the show's popular we will get more leeway [to show more diversity]. Not a potluck yet, but they have dinner parties!'
Talented young writer Jenny Schecter (Mia Kirschner) and her fiancé Tim Haspel (Eric Mabius) have just moved into a Los Angeles neighborhood. Their next-door neighbors, art gallery curator Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals) and partner Tina Kennard (Laurel Holloman) have decided to conceive a child. Jenny is quickly intrigued by these two women and their clique of lesbian friends: Dana Fairbanks (Erin Daniels), a professionally closeted tennis player on the rise; bisexual journalist Alice Pleszecki (Leisha Hailey), who's charting who's slept/dated with whom in the community; Shane McCutcheon (Katherine Moennig), a punky, promiscuous heartbreaker; and Marina (Karina Lombard), the magnetic and charismatic owner of their West Hollywood cafe hangout, The Planet.
L-Word's multiple storylines kick off strongly in the pilot and several subsequent episodes. Bette and Jenny scour the city for a suitable sperm donor, while Bette's recovering alcoholic half-sister, Kit (Pam Grier), shows up to rebuild their relationship. Dana isn't sure whether the sous chef at her sports club (Lauren Lee Smith) is a flirtatious lesbian or overly friendly heterosexual. One of Shane's one-night-stands (Tammy Lynn Michaels) launches a public campaign to label her a heartless slut. Alice is tempted to get re-involved with Gabby (Guinevere Turner), her hot/cold ex-girlfriend. And, at the center of it all, the naive and confused Jenny finds herself attracted to—and beginning a tortured affair with—Marina.
The L-Word's pilot (and several additional episodes) was directed by Troche, the New York-based director of aforementioned lesbian indie classic Go Fish, 1998's Bedrooms and Hallways, and last year's The Safety of Objects. Although openly gay, Troche had some initial reservations about undertaking the project due to its milieu. 'It was a world I didn't know that well,' she admits. 'I don't know this group of beautiful, well-paid LA women, and they do exist, believe me. It was much more Ilene's world. [The lesbians I know] are more poor and shower-less. Not enough personal grooming. No spa days. I don't think spa days are as popular here as they are in California. People sort of put on their clothes and don't want to take them off until night. That's the difference between living in a cold and a hot climate!'
To help Troche get familiarized with and acclimated to the L-Word's set, Chaiken took her on a tour of real-life LA lesbian hotspots (which also inspired the fictitious ones in the show). 'There's definitely a group of power lesbians in LA that are not fiction,' Troche reports. 'They live in fab houses and have been in long-term couples and exchanged rings and all this sort of stuff.' Nonetheless, Troche was able to convince Chaiken to 'scale back on the extreme fabulousness' and credits her with being open minded to creative input. 'Often on TV, a [creator/writer] will be very protective of their work and as a director you don't have a chance to get yourself in there,' Troche notes. 'Ilene was great.'
The show's writing/directing staff also includes Guinevere Turner, Susan Miller, Angela Robinson (whose hysterical, feature-length lesbian riff on Charlie's Angels, D.E.B.S., debuts at Sundance), Lynne Stopkewich, Josh Senter, Clement Virgo, and Daniel Minihan.
During casting, actors appeared to have little problem with the show's head-on queer content (although some actresses restricted what they would do sexual/nudity-wise onscreen). Those who rejected roles attributed their decision to the fact L-Word was a potential long-term commitment that could get in the way of a burgeoning movie career. 'The only person who said no [to involvement in any regard] that I know of based on the fact it was a gay show was Olivia Newton-John,' Troche reveals. 'She wouldn't let us use the song 'Physical.' It's sort of a Donna Summer moment.'
In the same way Toronto doubles for Pittsburgh on Queer as Folk, Vancouver doubles for Los Angeles on The L-Word (although some exterior scenes were actually shot in LA). Some nine months were spent shooting on location in the Canadian city and much of the cast rented apartments/homes within close proximity to each other. 'We all were working with the same realtor,' Daniels recalls. 'Liesha and Mia shared the same apartment. They were roommates. I lived next door and Kate lived a couple of blocks away. It was like camp. There was a lot of walking back and forth to each other's houses at night in our pajamas.'
'We got along so well,' adds Katherine Moennig. 'We all hang out, a very tight-knit group. It was so much fun.'
Troche testifies that these genuine friendships the cast developed offscreen informed their characters' onscreen chemistry—sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. 'They did that 'Friends' formula where they decided to be friends on and off, which is not always great for a director because you're like 'action ... OK, guys, stop talking!''
As for whether lesbian lovin' occurred off screen as well, the cast and Troche proffer only denials, shrugged shoulders, or flirtatious hints. 'I'm sure there was all over the place,' Daniels laughs. 'There always is!' However, sexual fiction met fact when the show's writers put together a top-secret real-life chart of which lesbians working on the show had slept with whom. 'The one [Alice makes] in the show is based on the one we did!' Troche laughs. 'Guinevere Turner started it at the writer's office in LA and it was crazy, getting really big. And those of us who really slept with a lot of people were called 'hubs.''
Frustrated by a lack of good roles for women, Daniels had quit the acting business for a while (she last appeared in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses). Forbidden to call unless something truly brilliant came up the pike, come 2002 Daniels' manager anxiously dialed the ex-actress' digits with The L-Word's script. It was indeed brilliant, and Daniels landed the role.
Daniels admits that she looked to and studied the lives of out lesbian tennis icons Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King when formulating her take on Dana. 'But it was more important to get into my character's psyche, her personal demons,' she informs. 'I looked at Dana as an individual who plays sports, who knows who she is on the courts, but has no clue who she is outside of that. She's terrified of being honest with herself and with her sponsors [because] maybe she won't work or make money or get endorsements. All of these fears have kept her closeted publicly. Privately she's out because she cannot fight it and she wants so desperately to be loved. There's all this pushing and pulling that goes on inside her, and that's really what I focused on more than the tennis aspect even though the tennis aspect is very important. I think it's symbolic of something to hide in and people can hide in the things that they do.'
Moennig, who played the crossdressing Jake Pratt on TV's Young Americans, was also initially on guard when approached with the L-Word, which was titled 'Earthlings' at the time. 'I thought it was a sci-fi show until I read the first pages,' she admits. Initially, the character of Shane was an intimidating prospect because 'I had never played anyone whose essence was pure sexuality.' That said, Moennig, who declines to disclose her offscreen sexuality, did see similarities between her life and Shane's. For one thing, the androgynously magnetic Moennig has broken her share of hearts. 'It's not something I'm proud of but sometimes ... ' she confesses. That said, she's also been dumped while in the throes of love/lust. 'Recently,' she laughs. 'I think everyone's been hurt at some point in our lives. It's not necessarily a bad thing in retrospect because it makes you grow and learn from it.'
Yet while Shane enjoys spreading her love around a la Queer as Folk's promiscuous and emotionally restrained Brian Kinney, each progressing episode reveals that she's hardly a shallow Jezebel. 'Her depth is really ironic considering what she's done to people,' Moennig muses, 'but she doesn't want to hurt anyone. And if she does I don't think she realizes she does it.'
A number of episodes feature special guest stars: Ann Archer as Alice's Hollywood mom, Rosanna Arquette, Kelly Lynch, and Snoop Dogg—yes, Snoop Dogg. Of recurring guest star Tammy Lynn Michaels (whose girlfriend, Melissa Etheridge, swung by the last day of shooting), Troche says 'she is so down to earth, you know what I mean? Completely real. Tammy is more likely to burp around you, scratch her bottom, definitely errs on the side of making people feel comfortable.'
Speaking of comfort, how do L-Word's ladies feel about the possibility that heterosexual men, possessing a bottle of baby oil, box of tissues, and subscription to Showtime, beguiled by the suggestive ads will turn on the L-Word hoping for a little hot lesbian fantasy action? After all, there's a scene in the pilot involving Bette, Tina, and a guy they bring home in hopes of gathering sperm that plays right into that heterocentric male mindset.
'They're going to be really disappointed,' Daniels insists. 'I'm hoping straight men will watch the show in the beginning because they'll hope for that lesbian fantasy and then they'll actually discover our characters and like them. Maybe they'll learn a little something in the process. And I think that's gonna happen, there's no way around that. The show is well written and really well done, well acted, and I think it could really draw people in who aren't ordinarily open to the idea.'
Which is something Troche hopes the show does across the board—diesel dyke, lipstick lesbian, granola, bi goth girl, gay boy, or what have you. 'I think all the actors find [working on the show] fulfilling because not only are they playing interesting characters, but I think we all see this as [something that] can help someone in Middle America come out or know that there are communities out there,' she opines. 'It's not complete fiction. There are thriving lesbian communities. I know just from having done Go Fish it helps a lot of people. Hopefully L-Word will have that effect as well.'
For more info, go to www.sho.com/lword