Erika Christensen turns to TV for new ABC series ‘Six Degrees’

PASADENA, Calif.—With her soft round face and honey-blonde hair actress Erika Christensen always seemed like the girl-next-door, the one who’d show up on a Saturday night to baby sit.

In fact it was a problem, says the 24-year-old actress, seated in a meeting room of a hotel here.

“There was a little of this: `Oh, you’re such a sweet girl!’ That’s a wonderful thing to have in life, I don’t mind it at all for life. But I remember the first role I was ever cast in as a not-so-sweet-girl, I was so happy. It was `Touched by an Angel.’ It was one episode and I played kind of a crass, dark problem girl—black clothes and bad attitude. She’d been caught shoplifting and it was not cheery me.”

In fact, it was playing against her innocence that earned kudos for her role as the politician’s drug-addled daughter in Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic.” Now Christensen is back on TV in one of the season’s most intriguing new series, “Six Degrees,” premiering on ABC Thursday (Sept. 21).

Christensen plays a mysterious young woman who changes identities at a moment’s notice for some secretive reason. Her life will change when she meets an eager young public defender who helps her out of a jam.

These are just two of the characters on “Six Degrees,” a variation on the theme that we are all separated from each other by a string of six others. People we pass at the post office or the supermarket or the football game may affect our lives in ways we can’t imagine.

The producers thought of Christensen for the role of the free-spirited Mae, though she’s not exactly free spirited herself. A bit of a workaholic, she’s been working since she was 13.

“For a year before that when I was 11 to 12 I was performing with a group of kids. We’d sing and dance. In that year I made so many friends and learned so much, I overcame stage fright and I was really struck by how strong the audience responded to us, little kids.

“I would hold the mic and sing a song to somebody in the audience and they would come up and say, `Thank you.’ And I thought, `Wow, something’s really special. When we leave everybody has so much energy and is just so excited and the world seems bright.’ I think it’s something—art is kind of this transcendent experience for everyone involved.”

She says it was her idea to become an actress. “My parents were spending so much time carting me around to shows and everything they finally said, `Erika, do you have any idea what you want to do with your life? Do you have an ultimate goal? I said, `Yes, I want to be an actor.’

“And it was right from that moment I very quickly booked three national commercials, and started being able to support myself and my family. So my mom thought, `Gosh this is great.’ So she quit her job. And I’ve never looked back.”

That year she performed in commercials for McDonalds, Lysol and Volvo. Even then it seems, Christensen wasn’t specializing.

She attended private school until she was 11. “Then I have to attribute the adult help from my mom. She helped organize a California State program where you can sign up for a curriculum and you can do the work around home and do tests and turn it in and get actual grades. There was that along with—legally you have to have a tutor on the set with every job until you’re 18—and so I would take the California State materials and take that to the tutor at work. Between that and my mom and just reading the scripts and having a dictionary—it was just me and the books mostly.”

Though most adolescent girls go through periods of grave self-doubt, Christensen says that didn’t happen to her. “There were times when I was working less than others. I never considered not doing it. Obviously it’s become who I am.”

Christensen is a Scientologist, a belief that’s helped her too, she says. “There’s a lot in Scientology that develops confidence because there is peace, I think, that I’ve gotten just to know that what I do know, I DO know. I can change my mind and can learn other things. And anything I don’t know I’m capable of learning, if I so desire or if it’s necessary.

“There’s no one who has more authority over my life than me. And I can learn things myself and how to communicate to other people and how to apply with the rules of life,” says Christensen, who’s wearing a brocade dress, black sweater and gold high-heeled sandals.

“It’s almost like physics, the way life works. In a completely non-physical manner there’s just patterns and formulas for life and things like communication. That’s how it’s been valuable to me. Also I’ve developed more creativity because there’s more freedom and joy.”

___

Just when we thought Australian Simon Baker (“The Guardian”) had gone home, he shows up on CBS’ series, “Smith.” The John Wells-produced drama stars Ray Liotta as a loving family man who plots high-stakes robberies in his spare time. Baker plays his nefarious cohort who is in charge of fire power. The Aussie has been in the U.S. ever since he tried out for the Guy Pearce role in “L.A. Confidential.” (He didn’t get that part, but copped another.) After completing three years on “The Guardian,” he’s more TV savvy.

“I’ve always thought pilots are kind of interesting because they’re almost like infomercials for a television series,” says Baker.

“And what John (Wells) did unashamedly with this was just threw these characters out there. And they’re all very unique and different, and they do their own thing. And you do sort of go, `Well, what’s going on there?’ And that’s the idea of serialized television, in a sense. It’s like you’re either interested in finding out or not. In this case, I was interested enough in finding out, so I wanted to sign on.”

___

Salma Hayek is one of the producers on ABC’s hilarious new sitcom, “Ugly Betty,” premiering Sept. 28. The show is an American adaptation of a telenovla that has been tremendously popular in Latin America. It’s about an eager young girl making her way in the work world of haughty high fashion.

Hayek says the title “Ugly Betty” reflects the tone of the show. “I don’t think Betty is really ugly,” she says, “but what do we call ugly now? I mean anybody that is not super skinny and really tall, some people, not everybody-think they’re ugly. I personally have seen a lot of really skinny, tall models that maybe I think they’re ugly and they need to eat a little to look healthy.”

___

Matthew Perry (“Friends,”) plays one of the writers in Aaron Sorkin’s NBC drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” But Perry, who’s made several stabs at movies (“Fools Rush In,” “Three to Tango,” “Almost Heroes”) says he was not looking to return to TV so soon.

“I think actors look for good material. And I had heard about this script by Aaron and I read it and thought that I HAD to come back and do television. I’m here mostly because of how good the script is and how bad `The Whole Ten Yards’ was.”

___

© 2006, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.