Exclusive Interview |  I Married A Vorlon...And Other Tales From Beyond The Rim: A Conversation With Patricia Tallman

by: Kage Alan

Yes, it’s true that Patricia Tallman married Jeffrey Willerth, the man behind the mask of Ambassador Kosh of the Vorlon Empire, but there’s no alien funny business going on there.  No sir or ma’am.  And while Pat will more often than not be recognized as having played tough uber Telepath Lyta Alexander on “Babylon 5”, her other roles genre related or otherwise have helped to round out an impressive resume.  Does a resume really tell you everything about a person, though?  No, especially in this case.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Pat a few months ago and doing my first face-to-face interview.  “Delightful” doesn’t begin to describe this actress!  Not only does she have her hands full designing a brand new Sci-Fi radio show and maintaining a website for fans and fellow actors (www.TheGalacticGateway.com), but she’s also featured on a series of audio plays (“Lives of the Cat” and “Anne Manx and the Ring of Minotour”) with fellow Babylon 5 alumni Claudia Christian, found lending her support and fundraising skills to Penny Lane and, last but not least, busy being a mother to her son, Julian.

Kage Alan: I was pleasantly surprised to see you’d done some stage productions in Saugatuck, Michigan.  I’ve been there a few times.

Patricia Tallman: You know, when I was in Saugatuck, that was my first Equity Theatre experience, so it was summer stock and it went towards getting my Equity card.  That was when I was 15 years old.

KA: So, not so long ago.

PT: Yeah, that was about…ten years ago.  (laughs)

KA: Aside from what the majority of viewers know you for in the Sci-Fi genre, you have a huge amount of theatre experience behind you, which is essentially where you started.  How did you go from theatre to TV and film?

PT: It was really a matter of economics.  I was in New York City going to Carnegie Mellon University to study acting and I was kind of a theatre snob.  You know, I wasn’t really interested in television and movies as far as becoming a star.  A lot of people go straight to LA right out of theatre school.  Well, I wanted to make it in New York.  I wanted to make it on the Broadway stage, which I didn’t do, but I got a lot of tremendous experience.  I had been in New York about nine years, worked as much as I could possibly work, and I think the crowning moment for me was when I was auditioning for the Alaska Repertoire Theatre, which doesn’t even exist anymore…  But I’m talking Alaska Rep, okay?  Boonies.  (laughs)  I was auditioning for “Major Barbara”, which is a George Bernard Shaw piece and I’m trained for this, classic theatre, and Elizabeth McGovern was given the role because she was going to bring in the ticket sales.  I was like “Okay, you know, I’m better.”  I was perfect for the role, but I didn’t have any television recognition, so I decided I needed to have that, and that’s what took me out to LA.

KA: So how does an actress end up a member of the Stuntwoman’s Association of America?

PT: When I was still in New York at Carnegie Mellon, I got involved in stage combat.  It was just sort of physical and fun to do and I enjoy the idea of using action to tell a story, to further the plot of a story, and I was good at it, but I didn’t think that a woman would ever have much cause to sword fight or take a chair in the face or fall down the stairs.  Anyway, I took stage combat courses and different period sword techniques.  I’m a total geek about this stuff.  I just liked it.  It’s like taking dancing courses, only it was like “Okay, we need broad sword, we need sword rapier, rapier dagger, shield work, quarter staff…”  I can do any of it and it was really fun.  While I was in these classes, I met some stunt people and one of them was a stunt coordinator for “One Life To Live” and he said “I need a woman 5’9” with red hair to double this actress and fall down stairs.  Will you do it?” And I was like “Sure!” You know, I was working at Macy’s in the Little Girls Department trying to make a buck. “Yeah, I’ll do it”.  So I fell down the stairs maybe three times for different camera angles, got paid $1,200, which is as much as I made in a month at Macy’s, and I was banged up, but, you know, it was a really, really sweet deal!  It was also going towards my pension and health plan and all that.  That’s when I started meeting stunt people and it really took me a few years before I realized “Hey, I’m a stunt woman.  I’m working all the time.” I never planned on becoming a stuntwoman.

KA: It wasn’t a conscious decision.

PT: Right, and when I moved to LA, I introduced myself and pretty soon I was one of the top 5 working stuntwomen working in LA.

KA: What do you enjoy more?  Is it the stunt work or the acting?

PT: With stunts, it’s overcoming fear and proving I could do it, something I never thought I would ever be able to do.  I never thought that I would be able to get hit by a car or fall off a building or be set on fire.  I mean, I’ve always been kind of a chicken, so to have that on my resume and actually do that in front of hundreds of people on a movie set is just amazing to me.  But acting is really who I am.  I’m an actor, so the two are completely different.  The stunts are an achievement in self-discipline and the acting is what I love to do and all I really want to do.

KA: It’s your passion?

PT: It’s my passion.  It’s who I am and I’ll die acting.  I hope I’m the Fruit of the Loom lady!  I hope I’m the “Where’s the beef?” lady!  I want to do this until I can’t.  With stunts, I’m pretty much done with them.  I pretty much did what I wanted to do there and I don’t want to hurt anymore bones.

KA: Now, you played an underwear model on TV’s “Generations”…

PT: Yes.

KA: …and later did a voiceover on the “Better Sex” video series. 

PT: How do you know this stuff?  (laughing)  Where did you find this &*$%?

KA: Did those play any part in you doing The Vagina Monologues?

PT: (loud laughter) Okay, it’s all related.  It’s all about vaginas.

KA: (laughing) This is usually the point where I turn red on the phone that you never get to see!

PT: That was a fabulous experience doing “The Vagina Monologues”!  That was just a fabulous piece of theatre, I’ve never been more solid on stage now in my 40’s…just to be on stage, it’s like “This is it, baby!” That was also just about being a woman.  All experiences lead to the next experience.  The humiliation of being an underwear model on a soap opera…

KA: What’s humiliating about it?

PT: Because I’m wearing skimpy outfits and I’m not that comfortable with that, but I needed the money.  When they first wrote the role, it was just a one shot deal, and they liked me so much and they said I was funny, which is nice, and I think I ended up doing like 8 episodes.  They kept bringing me back and then they brought me back as another character.  It was quite flattering that they really liked me so much, you know?  It all leads to the next thing.

KA: Now did they ask you to do “The Vagina Monologues” or is that something you pursued?

PT: I pursued.  I auditioned for it.  I had seen “The Vagina Monologues” in 2000 and I was so blown away by the experience.  A gay girlfriend of mine had said “Come see ‘The Vagina Monologues’” and I’m like “Oh, God, great.  A night of vaginas.  Okay, you know, I’m up for anything.  Whatever.” And it was fabulous.  If you haven’t seen it, I can’t recommend them enough.  You don’t have to be super open-minded or anything either.  It’s not like that.  It sounds intimidating, but it’s not.  When people go and they actually see it…and all these old ladies were there…  I mean, I had old ladies coming up to me, Methodist old ladies, uptight Midwestern old ladies going “I’m just so glad you did this.  This just changed my life.” Well, better late than never, but you know…  The monologues are just really funny and wonderful.

KA: You mentioned once that you were considering writing a book about your experiences in the industry.  Is that still just a consideration or have you moved past that phase at all?

PT: I have a lot of ideas about it, but I think I just have to get over feeling like it’s egotistical.  Like who’s going to want to read a book about me?  Maybe if I can get past that and say “hey, it’s the experiences of a mad stuntwoman”, something about experiences that most people haven’t had and maybe they’d enjoy knowing about, then maybe I could get around to it.  It keeps coming up, so I have a feeling I’m going to need to do it.

KA: With your work in musicals, are you planning on ever coming out with your own CD like fellow Babylon 5 alumni Claudia Christian?

PT: No.  No.  I don’t have that great a voice.  My friend Robin Atkin Downes, who was also on “Babylon 5” and played my boyfriend…

KA: The one you were naked with in Season 5!

PT: Oh, my God.  It’s a good thing my husband has a great sense of humor because Robin and I are best friends.  To have to get naked with him and in front of the crew was really, really devastatingly scary, awful, mortifying…but when I did it, Robin was just like “Oh, nice boobs!” and we got over it.  The crew was very professional.  The first thing that happened…this is how scared I was…I have to take off my jacket and the camera is at my back so you can’t see my breasts, Robin is sitting on the bed and I’m supposed to take off my jacket and sit down on the bed and then he kisses me or something.  Anyway, we sit down on the bed.  I missed the bed and fell on the floor and I really wanted everybody to laugh and nobody did.  They didn’t want me to feel bad, but at the same time it made me feel worse.  (laughs)

KA: Tell me about Penny Lane (http://www.pennylane.org/) and how you become involved with the organization.

PT: We first got involved about a dozen years ago when a stunt woman named Spice Williams got a group of stunt people together for a kids day at Penny Lane, like Christmas Day, only it was healthy food and stunts, we did tricks for them and different celebrities would come and things like that.  Nothing was ever done as far as money being raised, though.  Then, when I started doing conventions and signing autographs, I felt a little taken for granted that I didn’t charge.  You know, because dealers were coming over and people were having me sign 45 things at once, so I thought okay, I’m going to ask for $5 a signature and I’ll put it to charity and that’s what I did and I raised over $75,000 doing that.  I built a computer lab for the kids because they didn’t have one and also so that they could have some kind of computer literacy in order to compete in the world on a little better basis.

KA: For those people who aren’t familiar with Penny Lane, what is it?

PT: Penny Lane is a home for emotionally and physically abused children and we service California, Nevada, Arizona…we get kids from all over the West.  It was the first place of it’s kind and was founded almost 30 years ago by a woman parole officer.  She had 50 girls she couldn’t place because they were so damaged.  They had been raped, some by their own families, and they were so damaged that they couldn’t be put in regular foster care, so there was no place for them to go.  They were dangerous to themselves and to others, so she created Penny Lane on a wing and a prayer.  I mean, the story is phenomenal.  Penny Lane has obviously grown since then and there are 104 kids in the main residence, then there are like 1,500 serviced as outpatients, they have a foster family program for kids who can be in a foster family, there’s now an adoption family center, which is brand new, and they’re raising $2 million dollars to try and build a new building because theirs was destroyed in an earthquake.  It’s just a phenomenal grass roots little organization that does a major big thing.

KA: And you’ve stayed active with them?

PT: Yes.  I started a program for the kids called “Be A Santa” and what I do is, like in October, I go around and I talk to the 104 kids, get a Christmas list from each kid of 5 things they’d really like for Christmas, I put it up on-line, under anonymous names of course, and then anyone who wants to donate the Barbie doll, the book or the gift certificate or whatever they can send in can.  It’s really fun!  I had donations from Israel, people from the UK…so we get donations from everywhere.  70 people donated last year and made Christmas really happy for 104 kids who would not have had a Christmas at all.  It’s really amazing and everyone gives from maybe $5 or $10 to $500.  The writers over on “C.S.I.” gave $500.  I try to go around to the studios where I still have some connections and get donations that way as well.

KA: I understand you’re in the process of starting a new on-line radio show.

PT: I know.  It’s going to be on www.theblackvault.com, which was started by a young man named John Greenwald who is really like the “X-Files”.  He’s like the Lone Gunmen all by himself.  He’s the coolest and he started a radio show, only he just can’t keep up with it because he’s so popular and he asked me to do a Sci-Fi TV one.  It can be whatever I want as often as I want or not.  You know, once a month, once a year.  He said the fans are asking for it.  So, I’ve got to figure it out because whereas I’m obviously in Sci-Fi TV, I’m not in all the shows that the fans are interested in.  I don’t really have connections to “Farscape”, not that it’s on anymore…

KA: Big source of pain and anguish here!  We (Miss Jenn-Jenn and I) are “Farscapers”.

PT: Oh, it’s a fabulous show and the end of it was very confusing… devastating.  So, I have to figure out exactly what the content is going to be and at first I thought “Oh, sure, I’ll do it!”, then I was like “Oh, my God.  This is really an enormous responsibility!” He wants it to be like an hour an episode.

KA: Considering the breadth of your work, you must have quite a diverse following of fans.

PT: I’m really lucky.  Today, I had some people talking to me about my work in things that weren’t genre related that they had actually bothered to find and watch.  I’m so grateful for that and they said “You’re such a fine actress and we’ll watch anything you do” and I was so touched by that.  To be able to go to a convention and get that kind of feedback because when you do television, you don’t get feedback.  When you do movies, if you go to the theatre and listen to the audience, you might get some feedback and when you’re on stage you have immediate feedback, but when you just do TV, it can really be like you’re in a tunnel by yourself.  The producers kind of want you to always feel like your job is not secure, so you never got any praise from producers ever…ever.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  They would find strange things to criticize me about, like the way I walked.  I said: “I’m in high heels walking on a grate on the set.” “Well, Jerry (Doyle) wasn’t walking like that.” To which I replied: “I didn’t know Jerry wore high heels.” What an idiotic thing to criticize me about, but they would never say “That was a kick ass scene!” They would never say that.

The day I had to do my nude scene with Robin, I had a huge dialogue scene and then the nude scene, Douglass Netter (Ed. Note: Executive Producer) brought like 50 studio execs in for a walkthrough.  It was a closed set and he knew that, then I had to get into that Vorlon tube and do this underwater thing all in the same day.  Nobody ever said “Good job.  Good work.  Great episode.  Thanks for getting naked.” Nothing.  That was really a shame and that comes from the top.  That doesn’t come from the guys on the set.  It’s the people in Warner Bros. who are in charge of the show just never wanting you to feel like you’re doing a good job, so when you come to a convention, it’s such a blessing to hear good feedback.  I think that’s why we do it.  It’s not because we’re making a ton of money at conventions.  We’re not.  You know, but it’s a great thing to be able to do.

KA: How often do you do the convention circuit?

PT: Not very often and I don’t have any others lined up.  I don’t plan on doing any for another year or so, maybe more.  I don’t know.  I used to do it a lot.  I like the old way we did cons that were more fan run and I’d get to go backstage and talk to everybody, I’d get to go to events and be part of it, like be on the panel of a costume judging contest, and then sit at a table for a couple of hours and sign until everybody had their autographs.  Just sitting in a convention center is really hard.  Sitting at a table, whether you have people coming up to you or not, it’s hard.  It’s not easy for any actor.  Trust me on that.

KA: Aside from the conventions, how do you keep in touch with your fan base?

PT: My website (www.thegalacticgateway.com).  Barb Powell and Red Johnston designed it and we’re updating it more and more.  I think we’re really doing well with keeping in touch with the fans too.  We have a wonderful web board, we respond to fans, we try to schedule chats and it does take a community to keep it interesting.  We all have fulltime jobs and lives, so we need everybody to drop in tidbits and that’s what makes it fun.  “Oh, you know so-and-so just submitted a new story and we have it up on this page” or “There’s some pictures up from the last con”.

KA: With so much going on in your life, is there anything you can’t do and what else is out there for you to conquer?

PT: A lot of things.  There’s never enough time, is there?  Being a mom has broadened my life in so many ways, but it’s also very limiting as far as what you can do with your time and energy.  Julian (Ed. Note: Pat’s son) has to come first and everything else is second.  Now that he’s bigger, I’ve actually been able to do more theatre, which is good, because he doesn’t need me to tuck him in every single night.  I’d like to do more camping and I want to get back to scuba diving, which I haven’t done since I was pregnant.  Theatre and working would be really good.  I really want to work.

KA: You seem to be very vibrant about work!

PT: I try.  It’s just that at my age now…

KA: You’re not that old.

PT: I’m not, but anyone over 25 in LA, you’re just over the hill.  There are so many wonderful actresses in my age range who have fabulous resumes and the competition is tremendous for very few roles, very few.  They’ll say “Oh, look, there’s more women’s movies.” Well, there are women’s movies with stars.  I don’t think that Bacall and Meryl will have to worry about their next movies and people want Julianne Moore in their next movie, so they don’t have that problem.  For somebody in our category who has really good resumes and is in between say late 30s and mid 40s, there’s not a lot.  I’ll never understand our business for that, but it’s what I do.

KA: What’s important in your life right now?  You previously mentioned your son.

PT: In fact, he’s been so important that I really haven’t thought about what else is important.  Maybe that’s sort of what’s going on with me right now is that I’m trying to figure out what else is important because now I have a little more freedom with him being more mature.

KA: And now, my signature question.  (laughing)  Fans tend to see their favorite actors as larger than life and don’t always get a chance to see below the surface at the person underneath.  What you would like your fans to know about you as a person, as a wife and mother and as an artist when they think of you?

PT: Well, that I’m not depressed like Lyta, but I have concerns about the world.  I’m sure that everybody has been very bummed out since 9/11 and going to war.  It’s been tremendously difficult for everyone and I feel sad so much of the time without being able to exactly identify why I’m just sad.  You know, I think that maybe fans or people who are not in television think that people who are in television are more in touch or know more than they do and we don’t.  We feel the same things exactly.  In fact, it’s worse because the first thing that people stop doing is the unnecessary, so you don’t go to the movies as often, so people don’t make so many movies, so we don’t get cast in movies.  Hollywood has never been as depressed as it is right now, people losing homes who have never been out of work.  So maybe just to know that we’re all in the same boat.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to Pat for graciously giving me her time and also to Barb for keeping the communication going and answering all my e-mails while trying to set this up.  For further information about Pat, visit www.TheGalacticGateway.com.