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| JO: What's
the most unusual thing to happen to you in your acting career? LK: The movie is filled with experiences like that. I spent a long period of my life wearing a fish on my head. That was a program where I talked to school children about the environment. That actually was a good cause and we went into a classroom for the film and re-created all of that. I also get people who come up and confuse me with Penelope Ann Miller. They say, "I really loved you in Carlito's Way." JO: I was thinking Elizabeth Perkins. LK: I get that, too. All of that is in the film as well. JO: Is there a performer out there that you aspire to be like? LK: I want to be like people who like doing what they do. I still want to work with Nat; we have a great chemistry in writing and in acting. It's hard to compare work, you know. Lisa gets compared to Nicole Kidman's character in To Die For but not quite as mean. I like to work with complex characters and situations which get watered down in some projects. At the same time, I don't want to be self-indulgent and I don't want you to "feel my pain." I would love to work with the same people that we did on this film. Woody Allen has the same hair and make-up people on every film. It takes so many people to make a film and I know how hard that would be to do. JO: What do you see as "the next step" in your career? LK: I'd love to play roles where I blend into characters. I guess I have to use actors for comparison but I would love a career like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Paul Giamati. I've worked so hard to get to this point and I don't want to sell out. That's hard to resist because acting is like a lottery. I do see myself as a character actor, though. I really love comedy and I want to stay with that. JO: Have you written anything else and, if so, what are the plan for those pieces? LK: Nat and I have written two screenplays together. We're also working on a book called "The Self Help Guide to People Who Are Always Right." We've been prepping a TV project that we're about to pitch around LA. It would be about Lisa and Tate. It would be set in New York and it would be filmed in New York. There are no good comedies in New York right now, only like gritty cop shows. We really need something that's positive towards the city right now. I guess there's Sex and the City. JO: I'm not a big fan of that show but that could be because I'm a guy. LK: It either really does it for me or it doesn't. I love The Sopranos. JO: Oh man. That show is flawless. Since you're about ready to pitch this TV show, can you take the Film Snobs rating system and give us your "pitch" for Lisa Picard is Famous. LK: Well, we get the Christopher Guest comparison all the time, but his films kind of lose the documentary feel every so often. I think a more appropriate comparison is Bob Roberts. And it's been called a horror film for actors.We even let on like we were real actors in a documentary in some early screenings. Some people got upset when they figured it out. JO: So, kind of like The Blair Witch Project? LK: Yeah, it's Bob Roberts + The Blair Witch Project = Lisa Picard is Famous. JO: Outstanding. Now a couple of personal questions. How often do you come home? Do you miss Kansas or has the big, bad city got you in its clutches? LK: I get so homesick and I come home alot. I miss the sky and I miss the sunsets. I'm very proud of where I'm from; I think everyone I've ever met knows I'm from Kansas. (Mr.) Griffin (Dunne) called me the other day to tell me he had met someone else from the Kansas Mafia. He thinks it's pretty funny. JO: Where did you party when you lived in Lawrence? LK: Cogburn's, oh but now it called the BottleNeck. That's right. I love the music scene here. I saw where de la Soul was going to be here next week and I saw Ween at Liberty Hall last year. I also really like Free State Brewery. JO: I think that's it. To quote James Lipton, you were a deeee-light. LK: That was great. It was a delight for me, too.Are there any good movies out right now? After our discussion on the current state of the multiplex, we spent time talking about the KU campus and about some of the celebrities who appear in the film. (For the record: Sandra Bullock is really nice and open with the crew and Charlie Sheen is very funny.) By the end of our interview, I was convinced that she was one of the nicest, most down to Earth people I had ever met. Fame may have gotten to Lisa Picard, but Laura Kirk still seems as natural and normal as anyone else in eastern Kansas. One would figure she'd have to be to appear on this web site. 10/24/01 |
