Breaking into the music industry is rookie girl group A Pink,

Breaking into the music industry is rookie girl group A Pink, overflowing with purity.

Their concept reminds us with the nostalgic times of the 90’s with groups like SES and Finkle, putting a twist into their own ‘fairy-idol’ concept. Their goal is to recreate the glory and hope that came with those 2 impossibly big girl group.

A large amount of people paid attention to A Pink, even pre-debut. It’s only been 2 weeks since their debut and they already have 6000 members, verging on 7000, in their fancafe. This is truly a red-hot debut.

Not long ago they had their first fan meeting.

“Other people were yelling our names - why, we don’t know. (laughs) Our fans and us were shaking. We were singing, our fans were singing and we couldn’t hold back our tears…” - Park Chorong

However, with their popularity comes a bad side - an anti-cafe has already been set up for them. Although they aren’t necessarily harsh comments, netizens posted things about their young ages.

“Anti’s help us grow, too. We’re still new so of course we’re going to get some anti fans. We need to love them too, give them affection. They help us grow, really!” - Son Na Eun

Another key point to A Pink is their ‘goddess-fairy’ concept.

“Some of our members really are goddesses… in my case, my concept is supposed to be very relaxed and easygoing, and my personality very strong. It’s sometimes hard, though, because of my Busan accent. Apparently it’s attractive! (laughs)” - Jung Eunji

A Pink has often been compared to SNSD. They both have extremely pretty looks and their debut concepts are very similar to each other. However, A Pink does not take this offensively - they say they’re humbled to even be compared to such a famous and talented group.

“SNSD-seniors are so amazing, with their undying charisma. Being compared to them is just too good to be true! (laughs) We need to separate ourselves though, so we’ll keep working hard!” - Hong Yookyung

By the end of their interview, their true and honest feelings were shown through a small speech,

“The aim of our song was to…well… say, if a song is so mainstream that you get tired of it, because you listen to it everyday. Our song won’t do that. You can listen to it a lot and it’ll never get old!” - Oh Hayoung and Kim Namjoo

“Rookie of the Year award…wow, that would be an awfully big honour. (Laughter) We need you to support us though! Thank you for the love and attention!!” - A Pink

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The Afters Beautiful Winners by Abraham O. Kuranga

Imagine walking into your neighborhood coffee shop, ordering a latte and then being serenaded by your barristas. Sounds good, huh? A few years ago, if you had journeyed through a Mesquite, Texas Starbucks, this would have been your treat.

This is where Josh Havens and Matthew Fuqua first met and started playing together. “I started working there first, then I convinced Matt to get a job there,” says lead singer Havens. “We were in different bands at the time, but we brought our guitars to work and started playing.”

Pretty soon, everyone wanted to know where the duo was playing. They didn’t have any gigs so they quickly scrambled together and book a show at the local college. Pretty soon, their other members would join them at Starbucks, first as employees, then as band members. With their local following getting larger by each show, the quartet decided that music was their calling. They named themselves The Afters, borrowing the term from European vernacular.

“The afters is a term used in Europe for an event that takes place after a much larger event, like a wedding or concert,” says Havens. “It’s an event where everyone is invited. It’s non-exclusive.”

It is the all-inclusive approach that The Afters take to their music. Being a contemporary Christian rock group is not an easy task, especially in the world of pop music.

“We’re just a band,” says Havens. “We’re Christian by faith, but at the end of the day, we’re just musicians.” It’s not that easy to explain to secular fans, so Havens offers an anecdote. “It’s no different than any other job I could have,” says Havens of being in a Christian band. “If I were a dentist, I wouldn’t advertise myself as a Christian dentist and only fix Christian’s teeth. The same goes for music.”

The journey to acceptance has been long and hard for The Afters. It wasn’t until a show in Dallas, a few years back that they knew that the band was destined for the “big time.” Haven’s father, who recently died of cancer, came to the defining show and afterwards approached the band and said, “This is it!” It was at that moment, Haven’s said, that the band went ahead full steam.

With musical influences ranging from Radiohead, Coldplay, and The Beatles to Elvis Costello, The Afters entered the studio to record an independent album. After supporting the album locally, The Afters were ready to return to the studio and record another batch of songs. It was then that Columbia Records came along and inked the band to a deal.

“Columbia was a huge support to us,” says Havens. “The immediately encouraged us to be the artists we wanted to be.” The major label attention afforded The Afters the chance to take their time. “It was great being able to work with different producers and use different instruments,” says Havens. “We had many options and time was never and issue.”

Their first major label release, I Wish We All Could Win, is a textbook example of positivism through music. The entire album is loaded with tracks aimed at emphasizing the positive aspects of life. Tracks like “Someday”, “Love Leads Me on” and “All That I Am” all speak towards love, life with a positive spin.

“It is important that kids know more than just the negative,” says Havens. “We have negative things happen in our lives and that’s why negative music succeeds, but we chose to go the other way.”

The other way has proven to be not only successful but also uplifting for the band. “We get emails from fans saying that they were going to commit suicide, but heard our music and had renewed hope,” explains Havens. “I mean, we cannot ask for better validation.”

The Afters will continue to support the album as they have done in the past, with consistent touring. Their first single “Beautiful Love” has seen massive airplay and has been tapped by MTV for its hit reality show, 8^th and Ocean. “It’s a song that the crowds always respond to,” says Havens. “People are always asking us for the chords to the song.”

The Afters hope to return to the studio to keep cranking out its brand of music, and will continue to stress the positive. “Our music has always been able to affect people in a positive way,” says Havens. “As long as we can continue to do that, we will continue to make music.”

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Vanessa Carlton Living the Fairytale by Jay S. Jacobs

It’s never easy when you capture the world’s attention fully in your first shot – because no matter how well you do, people will give you a hard time when you try to follow it up.

Vanessa Carlton knows this. Her first single “A Thousand Miles” in 2002 became a monster hit – saturating the airwaves and still getting played regularly to this day. With its distinctive piano melody the song took up residence in the American pop cultural lexicon.

She has since had a few other big hits – such as the follow-up “Ordinary Day,” a duet cover of Joni Mitchell’s classic “Big Yellow Taxi” with rock group Counting Crows and the lovely (but inexplicably controversial) “White Houses.”

Now with “Hands on Me” – her second release from her terrific recent album Heroes and Thieves – Carlton has delivered her best single yet, a song that with a little label and radio TLC could and should be a smash.

Carlton called us from the road while touring with troubadour Joshua Radin to discuss her life, her career, her favorite movies and her surprising attraction to vampires.

I read that you first got interested in music at Disneyland. Is that true? How did you first get into music?

My mother is a pianist and a piano teacher, so her theory is that she played throughout her pregnancy, so that’s why I became a musician. She’s a little out there with her theories, though they are very charming. There were pianos all over my house. There was really no way to avoid playing piano. The Disneyland story is really that I was very much haunted by the melody of “It’s a Small World.” I don’t know if you know that song, but it’s kind of like “Children of the Dead” or “Children of the Night.” It’s like this creepy zombie children’s song. The ride scared the bejesus out of me. I just thought it was the spookiest, most horrific thing ever, but at the same time, anything that really scares me in my life, I kind of obsess about. So when I got back from Disneyland - I don’t remember this, but I’m maybe almost three years old and the story goes I just picked out the melody on a piano, so my mom instantly probably thought I was a genius or something. (laughs) Then she totally honed in on teaching me. So I started playing around three – I’m sure just banging and finger picking, but that was the beginning.

Your mother is a pianist and teacher. Do you think artistic temperament can be passed down in families?

That’s a good interesting question, because I do have some friends and they are artists and their parents are very conservative. In a sense for the artist, growing up in a household that’s very non-artistic, it can almost feel oppressive if the parents aren’t able to understand or support that kind of lifestyle. Sometimes it’s looked down upon – especially when you’re not making any money. It’s tricky. But at the same time, I also know parents that are very bohemian and artistic and alternative and supportive and the kids rebel and they become very involved in the sciences instead. So I don’t know. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. I do know that no matter what, I’d like to think that I would have found music… I would have done something in the arts, no matter what. I was really on track to be a ballet dancer. That’s really what my great passion was for many, many years. Music was kind of something I did as a hobby in the background to just comfort myself outside of the world of ballet. But, the minute you asked me that, I thought of Mary Shelley, who obviously wrote Frankenstein. I was just reading that book a couple of weeks ago and her father was a philosopher and scientist. She ended up incorporating the science into her art. So there must be some passing down of the genes or the DNA is obviously going to be passed down. But, there’s got to be some conditioning that goes on for all offspring.

When you were in your teens you started recording an album called Rinse, which was never released – although several of the songs showed up later on Be Not Anybody. Was it disappointing when the disk was never released, and looking back do you feel it was best for your long-term music career?

Well, it was the same record. All the same songs, it’s just the other arrangements were more alternative. I mean, I haven’t even listened to that album in so long. It was a stepping stone to getting to Interscope, I suppose, in a way. You know, I have no regrets, because I feel like whatever path that I have chosen has led to this particular intersection that I’m in at in my life. I feel pretty healthy and more self-aware than I’ve ever been. I’m the most excited about my work and still very present and inspired. I’m so relieved that I’m not the jaded, robotic chick.

In your recent single, “Nolita Fairytale,” you discuss putting aside the glitz and glamour and being more true to yourself and the simple pleasures. Does that reflect where you are in your life and career?

Yeah, and I aspire to. I have to remind myself of that every day. I’m certain with glitz and glamour, that really has nothing to do with my life. It’s very compartmentalized. The last chapter in Heroes and Thieves is called “More Than This.” That’s really what I struggle with, this idea that if you were able to declare in the moment that you are in that you need no more than what you have, you can instantly be blissfully content. There are so many wonderful, magical things that go on in my life that sometimes if you’re not present, they just kind of float on by. Then you’re not really living, in a sense. It takes work to maintain that mentality.

When you released the single of “A Thousand Miles” a couple of years later – it suddenly exploded. How surreal was it when these songs you made started skyrocketing and you were all over the radio and MTV and everything? Were you able to enjoy it with everything happening so quickly?

You know, I wasn’t. I wasn’t able to enjoy that. It was a huge learning curve for me, being thrown out there. My label at the time, they really had a team of people at the label that really I think believed in me – or believed in the record as a whole. They kind of went with a song… I think they did believe in the record, but it was such a runaway song that it ended up being bigger than everything. I felt very overwhelmed by that. Suddenly I’m sitting on the Grammys stage and I’m like: What am I doing here? It was too fast and I also felt very uncomfortable with the way that… I guess it was being marketed, in a sense. I realized it was so out of my power. It definitely was a feeling of helplessness in conjunction with this kind of hypertension. It was a lot to deal with. I was able to weather the storm, I think, pretty well. I’m grateful that it was a blowing open of the door for me in many ways. Then, at the same time now, I’m kind of having to remind the pop culture in a sense that I’m a three-dimensional woman (laughs) not just a series of notes.

The second album Harmonium did not do as well, possibly in part because MTV deemed the single “White Houses” too sexual, which seems kind of ridiculous to me.

Yeah, meanwhile they have people peeing on each other in hot tubs and drunk out of their gourds. And they have to censor the word “blood.” It was poetry. It was artfully done. That was very disappointing. It was just disappointing in the sense of what MTV was trying to sell the youth. I think in the end it’s really come back and hit them in the face, because now they are scrambling. You have to reflect pop culture in an accurate way and in an artful way. You can’t just be a frat party. I mean, I’m a little bit on my soapbox right now. That must have been the Red Bull. (laughs)

You left A&M and ended up at The Inc, which seemed an odd label for you because they were previously known for hip-hop. Why did it feel like a right fit for you and why did you want to work with [label head] Irv Gotti?

Well, kind of like I was saying before, my first two records, there were a few people at my label that were really lovely and understood me, but I was very much lost at that label. I was on a label with No Doubt and U2 and Eminem. It was like, what am I doing there? So, when I met Irv, I just felt this warmth and this subscription to my aesthetic that I never felt before. I didn’t care that it was The Inc or any of that. It doesn’t matter. I just needed that kind of support. I was so lucky to get it then and I’m so proud that I was able to get to the finish line on Heroes and Thieves and release it. There was really no question about working with him.

You sing with Stevie Nicks on “The One.” How did that come about and what was it like working with such a rock legend?

She’s magical. Wherever Stevie is she sprinkles her pixie dust over everything. It’s really true. There’s a reason that she has the aura that she has. It’s very reflective of who she really is. She is this totally enchanted woman. I feel like stars aligned in such a lucky way for me that I got to cross paths with her. Not only did she really take me under her wing, but we’ve become really close friends. I honestly don’t know if I would have gotten to the end of Heroes and Thieves without her friendship and presence in my life. I believe we’ll be friends forever. There’s a really deep connection there. She’s taken me on the road with her. I’ve been touring with her on and off for a few years. She played a huge part in Heroes and Thieves. She really propped me up so that I could get to the end of it. She knows all of the pitfalls. All of the ups and downs that I deal with, she’s dealt with. It’s hard to get through the ups and downs with grace.

It seems like on the songs I heard for the new CD, when the songs turn to love like “Hands on Me,” “More Than This,” “Home” and “Come Undone” the relationships seem to working, even with their problems. As a singer/songwriter, are you somewhat romantic? Do you find happy relationships more interesting than troubled ones?

Oh, no. I mean I’m extremely dreary. Perhaps I’m writing some positive stuff to try and prop myself up. I don’t know. I was just writing lyrics and the title of the song was like “Poets Lie.” So I feel like in some ways you’re writing something that you aspire to. But a lot of those songs are pretty tragic. The one is about the notion of soul mates missing each other – which is pretty horrible. And very true. Then, “Come Undone” is about yearning and not having a desire or a feeling of comfort. You never feel anchored in the relationship that you’re in. That’s a pretty uncomfortable feeling.

“Spring Street” told a very interesting story of family love. How autobiographical is it to your own experience of moving away to New York? I know I read in your bio you’re from Pennsylvania. I didn’t recognize the name of your hometown. I’m in Philadelphia.

Oh, cool. My brother is going to school in Philly. I’m from Milford. “Spring Street” is like… Stevie calls it “premonition song.” I’m doing this article in The New Yorker, about Henry James. He was very obsessed with death and would write about his own death. Then the way it happened, he predicted his own death and the way it happened. So, “Spring Street” is a combination of being autobiographical about my mother in a sense and not understanding the complexity of her feelings towards me when I left home when I was fourteen. It’s kind of about the life cycle in a sense – then kind of envisioning me moving out and somehow leaving the chaos of urban life and understanding now. Who must grown closer to my mother because of this phantom child I have in this song. But obviously it’s not true. (laughs) Yet. I don’t know what’s in store for me.

Heroes and Thieves is almost a year old now. Have you started working on the follow-up or are you more concerned with touring and getting the current CD out there?

I’m first going to do this tour and then first thing off, because yesterday I really started writing a lot of lyrics. I wasn’t sure what my next project was going to be. I mean I know I’m going to do another record at some point, but probably not until January. What I’d like to do this fall is… actually, I’m going to the Arctic for two weeks and then I would like to find a film project and start the ball rolling on scoring films, which is something that I have been talking about for a while. I just can’t wait to start to be a hired film scorer. Writing instrumental pieces of music is really what comes easiest to me. I’m classically trained. I feel like I would be able to use my roots and my training in an almost more appropriate way. Cramming instrumental pieces and melodies into the pop format is very different from doing an eight-minute piece.

I’ve noticed over the years that you have done a lot of guest work with other artists covering classic songs – like “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Wishin’ & Hopin’,” “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime,” “Time Is On My Side”… even “Greensleeves.” As a songwriter is it fun to do someone else’s song, or do you find that more difficult to connect to?

I think it’s interesting, if it’s the right song and you kind of reinterpret it. It allows the listener – and even the writer that originally wrote it – to hear it in a new way. That’s pretty interesting. It’s like silkscreen or something. You already have the art and then you do a silkscreen. It’s changing the palate. They are hit or misses. It’s hit or miss for most people.

I wrote a book about Tori Amos. I was just curious, as a pianist and songwriter was she an influence? Do you have any feelings about her work? I know early on you were compared to her a lot.

Yeah, I think her palates of color are fantastic. That comes from her early classical training. She doesn’t do just chunks of chords. I think that’s probably one of our similarities. But, I don’t think so. Other than that we’re two women who play the piano. I have a ton of respect for her. I’ve seen her live. She’s wonderful.

I was reading you also ran the New York marathon. What was that experience like? What’s a bigger high, finishing a marathon or having a really good crowd?

Well, certainly it’s less painful to have a great crowd. I was dying when I got done.

Well, they say you get that endorphin rush…

It’s different. The marathon was more of a personal test, to see if I would cower in the face of something that’s really painful and difficult. Obviously, I had no idea if I could really do it or not. I wanted to see how tough I was, I suppose. With crowds it’s much more… connecting on more of a soulful level with people and human emotions. When you really hit the crowd and you’re all connected in the room it’s just so human and so comforting. You’re all still in the same boat.

Do you ever use the stage or your celebrity to promote causes you believe in – whether sociological, charitable or political?

I do in a sense. With politics, that’s a little trickier. I do this song on my second record, Harmonium, called “Who’s To Say?” which is very much an attack on people who are intolerant – usually with homosexuality. “Who’s To Say?” I hoped would become an anthem for people in relationships where your relationship is attacked by strangers, which is so absurd to me. People can do what they like. The pain that I’ve seen, especially having grown up in the ballet world, most of the guys are gay and to see the struggle of my friends, their families and their schools… it’s just ridiculous to me.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I’m a bit enamored with vampires. I don’t know, I think there are a million things. Even some of my closer friends are sometimes confused by the things that come out of my mouth. (laughs) I don’t know, I guess the vampires and the darker side. Literature and life is almost more intriguing to me.

What is your favorite movie or favorite book?

One of my favorite movies is Labyrinth. I was haunted by David Bowie for a good six years and could not get the tape out my brain. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it was scary. (laughs) Then, Jaws, for the soundtrack – which is frickin’ brilliant. A film called Being There, have you ever seen that movie?

Sure, with Peter Sellers.

Unbelievable. One of my favorite books of all time is The Grapes of Wrath. My publishing company is named after Rose – her name was Rose of Sharon, a character in the book. A new character I just fell in love with – have you ever read the book The House of Mirth?

No, I haven’t. I’ve heard of it.

Lily Bart. Right now I’m totally in Lily’s world and so, so haunted by that book. That’s a fantastic, fantastic book.

I saw that Jane Magazine named you one of the eleven people you’d most want to see naked. Is that the oddest honor you’ve received? In some strange way, were you flattered?

Oh, people tell me that all the time. I don’t know what you’re talking about. (laughs) I hear that on a daily basis. (sarcastically) I don’t think Jane exists anymore. I mean, that’s nice. I mean, who doesn’t want to look good naked? Isn’t that a general desire?

Well, that's true. I’ve certainly never gotten that kind of honor… In the end, how would you like people to see your music?

Well, I’m not there yet, but I’d like to hopefully continue in my little spot in pop culture and have this classical and melodic sensibility that I have. I hope it grows and becomes richer and more complex and then is able to get even more instantly close to hitting people in the way that music should. I don’t know, though, because I’m so early on in my career. Stevie is a fantastic mentor for me. Stevie has carved out her own path. I just hope I keep progressing artistically and as a person in a way that comforts the people that are listening and raises questions and gets to the heart of the matter.

Are there any misconceptions you'd like to clear up?

(ironically) Oh, I’m deeply understood on a level beyond most singer songwriters. Just kidding. I’m totally kidding. I think, if anything, people always associate me with a pretty melody. And you know what? If that’s the case, that’s fine. It’s better than being associated with an ugly one.

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Linda Cardellini Miss Versatility by Jay S. Jacobs

Most actors have a very specific zone in which they are comfortable. There are wonderful dramatic actors, for example, who could not deliver a punch line to save their lives. On the other hand, many comic actors have trouble projecting pathos and tragedy.

Linda Cardellini does not have this problem. In fact, her career has been very specifically divided between those two different worlds – the yin and yang of styles which make up acting.

She has done her share of light, frothy comic roles. Cardellini played the uptight, mystery-loving, book-reading, clue-solving, glasses-losing, ghost-hunting Mystery Inc. member Velma in the Scooby-Doo! movies. She was the evil step-daughter on an eternal bad-hair day in Legally Blonde. Now, she plays the only truly adult character in the farce Grandma’s Boy from Adam Sandler’s production company.

Cardellini has also done more than her share of dramatic heavy lifting. Her first breakout role was playing the brainy, beautiful but conflicted Lindsay Weir in the cult favorite TV series Freaks and Geeks. In recent years, she has toiled in the long-running series ER, playing Samantha Taggart, a nurse who has to balance her career, a troubled son, a ne’er-do-well ex-husband and an ultimately doomed relationship with hunky Dr. Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic). Now she is playing a devastating supporting role in one of the most rave-reviewed films of the season – celebrated director Ang Lee’s (Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) moody modern western love story Brokeback Mountain with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.

This diversity comes naturally to Cardellini, though she does recognize that it is a rare thing in Hollywood. However, for her the opportunity to mix it up with both types of roles keeps her career fresh and exciting.

“That definitely keeps me more interested,” Cardellini explains, “when I get to do things that are different than the last, or different from what people may expect. I love both sides of it. I think that’s what makes it challenging. That’s what makes it fun... They both have their challenges. But I think sometimes comedy is a little bit more specific and more hit or miss. Drama has a lot more leeway, I think.”

Early on in her career, as any actress, Cardellini took widely divergent roles – playing a victim in StrangeLand, former rock star Dee Snider’s (of Twisted Sister) stab at horror movies and appearing in such lightweight teen confections like Dead Man On Campus and Good Burger.

So what does it say about Linda Cardellini's body of work that she is probably the only actress in Hollywood who has worked with both Ang Lee and Dee Snider? She just laughs heartily when the idea is brought up. “I don’t know, but it’s been fun, that’s for sure.”

She could have never known that her career would come together as it has when she was a little kid. In school, one of her teachers picked her out to be in a play. Cardellini had never even considered anything like that – she was a shy girl and the idea was attractive to her but miles away from anything she thought she could do. But her teacher had liked her voice and had an intuition about her, pushing the young actress to later do a Christmas play and work in Community Theater. By then the fever had caught, and when she went to Loyola-Marymount University in LA, Cardellini knew what she wanted to do with her life. Her parents were supportive of her plans to be a theater major – Cardellini laughingly recalls that as long as she was in college they were happy. She did the typical young actress deal, searching for good roles by “ripping things off telephone poles, all that kind of stuff.”

Television and movie roles came to her quickly, but it was Freaks and Geeks that really made people take notice. Created by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin) and Paul Feig (Arrested Development and The Office), the series was about losers, brains and burn-outs in an early 80s high school. The show debuted in 1999 and did not quite last an entire season; however it was critically acclaimed and has spawned a rabid cult following in the years since the series faded away.

“I’m just happy about [the series eventually finding its audience], really,” Cardellini says. “I love the show. I’m so proud of it. It was really one of those moments in your life that can’t be repeated. It just was one of those special times, you know? It was a really great experience, although it had a tragic ending.” She chuckles. “But basically it was like an incredible, magical experience. And the reason why the DVD even exists is because the fans asked for it. We really owe a lot of it to people just responding to the show, which I think is the greatest compliment. Although, I wish it would have been able to stay on the air. It has yet to die because people have really responded to it, which is sort of the most important thing.”

The show may not have lasted, but it did turn out to be a launching pad for the careers of its young stars. Beyond Cardellini, James Franco has become a movie actor in the Spiderman movies and Tristan and Isolde, John Francis Daley has done several series including Boston Public, The Geena Davis Show and the recently cancelled Kitchen Confidential, Jason Segel is part of the ensemble of the new hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Busy Philipps had a recurring role on Dawson's Creek and Seth Rogan was one of the stars of The 40-Year Old Virgin.

The cast's continued success does not surprise Cardellini. In fact, she always knew she was part of a special group. “From the beginning,” she says firmly. “The way that Judd and Paul went about casting it, it was a lot of improv. It was more informal and more in depth than any other casting process. We were sent in to improv with each other and to work with each other and to offer things about our own character. To create things once we were cast. Especially for a new show, that’s a rarity, because typically they are so watchdog-y over the new project that they don’t let people have as much freedom. They really let us have our own voices and our own freedom. That was pretty special. Not to mention that the majority of us – even for those of us who had worked before, hadn’t really ever been seen before in any kind of big way. So it was this group of fledglings coming up together and then learning how to live in the business. And we were all just really excited, and part of something that was different than anything else on television. Unfortunately, I think that may have been its downfall, its wonder.”

After the series ended, Cardellini did a memorable supporting role in the Reese Witherspoon comedy Legally Blonde. Then she heard of another role that intrigued her. They were making a live-action film version of the old Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby-Doo! Where Are You! Cardellini thought it would be interesting to play the character of Velma, but she knew that it was in its own way an iconic role with a lot of viewers having a very specific viewpoint towards the character. Cardellini didn't want to disappoint fans of the show.

“Oh, yeah, I felt a huge responsibility for it. In fact, when I auditioned I went in a costume. I had studied the cartoons. I’d always watched it, since I was a kid. It was my favorite,” she laughs. “I felt most of all an obligation to myself in terms of how much nostalgia I had for that show, for that character. You know, of course, you’re always afraid. It’s always a little bit daunting when something is already established. But, it was really fun. It was really a great time. The first one I got to live for six months in Australia, which is something I had never done before. I’d never had the chance to do, and I don’t know when I’ll have the chance again… It was just an incredible time.”

The Scooby-Doo! movie was a smash hit, spawning an even bigger sequel Scooby-Doo! 2: Monsters Unleashed. At the time of this interview there are no plans for a third film in the series. (“Not that I know of, no…,” Cardellini says) but it’s okay. Linda Cardellini was ready to move on again, and she received the biggest role of her career.

In 2003, Cardellini was one of the actors hired to give a fresh look to ER, the long-running and extremely popular Thursday night institution which is currently in its twelfth season. Her character was planned as a new love interest for the handsome European doctor Luka. The show is notoriously fast-paced and technical, which Cardellini experienced first-hand right away.

“[It was] terrifying.” she laughs. “I accepted the job on Monday and started working on Wednesday. I didn’t really have enough time to be scared about it. But, you know, you hit the ground running, and if you can’t keep running – you’re out. So you have no choice but to run with it. It’s pretty amazing. You know, I knew about the dialogue being scary. But I had no idea how technical the actual job is. Physically you have to learn to do things and look like you’re doing procedures and look like you know what you’re doing at all times in a trauma room – where it is life and death. That takes a lot of learning.”

Her character was thrown into a dizzying swirl of stories as well. There was her relationship with Luka. She also had a series of fights and problems with her son, who was starting to act out and get involved with bad crowds. And her ex was always in the background, hatching schemes and scrounging for money and trying to win favor with the boy. Cardellini was thrilled to be thrown front and center on so many complicated storylines.

“It’s great,” she says. “In some ways I’m sad that Luka and Sam broke up, because I had so much fun working with Goran. He’s such a great guy. But at the same time, I think they needed [to be] apart. They were kind of getting into a repetitive pattern. So, I’m anxious to see what they’ll do with Sam now that she’s back on her own and she’s a single mom that sort of invented who she was.”

For an actress who always tended to disappear into her roles, suddenly people were recognizing her in the streets. “It’s mainly happened through ER,” she acknowledges. “It’s really one of the first times I’ve actually kind of looked like myself. It happened a little bit with Freaks and Geeks. I think that’s where people maybe started to notice first. And then I did Velma, and I don’t look like her when I walk down the street, so I was lucky enough to sort of escape that. With other parts – I love to disguise myself. So this is the first time that I’m actually as is…”

This season, Sam’s storylines in ER have been less flashy and prominent, but that is not because Cardellini isn’t working. In fact, with three movies coming out she is busier than ever. The film work has impinged on the series a bit. (“At times it has,” she acknowledges.)

The first film to be released has been a shocking critical success. Brokeback Mountain, the story of the doomed love between two cowboys in 1960s Wyoming, has become the critical champion of the year, also winning award nominations for the actors and directors. “I read the script and I auditioned for Ang Lee. And I just hoped and wished for the part. I won the role and I was really happy about it. I’m thrilled. I feel pretty privileged to be part of the movie.” The adulation the film has been receiving also touches her. “It’s fantastic. It’s a great ride. I can’t wait to see where it takes the film and where it takes the audiences, as well.”

The film, with its homosexual relationship, is a surprising success in a time when the United States has become quite conservative on such matters. However, Cardellini thinks it’s a good thing that a film like this can catch on.

“With any project that you hope has merit, you hope it changes people’s hearts and minds and it leads them to something that is socially conscious. It’s just a really beautiful story, regardless of what you think about any kinds of issues that it addresses. It’s a really gorgeous movie. I’m happy to see that it’s out there. Funny enough, when I went to the movies last night, the only two movies that were sold out were King Kong and Brokeback Mountain,” she laughs. “The two movies couldn’t be more different. It’s kind of interesting to see what’s happening in the box office, especially with the movie in such limited release.”

Another of Cardellini's socially conscious films which is in the can is American Gun, which was produced by IFC films. “It’s neither for nor against, it’s just sort of an exploration of the proliferation of guns in America,” Cardellini explains. “It takes about five stories [involving] the different sort of lives that guns take on and the circumstances that effect people, involving guns and gun violence. I play a granddaughter of Donald Sutherland. He owns a gun shop in Virginia. That’s where I’ve moved to go to school. It’s sort of that versus the life I knew, being from California. It’s not at all the same. Live in America and some of its parts are so different.”

On a much lighter note, she plays the romantic interest in Grandma’s Boy, the first starring film by long-time Adam Sandler collaborator Allen Covert. In it, Covert plays an arrested-development video game tester who has to move in with his Grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two friends (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight) when his roommate blows six months rent. Cardellini plays Covert's boss-slash-love interest. She loved the filming, in fact so much that she is now dating director Nick Goossen. This relationship did not affect their working together and how she reacted to his suggestions as a director, because, as she explains, “We didn’t start dating until after the movie was done. So I probably was more attentive to his directions,” she laughs.

What was it like to work with such established actresses? “It was great,” Cardellini effervesces. “It really was one of the best times I’ve had making a movie. We had sooo much fun together. And, you know, I was doing ER when I was doing Grandma’s Boy. So it was going from night to day. Night and day-style work, in terms of being in a high-stakes medical drama to a big comedy for Fox. It was great. It was so much fun. I remember one of the ladies saying that it was one of the best times she ever had working on a movie, which is pretty amazing after the long and illustrious careers the three of them have had.”

Now that she has all three of her films in the can, she is ready to slip back into her ER scrubs for the long haul. The venerable series' ratings may not be quite as high as they were in the show’s heyday, but it is still a standard bearer for the network and is not going anywhere anytime soon. “As far as I know, they’ve got a contract until 2008,” Cardellini says. So hopefully Samantha will be working the floors of County General in Chicago for seasons to come.

However, if it were all to end, she would land on her feet. Cardellini is looking at her career as the long haul. She doesn't want to make a big splash and then maybe flame out. Instead she plans to act for as long as she can, taking on as many roles as she will be allowed. “I’d really like to be seen as somebody who’s versatile. And I could do many things, not just one… Somebody who is a capable and versatile actress. And a good person.”

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NEVE CAMPBELL TAKES IT OFF AND TAKES CONTROL by Brad Balfour

When Will I BeLoved is a treat for Neve Campbell fans. Breaking her longstanding no-nudity ban, she not only appears here sans clothes but both with an older man and a lovely woman. In her previous movie, The Company, this 30-something actress began her effort towards independence both professionally and creatively. This outspoken former Canadian first came to the public’s attention when she starred in the TV show, Party of Five, and then hit the big screen with the horror film spoof, Scream. Once she did The Craft and Wild Things she established herself as both sexy and provocative, but with a “no nudity” clause in her contracts.

Well now Campbell is tackling the erotically charged Vera, a femme fatale exploring the limits of her sexuality and intellectual power. Her fast-talking hustler boyfriend tries to pimp her out to an aging Count for $100,000 but he has gravely underestimated her and she turns the tables on everyone.

What prompted you to do your first nude scenes with director James Toback [Black and White, Two Girls and a Guy]?

Before; my feeling on nudity was that if it wasn’t necessary and has nothing to do with the film then I wouldn’t do it. If it’s for a box office draw as opposed to the content then it doesn’t make sense to me. But since When Will I Be Loved is about her sexual spiritedness, it makes sense. here.

What kind of direction did you get for the shower scenes?

Get in and bathe. That was pretty much it. James is really smart because many directors try to direct things like that and at that point it’s only going to make the actor uncomfortable. You tend to get more out of the actor if you allow them their freedom and then allow them to believe they made the choices themselves. It was the same in the [lesbian sex] scene with Joelle [Carter]. I chose her. James had me sit in a room with a bunch of girls to figure out who I was most comfortable with. He had us decide what we were going to do in the scene.

How do you feel about When Will I Be Loved being characterized as a post-feminist statement?

I can understand why people might jump up and say that because we don’t often get to see women be powerful and not play the victim. To me this is a woman who is curious, very intelligent and interested in people and life while trying to figure out who she is. She is courageous enough to fight back against the people who are trying to manipulate her. But she is also takes a very dark turn so I don’t know if this is a positive film. It’s positive in that she doesn’t allow herself to be a victim but I wouldn’t admire her choices.

What aspects of her do you see in yourself?

I think we all have been underestimated and manipulated to some extent so we get that moment in our minds where we wish we could be dark and get back at those people.

Did you see your character as a femme fatale?

We were finding that out as we went along which is what I loved about the movie. Often when you see these Black Widow types, you see from the beginning that they have made a choice of how and who they are going to be. Then the outcome occurs. With this, she doesn’t know exactly what they are going to do. She’s just taking it as it comes and testing the [other characters]. I think she is trying to find out how far they will go with their insidiousness. To me that’s more interesting thing to watch because you don’t know if you are supposed to be judging these characters.

Is a good move to change people’s image of you?

Definitely. I would say that it’s out the window. For a long time, I was told to be concerned about people’s idea of me [regarding] the choices I was making and what it would do to my career. No matter what your choices are you truly have no control about what people think of you. It also gets boring doing that because you end up not making choices for yourself. I’m just at a point where I want to do work that is interesting, that challenges me and I want to be around people that inspire and push me. The choices I’ve made has caused this kind of independent idea of me but I just want to have fun.

You passed on Scream 4; you don’t want to do big budget films?

There’s nothing [more] to do with Scream 4. I didn’t feel there was anything to do with Scream 3 but luckily we pulled it off. Everyone that Sidney Prescott has loved has either tried to kill her or had been killed. She should have been in an insane asylum after the first film. I was really concerned about Scream 3 being too similar to the first two—that’s why I put in my contract that I would only shoot 12 days. I think we were lucky that we were able to make a good trilogy. Then Dimension/Miramax also makes the Scary Movie series which make fun of that whole genre they started.

How long did you shoot When Will I Be Loved?

Eleven days. It was a small crew and everyone was excited to work on it. We didn’t have a lot of time to discuss everything so a lot of it was on the fly. It was very exciting.

Do you like working in New York?

I love New York. I’m looking for an apartment here. I love the multicultural vibe here. Los Angeles doesn’t inspire me in any way. Everyone is the same industry, you’re in your car and you feel very isolated. Here in New York you’re always in everyone’s face. Life comes to you instead of having to do search for it. My brother, Christian, lives here so I come hang out with him a lot.

What happened to your Broadway debut, Syncopation?

It fell apart because the money fell out. I would have been doing it right now. I’m so bummed and now I’m looking at other shows.

With your last film, The Company, you produced for the first time. Were you pleased with the response?

I know that financially it could have done better but I never started out making The Company thinking it was going to make money. You don’t make a style with that much style, that much freedom and with such a little narrative and hope to make money. Critically it did really well and I can’t tell you how many times a week I have dancers come up to me and thank me for representing their world the right way.

Are you going to be producing anything else?

I still have this project, A Private War, which a friend of mine wrote. It’s about his experience with Tourettes Syndrome. My little brother Damian has Tourettes so that’s very close to me. We're just looking for the right director.

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