Sprague Grayden
Fans will recognize Sprague Grayden from Joan of Arcadia. However, these days, back to work on a new CBS show, called Jericho, which will begin in September. Sprague offers a glimpse into her beach life, her extreme roles, and gives a little advice, with a whole lot of importance.
THE STAR SCOOP:
You play a lot of different characters. What are you like in real life?SPRAGUE GRAYDEN:
I think I'm a part of all the characters I play, definitely at different times in my life. In real life, I'm kind of a tomboy. I like to read a lot I like watching T.V. I don't think I'm as interesting as my characters, but I like doing what I do.THE STAR SCOOP:
You pursued college while still working on your career. This is very admirable. Was school always important to you?GRAYDEN:
It was. It came from my parents. They're both public school teachers, and education was an extremely important value in my family. While they were very, very supportive of my acting career, and of my goals and of my dreams, having a well rounded education was a background that everyone needed. It ended up being definitely the right choice for me. I grew up very sheltered, in a wonderful small town in Massachusetts, and yet I didn't know a lot about the world. If you're going to portray a lot of different characters, you have to learn about the world a little bit first. Luckily, I got to go to college in New York, and I studied history. Having a college degree, this business is not an easy business, and you never know where your career is going to go, and you're lucky to keep working and savor every moment of it. But if it ever comes to a point where I'm not working anymore, I have this incredible other option, I could go to graduate school or I could pursue a lot of other fields. It's very freeing in a lot of ways. I'll never feel like I have to continue performing, if I don't want to.THE STAR SCOOP:
You were well known on Joan of Arcadia, a show that received great ratings from the critics. If shows like that aren't sticking around, how do you find some lasting work in this business?GRAYDEN:
It's interesting. I think there are a lot of shows that do stick around, that are critically acclaimed. [Joan of Arcadia] just had run its course. I think you have to look at it individually with each show. Joan [of Arcadia] was about a certain age group and their story lines had just run their course. I know that everyone who was involved in it misses it terribly, but they also have moved on, and Joan [of Arcadia] gave them a great base to pick their roles from now on. I think it worked out very well in the end for most everybody. It's really just luck of the draw, basically. You just have to keep choosing work you believe in. Look for the good writing, hopefully the great writing, the fully formed characters. If you're loving what you do, the work will always come.THE STAR SCOOP:
How do you choose the roles you go after?GRAYDEN:
I think that the roles for women in T.V. are pretty phenomenal right now, in a way that's never been true in television history. I mean, there have always been great roles for women in television, but right now there are so many of them. So many strong women playing these incredibly layered and intricate characters. I really go for the characters I'm going to learn from; I go for the characters I don't fully understand, the ones that are going to be a challenge. Also, characters that are part of a project where I know that the producers and writers really want to create fully formed individuals, full histories, and full futures.THE STAR SCOOP:
Tell us about your current projects, you current roles.GRAYDEN:
Right now, I'm on a new show called Jericho, on CBS, which will be airing September 20th, Wednesday at 8:00, and I'm a regular on that show. So that's my only project right now. I did a movie, Mini's First Time. I played a character, a girl named Kayla, a sixteen year-old, insecure girl, who is friends with the vivacious, outgoing, Nikki Reed. There was one really great scene, with Nikki, and that's a lot of the reason I took the role. I really wanted to work with her; I admire her a lot. I think she's done some amazing things. Kayla was fun. I got to play the other side of the coin. I usually play the strong, vivacious character, and it was really interesting to play the more shy, insecure character. I'm kind of tied with Jericho now, it's my future. And I love the character I'm playing on Jericho. She's the exact opposite of a lot of the characters I've played. I'm playing a character named Heather Lisinski, and she's a sweet, innocent, sheltered school teacher in a Kansas town. Pretty awesome. But she's still a very, very strong character; she still has that kind of inner core strength that I think I'm drawn to in all my characters. And the great thing about Heather is, she doesn't feel the need to show it. Heather is strong in her own right.THE STAR SCOOP:
What is Jericho about?GRAYDEN:
In general, Jericho is about the realistic reactions to an extreme situation. But specifically, Jericho is a small town in Kansas, and all of the quirky, wonderful people that live in that community; their relationships with each other and what happens when they get cut off from the rest of the country because of a nuclear disaster. I think Jericho will be a show that reflects to America what the fabric of our society is; what happens you lose communication? What happens when you lose all the extravagances that we take for granted? Will we take care of each other when that happens? Will we fall apart? What will happen? That's kind of the intriguing question of the show.THE STAR SCOOP:
What are your other interests? How do you find time to relax?GRAYDEN:
I live on the beach, so I do a lot of beach activities. I walk the beach; I like to ride my bike; I love to go hiking. I'm a big spinning person; I like yoga. I work out a lot; it kind of clears my head. I really enjoy that. I find that living on the beach in L.A is a really healthy lifestyle, that the air is fresher out here; people are really mellow, you go to poetry readings, jazz shows, independent movie screenings. It's a great neighborhood, I love it. You just gotta, every once in a while, take a day, and say, today is going to be about me, and I'm going to do what I need to do so that I can keep going forward and bring my best to everybody else.THE STAR SCOOP:
You seem to lead a very healthy lifestyle. What do you think is important for young girls to do to keep their heads out of the Hollywood drama, with being thin, and being unhealthy? What is some good advice you have?GRAYDEN:
That question is very dear to my heart, and I take it very seriously. Some girls need to remember that in this country, we only seem to see extremes. People are either anorexic, or they're obese. The fact of the matter is, you should be in the middle. If you're hungry, you're still growing, and you need to eat. I was lucky I was raised by parents who gave me a lot of sense of self and a lot of confidence in myself. The only way I have found to counteract that pressure in a healthy way is to work out every day, I don't go over the top. I'll work out for about an hour every day and I try to stay away from junk food, processed food. You've got to each the chicken, eat the steak, it's good for you. Eat pasta, it's good for ya, you know? Get the tomatoes, not the cream sauce. It's all about choices, and it's all about moderation. You can't compare yourself to a magazine cover where the girl has been airbrushed. You just can't. They're not real. Girls on the magazines are not real. I know, I've met them. That's not what they look like. That's the most important thing to tell the girls, that's not what they really look like. If they really looked like that, they'd be so unhappy; they'd be so hungry and so unhappy.It's very dear to my heart because I think that there's a lot of pressure on young girls in this country to fit a certain image and they're still growing. What I looked like a twelve is definitely not what I looked like at eighteen. Your body changes a lot during those years. Don't deny yourself. Teach yourself about nutrition. There's nothing worse that you can do for your body than starve it. The only show I really every did that teenagers watched was Joan of Arcadia, and I was so moved by the letters I got from girls saying, thank you for looking like a human being. Thank you for not falling into that stereotype and giving us somebody to look up to. I think if they could see the women out here that are just who they are: Kate Winslet, Liza Weil from Gilmore Girls, Alexis Bledel from Gilmore Girls. [Alexis Bledel] is a wonderful girl, and completely just who she is. Amber Tamblyn, those are the girls to model yourself after, the girls with self respect, and the girls who are real.