Rachel Miner: Major Talent

Madeline Zima and Rachel Miner in Showtime's runaway hit Californication, slated for another season late in 2008. Photo by Randy Tepper/Showtime.

By T. Virgil Parker

People go into showbiz for a variety of reasons, but most often for the booty, or the bling, or the ego massage, maybe all three. The omnipresent blitz of merely OK performances is a testament to the existence of actors who are a little too dazzled by the marquee to take a good long look at the script. There have always been people who seem to have been born to walk the boards. You occasionally find them in community or street theatre. Fortunately for us, Rachel Miner's community, her street as it were, was Broadway.

As a third generation actor, it isn't surprising that she felt a calling. That the call came in at an age when most of us can't form sentences is more than a little unusual. At the age of two, she decided to act. At eight, she started working. By ten, she started a five-year gig on The Guiding Light. Say what you will about soap operas. You don't get to shoot a scene 20 times, special effects don't come to the rescue. You act, and act, and act.

Perhaps the single greatest testament to her devotion to the art of acting is that she made zero effort to cash in on her publicity-saturated marriage to Macaulay Culkin to bag a glitzy part. Instead, she took acting-intensive indie roles; high praise, low pay.

Her short part in The Black Dahlia is an example of making maximum impact in minimal space, but it was her work in Showtime's Californication that totally grabbed my attention. The insidious way her character: Secretary Danni emerges from obscurity into Svengaliesque intrigue is marvelous to see.

T. Virgil Parker: There's probably not a time when you don't remember acting.

Rachel Miner: I do remember the time of wanting to act really badly as a little girl. But I have been doing it a long time!

TVP: It's so much a part of you now. How much of your work is intuitive and how much of it is based on study of the character?

RM: That's a really good question. I think a lot of it is intuitive. I think probably about, I don't know, maybe a 70/30 proposition. Seventy percent intuitive and thirty percent work, which doesn't mean it's not a lot of work; it's just that when it comes down to the day of shooting it's so much intuition. I'll notice if I'm talking to someone who's just starting out, they're just getting used to the cameras and lighting and where you have to stand and all that stuff. A lot of that is second nature after a while on set, you know? That factors in, too.

TVP: At this point I'd think that you'd be looking at, say, literally inhabiting a character.

RM: Yes.

TVP: So do you ever feel inhabited by these characters?

RM: No, actually, I don't. I find it pretty easy to portray a part, and I think it will affect you physically sometimes, oddly enough. Especially if you're playing a character who's really unhappy or you're going through a lot of grief and things like that. It's draining physically, but I don't find it affects me too much. There's certain aspects that might creep in that are fun. If I play a particularly outgoing character or happy character I notice that I tend to be a little more excitable in life. Things like that.

TVP: The way you perceive the world have a lot of depth, in terms of having so many different realms of experience to draw upon when you're perceiving the world.

RM: Right.

TVP: Presumably the richness with which you interpret a character is going to increase all the time.

RM: Absolutely. Every day, everything you do, you run into different people with different life experiences and it's one of the fun things, I think for anyone. If you're awake and alive and looking around the world, you get to see a little bit through different people's eyes and your view is constantly broadened. Your perspective of the world is broadened. You have more and more to draw on as an artist, certainly, and as a human being in your opinions of the world. So yeah, I find that I learn something new every day.

TVP: There is a moment in one of the Californication episodes in which your character is just beginning to put the screws into her boss, Charlie. You can detect this sense of overcoming fear. It's only an instant, and I thought, "Wow, how hard do you have to study and interpret a character to get that authenticity?"

RM: You know, I don't think it's, for me, especially with that character, a matter of hard study as much as it's just being there in that moment and inhabiting that person. I think those little moments of honesty tend to come in more by just doing it for me. Just being there and going through that scenario as that character. What would go to your mind naturally if you kind of set up a good base of the character in a scenario, and as you're going through it, you experience that moment of nervousness a little bit? Do you know what I mean?

TVP: Yes, absolutely, but I was thinking: that's more aware than I've seen an actor off -the-cuff in a television program.

RM: You've got a really interesting perspective.

TVP: You are probably uniquely suited to describe the difference between a big budget and a no budget movie. What works and what doesn't work?

RM: One of the things I love about a low budget film is that because it's a smaller group of people, and the circumstances are more trying in terms of actually getting the footage, in terms of actually getting the scene shot, you've got a lot more work to do in a day. You're forced to constantly be there. You're constantly working with other people. You're not in your trailer waiting for your scene, you know? That's the biggest difference, which I find to be positive in that, it's important in acting not to be isolated. For me, at least. That's what works: To feel alive, to communicate with other people, and to be present. So I actually like that lower budget film making kind of forces you into that. And I think it helps in that way. I think, on the other end, when technically there's a lot more difficulties it can detract from a performance. The camera reads everything that's going on in y our head. You really have to work on not being distracted by those technical difficulties, and exhaustion, and hunger, and you know, what's going on around the set. the little dramas of trying to get things accomplished. When you have a budget, one of the good things is that there tends to be a different level of crew around you. I can't stress how much of a difference it can make for a performance actually showing up on screen when you've got a brilliant cinematographer and you've got a brilliant design and everything because an actor can only do so much if it's not picked up correctly by the lens and you're eyes aren't lit right. It won't read to the audience. So there's definitely a positive side to a bigger budget as well.

TVP: You can probably grab just about any indie part out there, assuming it's not for a midget or something. You must go to certain lengths to choose scripts.

RM: I think I'm going to hire you as my representation! I don't know. There are a lot of great actors out there, and it's a big field. I certainly get some offers and stuff, but sometimes, yeah, there's a great amount to choose from, and sometimes there's not. I do my best to pick a part that's interesting that I haven't done before, but I don't think I always know what I'm doing. There are many different factors in making those decisions. That's another area I learn more about every day. Figuring out who I want to work with, what project I want to be doing next, and how that project is going to come together.

TVP: So you've got two scripts in front of you. One has a great character; the other is a great story. Which one do you choose?

RM: Well, in order to make that a fair question, I'm going to say all other factors are the same. It would depend on the level of truth in that, but I think it is important to actually have the good story. One of the things I love as an artist is being able to tell the full story and I think if you pick selfishly based on character alone and how much fun it would be to actually play that character, it doesn't necessarily mean anything because as an actor you're not actually out on your own. It's so much about the whole project that you're working on. I think in that scenario I would actually go with the story.

TVP: You can take a small part, like in, say, The Black Dahlia, and literally turn it into a showstopper. Everyone comments about the scene where you open the door. Is that stage experience, do you think that allows you to take a moment, because that's something you see a lot in theater, is that a moment become positively imprinted.

RM: I've noticed that from working with actors, especially some English actors who've done a lot of stage, that there's not such a sense of, "it's all about me and my character." It becomes a sense of the group working together and you each enjoy just the little moments, the little gems that you have, and enjoy being part of an ensemble. So you might well be correct, that that comes out of stage experience. I really couldn't say, I think that it's just; I know I enjoyed working with those actors and film makers and that character was fun, and I just enjoyed that moment. I'm not sure exactly where that decision comes out, to just enjoy playing the character regardless of the size of the part.

TVP: There's a lot of complexity inherent to the way you approach any character. I'm thinking about Bully, for example. Certainly a bad guy, if you will.

RM: Absolutely.

TVP: But one that you empathize with because she's obviously staring into the great void and it's staring back at her. How much can you convey through gestures and word about carrying a landscape of expression? Is that on your mind when you're playing a part like that?

RM: I think the most important aspect of working a character is the empathy that you were discussing. I think that you don't have to like the person or agree with the person as an audience or an actor, but you certainly have to understand them fully. I don't think about what mannerisms I'm going to use or how I'm going to move physically or speak or things like that. I know some actors kind of work that way, from the outside in, and they work really well. But for me, I like to work from the inside out. What's going on in their head? Playing a character like Lisa in Bully, you have to understand how she thinks. It has to make sense when you're embodying that character. That's really what I work on. It's just, what's going internally as a way of viewing life. And then individually within that scene it manifests, and that's where specifics and voice and all that come from. If you assume a certain view of the world and you assume a certain emotional experience, your voice changes and your physicality changes automatically.

TVP: I wouldn't be surprised if your biochemistry changes as well.

RM: I bet. It's amazing how much you affect your body. I remember doing a play where I played a prostitute with a really rough life. Getting physical aches and pains, and I think I got an illness, and stuff like that. You're putting your body through a ringer. You tighten up certain muscles when you're in a certain emotional state and stuff like that. I'm sure it affects every aspect of you.

TVP: You're not exactly a method actor. There's even an amount of artifice in method acting. But you seem to organically come to a similar place.

RM: I'm not hugely studied in the area, but I guess the difference in what I've heard about the method is you're drawing off of your own life experience more than what the character is going through, or in order to embody what the character is going through. I'm sure I do that, I don't think it would be possible to exclude my own experience of emotion and life when I'm making those calculations, but I try to think about it from a different view. Not so much how I felt when such-and-such happened but how this character would feel.

TVP: What's a very exciting project for you?

RM: There's nothing more exciting than working for people who inspire you. To me, the most exciting thing is when you're surrounded by other artists who are inspired as well because you float at that point. It's amazing how much work goes out the window when there's excitement all around, when everyone is enjoying creating this world together. Beyond that, I think the projects I long to do are the projects that are similar to then ones that have truly affected me, things that will hit an audience in the same way that I've been moved by films. Films that change your perspective of the world, that make you look at humanity in a different light. You leave having had your view of the world changed. I think that's exciting, too.

TVP: What films blow you away?

RM: For all different reasons, some of the films I've watched recently like; Hotel Rwanda blew me away. I just watched Elizabeth : The Golden Age, and I think that blew me away the performances especially. I watched The New World, that blew me away, and I also love The Lord of the Rings and big epic fairy tales. Those will blow me away. I watch films constantly and I'm constantly moved. And from all different types of films that are well executed.

TVP: What plans do you have coming up in the next few months?

RM: I wish I had greater plans! I don't know, it's something that I look at a lot. It's a funny art/business, and I have many ideas, but not as many plans as I probably should. You know, because there's also the aspect of so much of it being in the hands of luck and other people's creativity too, and what's going to make it's way to your doorstep. My plan is to keep working and keep working on what I do, because I always want to be better. When I watch my performances, I always see things that I could change. When I watch projects I see things that I could have done better. So I just keep trying to do that and hope that it winds me up on more and more interesting things.

TVP: What was Tooth and Nail like?

RM: That was an interesting one. It was a project that was pulled together really quickly. That was definitely an indie. I think we're all like, how's this going to come out? What's it going to be like? I was playing another character that was interesting to embody, had good and bad aspects, so I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out how to make that real.

TVP: Are you looking at directing down the road a bit?

RM: You know, I've thought about it. I respect directors so much because it's quite a challenge to hold together the whole team. And think that because having grown up on sets, I definitely am impelled towards that, but also away from it, because of the responsibility and the details. Being on the set you get to watch everything that works and doesn't work, so on the one hand I probably have certain knowledge that would be very useful, and on the other hand I'm also aware of how many ways even a really talented person can go off. I start to think, I'd be in prep for two years trying to make sure I don't let anyone down.

TVP: Imagine investing that much of your life on a project.

RM: Yeah. But it's definitely something I thought about for the future. And I think it would be being inspired enough to write something that was really passionate, or finding a project I was so passionate about having it made the way I saw it that I was really pushed past any worries about that experience and toward a need to get it made.