Interview with Heather Ann Davis

Heather Ann Davis is part model, part fangirl and a self proclaimed music nerd. She played Olivia, the lead character, in the TheWB.com web series The Lake.

The following are snippets from our conversation about the show, acting and Jason Priestley. I hope you have as much fun reading the interview as I did conducting it.

On getting into acting:

I always grew up wanting to be an entertainer. I first started out wanting to be Reba McEntire but when that didn’t work out I had to find something else. [laughs] I ended up modeling when I quit my day job like four years ago and I had nothing else to do and that sort of got me into acting as well.

Favorite music?

I am such a music nerd so this question could take forever. [laughs] I’ll try to not do that. I think different things sort of end up hitting me in different ways or finding me in different points of my life. In Rainbows, RadioHead’s new album is without a question one of the most beautifully composed pieces I’ve ever heard in my life. That would definitely be a creative catalyst for me.

What parts of Olivia remind you of yourself?

I think she’s pretty much exactly what I was when I was fifteen. [laughs] I definitely indentify with her. I feel like she’s got a lot of strong confident ideas within herself but there’s sort of a lack of ability to translate that, so she ends up sort of insecure and awkward. Kind of falls in love with every boy a little bit. I definitely had that problem. I didn’t know what to do with them when they showed up. Yeah. [laughs] I think she’s sort of quiet and perhaps more introspective and I was definitely that way when I was a teenager. Much more goofy now. [laughs] It’s just a lot of her lack of self-assuredness that I identify with a lot.

On preparing for the role:

I went back and walked around my old high school. [laughs] It was fun to get that feeling, which is weird. And I did some diary entries, like I kind of spent a whole night journaling as her…cause I was definitely a journaler when I was 15 and I think she would be too. It made it feel more natural, easy, second nature I guess.

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The vibe on set:

So great, so good! We couldn’t have asked for a better cast. We were working such insane hours. The shoot was so compact, I guess that’s a good word, we ended getting a group of incredible people who were willing to work on a sort of fly by a seat of your pants situation. There’s no room for any sort of diva attitude or anything. We all had to be up a 5 o’clock and we all had to be on set until like 10:30. Everybody was great and goofy and fun. And…we’ve ended up being really good friends in real life which is just, you know, never expected and always a blessing and a pleasant surprise. And Jason [priestley] is just really easy to work for. He’s always happy. It doesn’t matter if it was hailing outside or raining he had a smile on his face and was ready to go. He really set the tone.

On who she's most interested in collaborating with:

I sort of feel embarrassed admitting something like that, you know, like a little bit of a fangirl. I won’t give many and there are many but I would probably die if I had the opportunity to work with Tim Burton. And I feel similarly about Peter Jackson. Does that give you any indication of my taste? [laughs]

Into comic books?

If you really want to complete the nerd trifecta here I was very into X-Men growing up. So there you go! 


On movies that inspired her as a kid:

I’m gonna really embarrass myself right now. [laughs] Probably The Secret Garden was the first one. I was in like 3rd grade when I saw that movie. I think that was the first time that I actually was cognitive of the fact that movies were like a play, they were real-life, they were people getting to play around and do something neat. And I loved the story and I wanted to be able to do something like that.

Outside of acting what sparks your creativity?

Well, I play guitar and piano. I spend a lot of my free time writing music that’s probably terrible but a lot of fun to do. [laughs] And I think I’m a little musically driven. I spend a lot of my time finding new local bands that are cool and exposing friends to bands that they haven’t heard of. I do a lot of writing, drawing, painting. I have a lot of free time. [laughs]

Upcoming projects:

I am working on a short film at the moment. It’s titled Firework...and always with the modeling.

Any aspirations on getting behind the camera?

I don’t know about the near future necessarily, but the future in general, yeah absolutely. I would love to try my hand at writing or directing…I think with most creative people we’re similar and we like to try a lot of different things, a lot of different ways to express ourselves.

Especially the web, that’s just a blossoming media. There’s definitely possibilities there. I feel like it’s this blank canvas that’s waiting for people to throw something at it that works.

 

Watch Now: The WB.com

[Photo Credit: TheWB & Flickr]