Matchett lights a fire
Lately, strangers are staring at Kari Matchett with horror. On the street, in airplanes, at the grocery store. Even when she’s sipping coffee in a Santa Monica café, as the Pacific Ocean ripples with deceptive calm, people stop and stare.
“ I have to wonder if they’re actually looking at me and wondering if I’m an alien,” laughs Matchett, on the line from California. “ Honestly, they look at me like, ‘ There’s that alien woman.’ ” The Canadian actor stars in Invasion ( ABC, 10 p. m.; CTV, 8 tonight), one of the season’s most intriguing new dramas. To recap: 1. Hurricane Eve batters Homestead, Florida. 2. Mysterious, glowing creatures and/ or lights are in the water. 3. Matchett’s character, Dr. Mariel Underlay, is found naked and unconscious. 4. Mariel is one of many who is going through some . . . “ changes.” From Surface to Threshold, Supernatural to Ghost Whisperer, Invasion is one of several new paranormal shows to premiere this fall, which itself is a mystery.
“ I don’t know why there seems to be some kind of collective unconscious at work,” says Matchett, of the creep toward creepiness. And it’s not just on TV.
“ I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people since doing the pilot about aliens,” she says.
“ These are not people who are crazy. These are people who are absolutely sane and absolutely clear that they’ve had alien encounters.” Our conversation veers toward the esoteric, indirectly touching upon everything from unexplained body marks to missing time phenomenon to Jungian synchronicity.
I think I’m falling in love. So I reluctantly change the subject: how did you land this role?
“ I decided to come to L. A. for the first time and I got here at the end of January,” Matchett says. She auditioned for various shows during pilot season. Then, one day, after several “ close calls,” her agent rang to say Invasion producers were keen to meet.
Matchett read for the part of Larkin Groves Varon, a character who was originally described as a “pretty blond reporter.” (Originally, Mariel Underlay was going to be a “ Cuban American.”) But after meeting Matchett, producers switched parts and made her the doctor. This may not surprise Canadian viewers, who have already seen Matchett don scrubs to battle SARS ( CTV’s Plague City) or deal with the Walkerton crisis ( CBC’s Betrayed).
If a doomsday movie is ever made about avian flu, the smart money is on Matchett to play a frontline physician — honestly, what is up with all these medical roles?
“It’s so funny, because my mom is a nurse,” she says. “ And when I was 9, you know, when you’re musing on the things you want to be, I actually thought, ‘ I’m going to be a doctor.’ But I was going to be a doctor so I could work the night shift so my days would be free to act.
“ I have always been incredibly interested in medicine and how the body works. I’m really into alternative medicine. I love reading medical journals and texts.” Not that there’s much time for reading these days. Matchett hasn’t had a day off in weeks. And she rarely gets more than four hours of sleep. ( In addition to Invasion’s gruelling schedule, she’s been in Vancouver on weekends shooting the movie Civic Duty.)
Invasion’s success has thrust her into the spotlight. Despite having a lengthy Canadian resumé, appearing in several shows and movies ( Power Play, Blue Murder, Men With Brooms), Americans are just discovering her.
Get this: last month, USA Today called her a “ rising star.”
“ I’m so glad I didn’t come here until now,” she says. “ I really am. Because I feel like I can see it from a much more objective place.” So how does working in America compare to Canada?
“ As a lead actor on an American series, I feel you have more power than as a lead actor on a Canadian series. And I don’t know why that is. . . . I feel like whoever I am has been so embraced in a way that I didn’t always feel in Canada.” Sigh. “The world is made of flint here. There is fuel in the air. So if you come in and spark it up, there’s fire.” vmenon@thestar.ca