‘OMG, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!’
The actress opens up about her role in the new sci-fi series La Brea, now streaming on Neon
The US soap Passions was famous for its bizarre plots, including the witch’s doll that came to life and the orangutan who was an elderly woman’s nurse. Actress Natalie Zea remembers it for another reason. “I met my husband on that show,” the Texan star, 46, tells Woman’s Day.
“So it’s less about kooky storylines, and more about this beautiful friendship that I formed with this man who I eventually ended up marrying and having a baby with.” Natalie had her first-ever kiss with her future husband, Travis Schuldt, when she was auditioning for the role of Gwen Hotchkiss and he was playing Ethan Winthrop. “I did three screen tests before they finally hired me,” she recalls.
That was 20 years ago. Since then, Natalie has had a string of memorable roles in shows such as Californication, where she played David Duchovny’s arsonist exgirlfriend Carrie, and The Following, where she played a serial killer’s ex-wife.
When she was offered the lead role of Eve in new sci-fi series La Brea, it was Travis who encouraged her, saying, “Your chance to be an action star is a little finite window. You may never be asked again, so why not try it out?”
Although set in Los Angeles – and a mysterious primeval land beneath it – La Brea is filmed just north of Melbourne, which saw Natalie, Travis and their six-year-old daughter Reygan fly to Australia. She was the only cast member allowed to bring her family.
“I’m not going to leave my kid for six months!” she exclaims. “Men can do that, but women cannot.”
Shooting the show’s first season turned out to be challenging for all sorts of reasons. For one, Natalie hadn’t stopped to think that being an action hero might involve running.
“I’m not a big fan of cardio, so once I got on set and realised we were doing a lot of running, I thought, ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’”
There was also the Melbourne winter. With virtually all of Natalie’s scenes shot outdoors, it was a test of endurance.
“We were toughing it. They would give us hot-water bottles, which were great, but in a situation like that, you just say, ‘OK, well, I’m earning a pay cheque.’”
But there was also the fun side of things. Natalie was harnessed to a wire to shoot the unforgettable falling-intoa-sinkhole scene. She recalls, “For somebody like me with a fear of heights, wire work lets you do things that you would normally be too frightened to do, so it’s almost like therapy.”
As for having to react to imagined prehistoric creatures, like sabre-toothed tigers and giant ground sloths, which were later added in with CGI, Natalie says, “I just thought, ‘What would Tom Cruise do?’ and made that face. I think it really worked!”
Right now, the actress is back in LA, working on a screenplay set in the world of soap operas, which she wrote 15 years ago.
“It’s almost been made three times and then my schedule gets in the way,” Natalie says. “We’re doing a complete overhaul because I’ve aged out of the character, so all this morning, before getting on this phone call, I’ve been in the world of Passions because it’s based on my time there.”
And before too long, Natalie be getting back on a plane to Australia to shoot another season of La Brea
– once again, in winter.
“Yes, ma’am, we’ll be back!” she declares.