Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Blazing Baccarin right on top of her game
get in trouble for it.”
She prides herself on her tough skin. “You learn to not take things personally and to just let it roll off of you. Of course you get upset about things. How could you not be affected by being fired from a job or getting told you’re not right because your hair isn’t blonde or your butt’s too big or your legs aren’t skinny enough? But it’s just somebody’s opinion and you can’t believe everything.”
Certainly she believes that women get the short end of the stick. “You get scrutinised for every aspect of your body and your mind and anything that comes out of your mouth. A guy who behaves badly is sexy. A woman who behaves badly – or just behaves like she wants to behave – is slutty or looked down upon.”
She filmed the Deadpool role in a chilly Vancouver when her son was just 18 months old, and she unconsciously touches her growing belly when she says that she wouldn’t want her children to follow her into showbusiness. “My career has been very good to me but, really, the odds are really slim. It’s a tough life and you deal with a lot of rejection and unemployment, and if you’re lucky to have a career it’s not easy. So you just want to protect your kids from the pain of rejection.”
Thankfully, her own mother wasn’t of the same persuasion and cast her in a church play, Mother Mary, when she was 14. “She was great and whenever I felt, ‘I don’t know if I should do this. I’m not working. I haven’t had a job in two months’, she would always say, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s going to turn around. It is what it is’.”
Consequently, despite some major career troughs, Baccarin never considered quitting. “There was no real alternative. I thought I could supplement my career with waitressing but I don’t have another skill. Acting is what I do. I don’t know whether it’s dumb luck, but I have been able to support myself doing this.”
Her role in Homeland was a game-changer. “I think it took everyone by surprise,” she says “Jessica Brody could easily have been perceived as a victim, but the writers were wonderful in giving her substance and strength so she wasn’t just this poor, suffering woman.”
Surprisingly, Homeland didn’t lead to typecasting. “No, I didn’t get too many mom roles after that,” she says. “In the supermarket, I can spot a Firefly fan from a mile away. Homeland fans are typically more mature and reserved. They’re not going to ‘fan’ out, instead they’ll say something like ‘I enjoy your work’. fans tend to be fanatical.” A little-known fact is that she once shot a pilot for the US sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia playing a transgender woman. It’s a role she still wishes she could have taken. “I know those guys really well because we went to college together, and they were shooting this themselves before it became a show or a pilot and we were all unemployed in Los Angeles. I thought it was hilarious. So I was ‘Hell, yeah, I wanna play that.’ We had a blast but, unfortunately, when the show got picked
Vup I was shooting something else, so I couldn’t do it.”
She now divides her time between Los Angeles and New York, mostly living in the latter where Gotham is filmed. She bought an duplex in Santa Monica with her first big pay cheque. Outside of her career, her main passion in life is her son and, of course, her unborn child. “I also love cooking,” she says. “I like the simple things in life, sitting with friends and having a glass of wine, a nice meal and taking those moments that you rarely get.”
Second to supermodel Gisele Bündchen, she may be one of Brazil’s sexiest exports. “I don’t know Gisele, although I like that we’re in the same sentence because she’s quite beautiful.” – The Independent