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On the

Red Carpet

with

Tia Carrere

Tia Carrere has been a mainstay in film and television for

the past twenty five years. At forty two years of age, this

actress and singer will appear in two films this year, won a

2009 Grammy award for Best Hawaiian Music Album, and

was getting ready to go to Hawaii to film when I caught up

with her. Whether you remember her from General Hospital,

True Lies or Wayne’s World, what captures you is her radiant

beauty and the inner essence of a very talented and

thoughtful spirit.

by HENRI MERCERON

There have been more than 43 films and 26 television series in which you

have appeared. You sure do get around.

It’s amazing. I have been doing this for 25 years ever since I was discovered

in a grocery store on Waikiki and got my first job. I feel like the luckiest girl

on earth. I come from a pebble in the Pacific Ocean and I’ve travelled the

world and met amazing people. I have to pinch myself sometimes.

Do you have a preference between television shows and film?

It is all fun and games. It takes you back to being a kid in the sandbox.

We get paid to play.

You look like you have a lot of fun on set. You have played a number of

comedic roles.

Even in my action adventure series, Relic Hunter, that ran for three years,

there was a lot of comedy. That’s what made it so much fun. I think they’re

going to make it into a film, too. The first time they planned on making

a film based on my character, Sydney Fox, the plug was pulled because

Tomb Raider came out with the same kind of iconography and other

similarities. It would be kind of fun to do the movie because of the

chemistry between my co-star, Christien Anholt, and me. It turned the

whole damsel-in-distress plot on its head because he was the damsel that

was always in distress who needed to be saved by the strong exotic woman

(me).

Even in True Lies with Arnold Schwartznegger, which was not a comedy,

I found myself humored by your sheer wickedness because you seemed

to really relish it.

When I went to Europe to film Kull, the producer, Raffaella de Laurentis,

turned to me and said in her thick Italian accent, “Tia, I had no idea you

were like this. I expected you to be a real bitch because in so many of your

movies you are so mean and evil.” I think a lot of people see the characters

I play in film and think I am like them. For me it is fun and freeing. It is

safe to act that way in film and get away with it because I don’t do that

in real life. I come from Hawaii where we say, “Oh, I’m sorry that it is raining

today.” Or, “Was I in your way?” after you cut me off in traffic! Asian people

in Hawaii are polite to a fault. I have gotten a little edge since moving to

L.A., however.

How was being in Wayne’s World? I’m one of the few people I know who

did not see it.

The movie was very clever. It broke the mold for a lot of shows that are

now on television in how the characters relate to the camera that appears

to follow them. The show, Scrubs, does a lot of that, for example.

Didn’t you just do a movie called Hard Breakers?

I did that last year as well as Wild Cherry. They’re both really whacky

comedies that should be coming out this year.

Who is in those with you?

Hard Breakers is with Tom Arnold and Sophie Monk, who is an Australian

pop artist and actress (who also happened to have dated Ryan Seacrest).

Bobby Lee from Mad TV is also in it. He is funny as hell. I love him.

How about Wild Cherry? Are you the wild cherry?

No, sadly not. I have passed the baton of wild cherryism to the younger

folk. I am now the woman of a certain age who schools the wild cherries

in the sweetness of the fruit and the unavailability of (hahahaha) such

aforementioned fruit. There are enough euphemisms in there! Basically,

I am a teacher in the school who is a freak. I mentor the lead girls who are

Rumor Willis, Kristin Cavallari and Tania Raymonde.

What movie are you about to shoot in Hawaii?

It’s called Wedlock with David Annable (Brothers & Sisters) and Mena Suvari

(American Beauty). It is one of those romantic comedy type things. I

thought, okay, a month in Hawaii, I can do that. Wait a minute, my family

just flew in from Hawaii to visit me here! Bad, really, bad. We’ve planned

big trips before and many times they’ve been sidelined because of my work.

My Dad came from the Philippines; my Mom was born and raised in Hawaii,

as was her Mom. But my great grandmother came over on a boat from the

Philippines and did backbreaking work on the sugar and pineapple plantations.

I definitely get my work ethic from my family. They were hard workers and

three generations down the line, I am the happy recipient of it all.

You did voiceovers in the film and spinoffs of Lilo & Stitch, playing the

older sister. How was that kind of work?

It was interesting. The hard thing was not working with anyone in the

room and not knowing, for example, how far the other character was

away from me so that I would speak at the appropriate volume. You really

have to trust your director to paint a picture of the imagined surroundings.

You are working in a vacuum.

I never thought of there needing to be a director for that kind of work.

Actually, there were two. It is almost like having to work on a green screen

except, in this case, we are dealing with sounds versus the visuals. I found

the green screen much harder as I found out when I worked on early video

games. You have to act against a spot on the wall and hope you don’t look

like a fool.

I noticed that you produced some projects a while back.

I did and actually, I am producing another film that I will be starring in

next year. It is the life story of Rell Sunn, a huge surfing icon in Hawaii

who passed away on my birthday in 1998. She was known as the Queen

of Makaha, a single mom, first female lifeguard in Hawaii, and number

one long board in the world. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and

although given only months to live, survived another eighteen years. Hers

is a story about someone who is given a limited time span to live and

instead of closing ranks and shutting down, she became more expansive.

She took underprivileged kids from the west side of Hawaii to such places

as France and the Great Wall of China. She started the Women’s Surfing

Association, prior to which there was no women’s surfing and they had

to surf in men’s competitions. She organized a children’s surfing

competition because she believed if kids received praise for their skills,

their self esteems would be fortified, thereby removing them from the

paths of drugs, crime and other destructive activities. These competitions

have continued thirty three years after she started them which are quite

a legacy.

I co-wrote the screenplay with my husband and will be starring in the

film. It has taken me a while to get Sunn’s family to trust that I have their

best interests at heart. I realized that the depth that I wanted to reach

with this kind of work is difficult unless I created it myself.

Aside from producing, you have a strong interest in singing. Tell us more.

When I was fourteen, I started singing with Daniel Ho. I went to the all

girls Catholic school up the street and he went to the all boys Catholic

school down the street. His school had a jazz orchestra for which he did

all the charts. They were looking for a vocalist and he heard that I had a

good voice. I sang for the band leader and got the gig. We sang at the

officers’ club and a few restaurants and stuff like that. We entered talent

contests and sung at venues with thousands of people.

And then you got rudely sidetracked by fate into an acting career.

Yeah, until my acting and singing interests united on the set of Wayne’s

World, in which I sang. My first album, Dream, was done with Warners

Brothers right after the film. I was a little unfocused because my life was

a whirlwind at the time. Here was the legendary Michael McDonald and

Robin Zander (from Super Tramp) all singing backup on my record. The

producer of Van Halen was producing my record - it was wild.

Later, I reconnected with Daniel and we decided to cut an album,

Hawaiiana, which we had talked about doing for so long. It was based on

our favorite classic Hawaiian songs that we heard growing up.

Hawaiiana was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Album

in 2008. And this year, you won that award for your third album, Ikena.

Tell us about this album.

It is comprised of all contemporary compositions written by Amy

Ku’uleialoha Stillman, a poet with a Ph.D in Music Ethnicology. I feel smart

just saying it. She knows the Hawaiian language inside and out. Daniel

wrote the music and I was just the mouthpiece.

I did not realize that there was a Grammy in your category before this.

It has been around for about 5 years and is listed as “folk”. There were

about 38 nominees this year. The competition was stiff. I was a little

worried. It was twice as competitive as last year. Between co-hosting the

pre-Grammy telecast, singing at the ceremony, and receiving a Grammy,

it was quite a time. I mean, pinch me.

Did any of the other celebrities comment on your award?

No, but in the pre-telecast Snoop Dogg told me he named his Porshe

Carerra after me. He did. He’s got an azure blue Carerra that he named

“Tia Carerra”. I told him, “Thanks, Snoop, for my street cred.”

I know that you had a rule not do any nude scenes in your films…

I actually broke that pact. I had lived in Europe for three years and came

back feeling rather saucy. After emerging from a very bad marriage, Playboy

asked me to model for them. I said “Why the hell not?” I hadn’t had a baby

yet and I wanted to see what my body would look like now and forevermore.

The guy who shot the pictures was a fashion photographer who I worked

with when I modeled. I entrusted him with shooting the nudes because

he is fantastic.

I understand that it was the highest selling issue in 2003.

It was very weird when it came out because I was in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch

at the time. If you base your self worth on the whims of the times, who’s

hot, who’s not, who’s up and who’s down, and you don’t have that center,

you’ll go crazy. I think embracing who you are and where you’re from at

your deepest core – your people, your family – will keep you real.

I asked someone if they were familiar with you and they responded, “Oh

yeah, she’s the woman that every man wants to be with and who every

woman wants to be.”

Awww. That’s awesome. What a great compliment.

How would your friends describe you?

Loyal and steadfast.

Is there anything about you that would surprise your fans?

That I really love Spam. It’s very big in all of Asia and Hawaii. The first thing

I did when my grandma got off the plane after staying with my aunt in

Pennsylvania was to take her to a Hawaiian restaurant to have Spam

musubi which is Spam on top of a rice bowl with teriyaki sauce. I have a

deep an abiding love of Spam. A matter of fact, there is a song on iKena

called The Spam Song.

What do you do for fun?

I love rollerblading. But the deepest luxury for me is taking a nap in the

middle of the day to catch up for all those times that my little one wakes

up in the middle of the night calling, “Mommy, mommy”.

How old is your daughter?

Three. I’m a late bloomer. Having her so late, I use every shred of energy I

have in my body. If I had her 20 years ago, I’d have more energy. There is

a tradeoff between having the energy of your youth and the mindfulness

of a career that you have solidified. I have to say, I’ve always been able to

spend a lot of time with her. On Dancing with the Stars, I was breastfeeding

her in between my tangos. I was just happy that I could make it through

5 of the 10 episodes while waking up every two hours at night with a

newborn. On top of that, my husband was out of the country! We’re crazy,

we show business people. We’re gypsy circus folk!

It is glamorous and it is fun but behind all the glitter and glitz, there is a lot

of hard work and dedication. You just do what you gotta do to get it done.

Have you ever been bothered by the paparazzi?

That is so funny. We just went to the grocery store in Malibu and the

paparazzi descended upon us. These guys jumped from the Starbucks

around the corner – like eight of them. I took a picture of them with my

little disposable camera to show the rest of my family back at the house.

They wouldn’t have believed that we got paparazzied at the grocery store.

It used to be that they only came out at red carpet events, but lately,

they’ve gotten a lot more aggressive. It is a little unnerving because you

are very conscious of what you look like every time you leave the house.

What is your fashion style? Haute couture or jeans and T-shirts?

Do you know that I walked the red carpet with my Grammy in a $35 eBay

dress. I’m a big bargain shopper. My grandma used to take me to Goodwill

and the Salvation Army growing up. I guess I wanted to make a statement

during these unsure economic times. It was the best looking and sexiest

dress that I owned. You know, you can look fabulous if you feel fabulous,

at any price. That was my statement for the day.

Were you asked about the dress?

Yeah, yeah. There was a picture of it in USA Today and CNN and Extra

showed it on TV. I think it resonated with a lot of people.

I think that is great. And an eBay dress couldn’t have found a better model

because I think just about anything would look good on you.

Au contraire. Au contraire.