BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ Actress Anna Brewster thinks that traumatic experiences in real life can sometimes bleed into acting. Her role as the lusty mistress of King Louis XIV in Ovation's "Versailles" is a prime example.
"I had a very big heartbreak two years ago, which actually helped to inform my work on Season Two," she says, perching on the edge of her chair in a meeting room here.
"It's weird, I was very fragile at the time, and what I thought would be very difficult emotions to tap into were suddenly on the surface, very raw."
The British-born Brewster plays Lady Montespan, one of Louis' legions of mistresses who graced him with seven children and _ through her wit and intelligence _ became the most powerful woman in France. The second season premieres on Saturday.
"That heartache changed my attitude toward life," muses Brewster. "I'm more into freedom, independence. I think everything happens for a reason, so it's not the end of the world. But also I know what real love was. I've been in love before, but this was real heartbreak," says Brewster, who's wearing a pale yellow flowered dress and yellow, short-sleeved cardigan.
"I think maybe � it's going to sound weird � but I think I became a bit more selfish. I don't think that's a bad thing because I'm very much, like, I would do anything for anyone. But I've become a bit more selfish in that I need to look after myself. I can't make it all about someone else."
Inordinately shy as a kid, Brewster experienced a family tragedy when she was 15. "My dad had a mild stroke. But when I was a child, I was very much daddy's girl. I idolized my father," she says.
"And when it happened, I saw him so vulnerable, with fear in his eyes, and I realized at that point that my parents were human. And I think that informed me as a person as I get older, I'm not going to be this invincible person. There is a vulnerability there, and when I have children I need to make them understand that."
Her father recovered, but he was a beloved teacher who could no longer teach because his hearing was affected. "I saw it happen to my grandfather when his sight went and his hearing went. I feel like it kills a person slowly, which is really sad. He's fine now. Maybe through my father I realize we're all vulnerable."
Brewster was also 15 when she unintentionally landed her acting first job. "I got sent to an audition through my school, and I went for it," she says, grasping her long brown hair in a knot and pushing it over her shoulder.
"And I don't know what took over me that day, something clicked. And I went to the audition and got the part. It was for a film, and I started working. But I remember going back to school to visit ... when I was about 20 � after my first job other jobs came � and the teachers were like, 'How the hell are you doing this? You're unbearably shy.' There must be something within me in that I like to be a different person," she shrugs.
Brewster performed for five years, but at 21 she stepped back to assess what she was doing. "So I moved to London to go to university. I was studying fashion, and then I started modeling at the same time _ just for money. And actually it went very well in England because I'm 5 foot 6. I wasn't a size 6, so I wasn't conventional because in England they like personalities. I started to work quite a lot ... that went well. So I did that on and off. I didn't start till I was 21. I did it till I was about 28. I'm 31 now. I'm too old," she smiles.
"It was fun. Now I can't do it because I find it very boring. But at that time it was fine, I enjoyed it." Even though she was young, her parents supported all her efforts, she says. "Whatever I wanted to do, that was great. They trust me and also knew they brought up a good child."
Brewster has overcome her heartbreak of two years ago and has a new sweetheart, Anatole Maggiar, who runs a gallery space in Paris where he oversees 26 artists.
"We met eight years ago in Paris in a club ... Then we didn't talk for five years and I got this job on 'Versailles.' And I thought, 'Who do I know who lives in Paris?' I thought, 'Oh, yeah, Anatole.' So I texted him, and he invited me to this event. I thought he was a party boy and I was working, so I said no. He thought I was really arrogant. So it took us six months. So he said, 'I'm going to come meet you.' So he came and we've been inseparable ever since."
'WILL & GRACE' RETURNS
The model in television is if you have a good thing going, you create a spin-off, usually with one member of the cast headlining his own show. But NBC is going one better: It's resurrecting an old show that went off the air 11 years ago.
"Will & Grace," is returning Thursday featuring the same cast and same creators that buoyed it on the network for eight years. Max Mutchnick and David Kohan are running the show again and had to discern how to reboot for new fans without losing the old.
"We spent the most time in story camp figuring out what would be the best way to tell the audience exactly where they're at and what they're up to at this time," says Mutchnick.( "And we think we came up with the right way to do that, and we just want to hold off on telling you exactly what that is because it will take away some of the fun. But it's not anything that's going to surprise you," he says.
Why the show was so popular in its day is anybody's guess. But Kohan says, "Jimmy Burrows, our director, always says it's like the answer is je ne sais quoi. I mean, it is. You can have a good script and good actors, and something doesn't work, and you don't know what it is. And Jimmy always said, 'When you have this kind of thing, you have to appreciate how fortunate it is, when it's just a confluence of these particular actors who are playing these particular parts with these particular words to say.' I try not to question it. I don't want to analyze it too much. I feel like it will take something away from it."
ACTOR GETS THE SILENT TREATMENT
It doesn't seem like an actor's dream, but Anson Mount rides on over from his years on "Hell on Wheels" to ABC's new "Marvel's Inhumans." What's unique about the new role is that Mount has not one single line of dialogue _ not an easy sell for most actors.
Marvel's Jeph Loeb knew how to sell the idea to Mount. And Mount thinks sometimes dialogue is extraneous. "I cut a lot of dialogue in 'Hell on Wheels,'" he says. "More often than not, there's a lot of dialogue in a lot of what we do in any genre that's not necessary.
"But I thought it was interesting, always being a proponent of that, that suddenly Fate handed me this role where I don't get to say anything. But Jeph knew exactly how to hook me. He was offering to bring in a linguist and let me get geeky, until the linguist told us, 'Yeah, that's not really what we do.' But these guys got me a signing consultant, but I couldn't use ASL because we're not from the planet Earth. I wouldn't know ASL. So I just sort of took the underlying rules of ASL that make it efficient, and then I applied my own signs ... I started a Google Doc to keep the signs consistent. And it's up to about 50 pages now." "Marvel's Inhumans" premieres on ABC Friday.
'SEAL TEAM' LEADS THE PACK
There are several military-themed shows on the airwaves this fall, but by far the best is "SEAL Team," premiering on CBS Wednesday. Starring David Boreanaz, Jessica Pare and AJ Buckley, the series enlisted the advice of real SEALs before a single word of the script was written.
It not only looks and feels real, it's a perfect jumping-off place for Boreanaz, who spent 12 years hunting bad guys on "Bones." "I really feel these characters ... represent people that do things for a living that we all go home and go to bed and are cozy in our blankets at nighttime, and there are people out there that are fighting for our freedom and are fighting for us," he says.
