BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ Though it never occurred to British actress Jodie Comer to perform for a living, she knew at 13 that she loved pretending to be somebody else.
"I'd done acting at a local drama school on Saturdays," she says in an outdoor patio cafe here, the sound of the fountain echoing behind her.
"I just enjoyed it. It never entered my mind I could possibly do it for a career. We were doing a talent show, me and my three friends were doing a dance from 'Chicago.' I'd gone on holiday with my parents and my friends messaged me to say, 'Just so you know, you can't be in the dance anymore because you've not been here to practice.'
"So being a 13-year-old I was absolutely heartbroken," she says in her Liverpudlian accent. It was then her mom suggested that she repeat the monologue she'd given at the Liverpool Drama Festival a few months earlier, to regain her position in class.
"My drama teacher let me do it, and after that she kind of had her eye on me," says Comer, who's protecting the bare shoulders of her dress by shrouding them in a black leather jacket.
A few weeks later BBC radio was seeking a young girl for the radio play, "The Tin Man." It was her very first audition and she landed the part.
"Lots of local professional actors and actresses were in 'The Tin Man,'" she recalls. "I just loved it so much. They said, 'If you enjoy it that much you could possibly make a career out of it.' So an actress kindly introduced me to her agent in Manchester and put me in touch with a photographer for some head-shots, and that was my first professional move."
At 24 Comer is already a seasoned veteran as she proves with her latest role as Princess Elizabeth of York in Starz's drama, "The White Princess" airing Sundays. The series is a prequel to the earlier "The White Queen," in which Comer slips into Lizzie's brocaded slippers and becomes the first Tudor queen.
She says she is transfixed by the emotions she's able to emulate in her acting. "Emotions fascinate me, just being able to express myself through acting. I love that. And I think in every day life you're always trying to repress your emotions. Like if you're sad, you don't want to show it to someone else," she says.
"With acting you have to just tell the truth in each moment. And sometimes you might do a scene, and then either you're laughing or you're sad. Sometimes it can be really overwhelming in a really good way, if you feel something. I enjoy most feeling things and connecting with another person. If you come away from a scene with someone and you think, 'That made me feel really alive. Yeah.'"
She admits it can be intimidating taking on a role like young Lizzie who was to become the mother of Henry VIII.
"There's always doubt," says Comer. "I think you're your worst enemy with that kind of stuff. But I like the feeling of going, 'Oh, God, this is a really big thing and it's going to be a challenge.' I kind of thrive off that because you have to put yourself in those situations otherwise you're never going to progress. You do have to challenge yourself. I think scared is a good thing."
Comer, who did well in school but became impatient with it once she started acting, says her parents always allowed her to make her own professional decisions, even though she was very young.
"When I had to leave my old agent, I was maybe 15, my dad was like, 'Well, you know where the phone is. You ring her yourself. We'll be here. But this is all yours.'
"Through all my teens that's always what they've done. They've never made a decision for me. So I've had all these little things I've had to do myself and had to overcome. So knowing I had their support, but they've kind of let me take the reins."
She still lives at home with her dad, a sports therapist for a football club and her mom, an office worker for Liverpool transport.
She recalls a tough time in her mid-teens when she wrestled with an eating disorder. "When I was 16, food and self-image was something I became very aware of, and I think it's hard _ especially now with the way social media is and all those kinds of things. I think that was the time I struggled. I'm very fortunate that I've got a very loving family and I'm very lucky that I haven't had many difficult times ... I don't want to go too much into it, but I had those kinds of (anorexic) issues."
Continuing she says, "I think it's a universal thing, it's true to any teen-age girl ... To be physically strong is so empowering to me. I like to feel strong, but that pressure is always there. I got into acting because I wanted to act. I didn't look like a model, didn't want to look like a model. As long as I continue to do good acting and a solid work, then I'm happy."
'DOG' GETS ITS DAY
ABC offers a special premiere of its new show "Downward Dog" on Wednesday. Adapted from a web series, the show features a dog that talks to the audience but not to the characters. One of its stars is Allison Tolman, who was so memorable as the police officer in "Fargo." Tolman says she was very particular how she followed up that role.
"I really searched long and hard for my next television project after 'Fargo.' It took a long time to try and find the thing _ to feel like (it) was the right thing to come back to, where I felt like it was my home and on television. I read a lot of scripts, and I ran a lot of meetings. And this show specifically, this web series, just sold me. And I knew as soon as I saw the web series, as soon as I met with (the creators), that this is where I wanted to be. And this is where I wanted to spend my time, with this story and this group."
'TWIN PEAKS' RISES AGAIN
The characters from "Twin Peaks" will re-assemble Sunday when David Lynch's and Mark Frost's new 18-episode version lands on Showtime. The original, which premiered in 1990, lasted two seasons, but caused tidal waves of talk.
Lynch, who's equally cryptic about this show as he was about the first, does admit that once the primary mystery of the original _ who killed Laura Palmer? _ was solved, the show faltered.
"Who killed Laura Palmer was a question that we did not ever really want to answer," he says. "And that Laura Palmer mystery was the goose that laid these little golden eggs. And then at a certain point, we were told we needed to wrap that up and it never really got going again after that."
Lynch, who's known for movies like "Blue Velvet," "The Elephant Man" and "Mulholland Drive," directed the pilot for the original. "I'll tell you what, I loved the pilot of 'Twin Peaks.' That, for me, set the tone, and made the world and the characters for me. That started the thing, and I felt really good about that mood and that story, those characters. Just fell in love, deep, deep love," he says.
He won't reveal much about the new series except to explain that he and Frost co-wrote it via Skype, with Frost in Ojai and Lynch in Hollywood.
"It's a very beautiful time now for cable television," says Lynch. "And the idea of a continuing story is something I've always loved. Going into a world and seeing what happens, see how it pulls you in this way or that, ideas come along the way. It's so beautiful and exciting."
COMICS REUNITE FOR NEW SITCOM
"Saturday Night Live" buddies Adam Sandler and Chris Rock will reunite this summer for a new comedy on Netflix. They play fathers of a couple who are planning to marry in the show titled "The Week Of."
Rock began his career in the 1990s working with Sandler on "Saturday Night Live," and Sandler got his start as a standup on the same show. Rock says he was mesmerized by the comedy he saw as a kid.
"I loved watching Bill Cosby hosting 'The Tonight Show,' the Dean Martin roasts. I was a weird kid. I went to a club on audition night and passed the audition. And as far as making a living, I found that out along the way. They started giving me money to do it. And I really didn't do it for money. I just loved doing it. If I were driving a bus right now, I'd probably do comedy on the weekends."
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