Amy Acker

L.A.’s Southern Bell an Exclusive Spotlight on Amy Acker

Pylea was a crazy place. A lot of interesting things happened in the season ending, three-episode arc back in May of 2001, the most important being the introduction of an odd girl dressed in a burlap sack. Labeling her as insane seemed logical at the time; considering how she lured a wild beast-like Angel back to her cave dwelling with a blood soaked hand. And then there was her peculiar, barely coherent, rapid fire speech. Yes, that was the introduction of Winifred Burkle, the brainy beauty Angel fans would come to love and respect as one of the gang. Amy Acker, the woman behind the character, does share a few of Fred’s characteristics, namely her charm and carefree laughter. Having made her mark on Angel for two full seasons now, she has undoubtedly established her talent and presence. Recently, CoA got the opportunity to chat it up with Amy on a relaxing Thursday morning and become the happy victim of that wonderfully infectious giggle.

DANCING INTO THE THEATRE

On December 5th, 1976 a Dallas based lawyer and his wife had their first child: Amy Louise Acker. While growing up, Amy found herself drawn to forms of physical artistic expression. For thirteen years, she rigorously studied various styles of dance. Unfortunately, knee surgery in high school forced her to give up her passion for dance and look for another creative outlet. Needing a required arts credit in high school, Amy started taking a theatre class when she stopped dancing. "I had always been really, really shy and never thought I would like to talk in front of people. I think that’s why I liked Dance; you can still express yourself creatively without having to say words. Then I realized that as long as they were someone else’s words, I really didn’t mind," she confessed laughing. "The work that was involved in Dance — I was going five days a week — once I got involved in theatre I was like, ’Oh this is the same type of thing, I have rehearsal every day.’ I think I liked that work ethic, it kept you busy doing something creative." Luckily, Amy had no difficulty overcoming her fear of public speaking when acting, "It was a lot less hard than I thought. It just had to do with the fact that I had never liked making speeches or doing projects where I had to talk in front of people. Once I got a script and I got to kind of become somebody else, and just sort of dive into it, it wasn’t really me doing it, you know? It just seemed really easy and ended up being something that I really like doing; I think a lot more than dancing."

Amy continued to pursue acting while attending Southern Methodist University from 1996-1999. She got her first television role in the TV movie To Serve and Protect which was released in February of 1999. Also in her senior year, she was a part of the Undermain Theatre and got nominated as best lead actress for the Leon Rabin Awards for her part as Therese Raquin. Always versatile, acting was only one of Amy’s pursuits. She had spent three previous summers modeling in Japan as well as posing for the J. Crew spring 1998 catalogue. However, modeling never captivated Amy the way acting did, "For me, it was kind a fun thing to do for the summer, to get to travel. I never really thought of myself as a model. In my experience, and I think it is different for everyone, it was just the fact that I was getting to go meet these people and do different things. I never really liked the actual modeling part. When I was ver there I did a lot of commercials, and that was always what I liked doing more," Amy admitted with a laugh. "The challenges seemed to be challenges that I didn’t really care about. I wasn’t really invested into getting this job or that job, it just sort of felt like the luck of the draw."

After graduating with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting, Amy moved to Wisconsin where she joined the American Players Theatre. There she honed her skills with the parts of Hilda in Ibsen’s The Master Builder, and Hero in Shakespeare’s classic Much Ado About Nothing. Eight months later, she made the transition to New York and obtained roles in two independent films: The Energy Specialist, and The Accident. Amy’s extensive theatre background proved to be a great asset for her future jobs, "I feel like, especially with Joss’ shows, that he loves theatre so much that it’s really paid off. Pretty much everyone on Angel has started off doing theatre and I think at some point wants to get back to doing theatre," she laughed. "I think the idea of the ’work’ and ’ethics’ that we learned in college; about developing characters, a lot of the stuff that we deal with on Angel is so much larger than life and just finding ways to make that real. Having had stage before this allowed me that medium that has the same sort of unbelievably and everything, and you have to make it work."

OUT OF THE CAVE, INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

After less than a year in New York, Amy made the definite transition to the center of the acting world: Los Angeles. New to the whole atmosphere, Amy got a break and starred in Groom Lake, a film written and directed by Star Trek’s William Shatner. However, her breakout role would come in the form of a quirky scientist stuck in an alternate dimension: Angel’s Winifred Burkle. Knowing the role would provide a great opportunity and national exposure, Amy had an interesting way of preparing herself for the audition, "I just didn’t think I would get it," she joked. "All the roles I had played up until that point had pretty much been the stereotypical ingénue roles of ’the pretty girl who cries’ and not anything like Fred. When I got the script, I was like, ’Oh, they’ll never cast me as this,’ but it would be really fun. So I went in and did it how I thought everyone else in the whole auditioning time would have done it too. Afterwards the casting director, Amy Britt said, ’Wow, that was completely different than everyone else who has done it.’ They called me back the next day and I think I had another callback after that. At the final callback I was the only one there so I was like, ’I guess this is a good sign...’" Sure enough, it was an excellent sign. Amy went from a two episode stint in Season Two to having a pivotal role as a cast regular the following season!

Before the arrival of Fred, Angel was primarily a male dominated cast. With the exception of Charisma Carpenter, there was an abundance of testosterone at Angel Investigations. With Fred, Amy got a chance to add a much-needed dose of femininity to the show. She arrived to a warm welcome and was instantly a member of the team, "It was nice. Charisma and I got along right from the beginning. Everyone was really great. The first person I met was Andy Hallett, he was in his makeup and I was like, ’Okay, what am I doing?’ But he was just so crazy and fun and went out of his way to make sure I had people to sit with and it was just really nice."

Now approaching her third season as a regular, Amy has really begun to define Fred’s character. She has been able to utilize her versatile acting skills as Fred has evolved from a shy, cave dwelling girl into an aggressive member of the team. Amy has a few favorite episodes where she really was able to let loose and enhance Fred’s depth, "The first time that started to happen was probably in "Fredless". That was the first time I really got to break out of my shell and felt like I was part of the team. This season I felt like the last couple of episodes, when I was on my own against Jasmine, that was a really big turning point for Fred just having to — it was my first time I ever had a fight by myself. It was really a growing experience for her." However, Fred hasn’t yet learned the martial arts expertise that Amy would like. While studying at Southern Methodist, Amy had to get trained and certified in weapons and stage combat. She’s constantly looking for a way to h! ave Fred utilize these skills, "Mike Massa [Angel’s stunt coordinator] is always like, ’I know you want to use weapons but Fred doesn’t know how to use them!’ There have been a couple of times where I had really wanted to do something with a quarterstaff; broadsword and he tried to work that in. Then I just wanted to be able to kick someone and knock them out, so he put a couple of kicks in one episode for me." Unlike her inexperienced alter ego Fred, Amy is not someone you want to mess with. Her specific training while in college included, "quarterstaff, rapier and dagger, hand-to-hand, and broadsword." Still, Fred has come quite a long way since the Pylean days. Who can forget the fact that she had not one, but two main characters fawning over her, "Yeah, that was fun too," she laughed.

Coming up to its fifth season, Angel has become acclaimed on numerous levels including writing, directing, and acting. Series creator Joss Whedon is directing the first episode of the season, something that has not been done since the pilot. Despite the cast changes, (Vincent Kartheiser and Charisma Carpenter are no longer regulars), everyone is very excited about the upcoming season, "With Joss on the first episode, it’s such a good way to start off the season because he always does one that is just on its own and quirky and magical. This one will actually be a story one, so it will be interesting. When he’s writing or directing, every episode that he’s done while I have been there has been really, really fun."

BRANCHING OUT: DiCaprio, SHATNER, AND BATMAN?

Despite a rigorous, time-consuming schedule on Angel, Amy has participated in many other projects. She always strives to hone her craft, even when the project may have failed to meet expectations. When mentioning Groom Lake, Amy let out a quick "Oh no." Still, she never regrets taking on any job. She believes that everything should be a learning experience, "I think that’s the only way you can look at it. I had literally been out here about two days when I got that. It seemed like it was going to be interesting because we got to go for five weeks to Arizona and William Shatner and a couple of people who want to do quality projects were involved. It was just exciting to be new and out here and have the opportunity to do a movie. I definitely learned a lot from doing it just because we had pretty much one take to do every scene and the sound was never recorded while we were doing it so I had to loop [ed. re-recording sound post filming] every singl! e line. It was definitely a learning experience. I think that now, especially after having the opportunity to be on Angel, that you can look and be like, ’I kind of learned that already so I don’t have to do something like that again,’" she laughed.

Last year Amy popped up as stewardess, Miggy, in Steven Spielberg’s huge film Catch Me If you Can starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The role, while minor, was a great experience for Amy, "I auditioned for the main girl on the film but they had already cast [her] by the time that I auditioned. I guess they just liked my tape and said that they wanted me to do a little part as one of the stewardess’ in it. Originally I had lines, and then when we got there they decided we were just going to do improv with Leonardo DiCaprio. He was sitting there sort of interviewing us and had an earpiece that Spielberg was feeding him questions to ask us. We had to do about a fifteen-minute improv each by ourselves. None of my lines made it, but it was still really fun." The shoot, which became more complicated than originally planned, became a testament to the willingness of the Angel staff to let their actors branch out. "It was kind of a weird story," she began. "They told us it was only going to shoot for two days. Everyone at Angel was super cool and let me get out, and then the scene actually ended up shooting for four days. I couldn’t get out for the other two days. If you notice, when I’m walking into the airport it’s me, and when the girls get inside the airport they got a girl who was supposed to kind of look like me," she said. "But I don’t think anyone would notice."

Most recently, Amy did work on CBS’ made-for-television movie "Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt." Adam West and Burt Ward, the original Batman and Robin, play fictionalized versions of themselves in a comedic, intentionally campy, behind-the-scenes tale of the creation of the 1960’s television series. While Fred is, at times, a comedic role as well, Amy does not lock herself into any one genre, "Oh, I like doing everything," she enthuse. "That’s the great thing about Angel, there’s really no defined lines of how the show has to be. One episode it’s like total comedy and the next is a drama. Return To The Bat Cave was fun just because it was written exactly how that old show was. It was just sort of crazy and not really how anything now is written. I played Burt Ward’s first wife that he was married to before he was on the show. They had been married when they were 16 or 17. So when he got the show they ended up g! etting a divorce because she was really jealous and couldn’t handle him being around all the women and having to kiss people. I got to dress like a little flower child; it was great!"

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

While retaining her regular status on Angel, and pursuing other positions, Amy has made time for what is most important: family. On April 25th, 2003, Amy wed her actor boyfriend James Carpinello at a winery in Calistoga, Northern California’s Napa Valley. Carpinello popped the question while Amy was visiting him in Australia on the set up his upcoming feature film: The Great Raid, starring Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes and James Franco. Amy was even generous enough to cut her Italian honeymoon short to attend the UK End of Days Convention, despite the gorgeous places they were visiting, "We went to the Amalfi Coast and Capri. We could have stayed longer but we wanted to go out to London and see everyone. It really was amazing." For this past summer, Amy has been content with relaxing, "You know, once you go back to work there is so little time to do anything and see your friends, so it was nice to have the summer to just sort of relax." Still, once Angel is back in gear for the fifth season Amy may be taking some more outside jobs. "[The producers] are really nice about trying their best to let us do something. And it may be easier this year because they are really working on making each show separate. In the past, when we’ve had like five episodes of an arc that starts the same, it’s been really hard. Angel is pretty fulltime and exhausting, it’s a lot of wo! rk and to try to do something else while you are doing it, I think would be almost not fair because you want to invest so much in the show."

There are vast possibilities for Amy in her post-Angel future. While she does like to think ahead, Amy feels that ultimately, concerning her career options, "It’s hard to say. Hopefully, I would love to be doing films. I saw "Pirates of the Caribbean" last night; I was like, ’Wow, I’d love to do a period piece or something like that.’ That would just be heaven for me; I like those sort of bigger-than-life projects." Should the opportunity arise, it would be hard to resist the temptation of remaking a classic film female role, "I’d love to do a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany’s or something like that. I love that movie and Audrey Hepburn, I think that would be fun. I don’t know what new exciting thing I would bring to it, I think you would have to be invested in it and see." Regardless of what Amy chooses to pursue, her undeniable talents are sure to continue and carry her into fame.