JENNIFER BEALS NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 2/23/2006


Showtime Spreads the 'Word' for Another Season


Riding a surprising ratings wave for what was already one of its most popular series, Showtime has greenlit a fourth season of "The L Word."

The premium-cable network has ordered 12 more episodes of the show, which began its third season of exploring the lives and loves of a group of lesbian and bisexual L.A. friends last month. Production on the new season will begin next summer, with an airdate likely in 2007.

"'The L Word' without a doubt is one of Showtime's true signature series," says Robert Greenblatt, president of Showtime Entertainment. "We've seen a ratings explosion in season three, the likes of which we would never have predicted. Clearly something has caught fire, and we want the fourth season in production as soon as possible."

Showtime doesn't release specific ratings figures, but the network says viewership for "The L Word" are up by better than 50 percent over last season's first few episodes.

The show picked up its first Emmy nomination last year -- a guest-acting nod for Ossie Davis, who played father the father of Beals' and Grier's characters.



News for 2/14/2006


'L Word' Star a Match for 'Grudge 2'


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - What a feeling ... and that feeling is a grudge.

"The L Word" star and former "Flashdancer" Jennifer Beals has signed up to star in the horror sequel "The Grudge 2," according to The Hollywood Reporter. Few details have been released about her specific role, but she will play a victim of the terrifying grudge.

The follow-up to the 2004 Sarah Michelle Gellar hit will star "Joan of Arcadia's" Amber Tamblyn as the younger sister of Gellar's character. The "Buffy" actress will only make a brief appearance in this installment. A bunch of new, seemingly unrelated people (Arielle Kebbel, Teresa Palmer, among others) will come into contact with the malevolent curse.

Takashi Shimizu, helmer for the original Japanese film and the American remake, will begin filming next week in Tokyo, with a projected October release in mind.

Beals, 42, stars in Showtime's "The L Word," which has been picked up for a fourth season. Her more recent films include "Roger Dodger," "Runaway Jury" and "Catch That Kid."



News for 1/10/2006


The following news item appeared in the December 12, 2005 issue of Jet Magazine





News for 11/21/2005


'L Word' Star Beals Gives Birth to Girl


Jennifer Beals has taken her passion and made it happen.

The "L Word"/"Flashdance" star and her husband Ken L. Dixon are the proud new parents of a baby girl, reports People.

The baby was born sometime last month and is Beals' first child. Her publicist says that "the family is very happy and Jennifer and the baby are doing great," but did not divulge the newborn's name or exact birth date.

Dixon has two children from a previous marriage. Beals was married once before to filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell, who directed her in "In the Soup" and "Four Rooms."

Beals, 41, first shot to fame as the exotic dancer/welder in 1983's "Flashdance." Her other films include "Devil in a Blue Dress," "The Last Days of Disco," "The Anniversary Party," "Rodger Dodger" and "Runaway Jury."

She currently stars in Showtime's "The L Word," which is in production on its upcoming third season.



News for 5/30/2005


The following article appeared in the May 16, 2005 issue of People Magazine





News for 2/17/2005


Beals Returns for New Season of 'L Word'

By FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer


NEW YORK (AP) - Ask Jennifer Beals what she's learned playing a gay gal on "The L Word," Showtime's sexy melodrama about lesbian life in L.A., and she sizes up the human condition: "There are more similarities among us than differences."

One notable example is how all manner of girls and boys will join in welcoming "The L Word" when, back for its second season 10 p.m. EST Sunday, it reunites the dishy sapphic sisters played by (among others) Mia Kirshner, Katherine Moennig, Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey. And finds Beals' character, Bette, in a real stew.

This season Bette will face fearsome funding problems at the art museum she runs. Worse, it looks like her relationship with Tina (Laurel Holloman), her longtime partner now pregnant with the child they had dreamed of parenting, is on the rocks.

"What a brutal year! It's awful!" Beals chuckles. "There's this moment in the eighth episode where Bette has one little moment of victory and joy. I burst into tears when I read it. `Something good happens to Bette, everyone!' I was so excited."

A veteran actress who at 41 appears barely older than she did as the welder/would-be ballerina in 1983's "Flashdance," Beals says she originally came to "The L Word" far less focused on portraying a fashion-forward lesbian than on the challenge of depicting an art museum boss.

A lesbian relationship "is about love and it's about attraction," she reasons. "I understood love and attraction. I didn't know anything about art."

The art of "The L Word" has been its spicy recipe of girl-on-girl explicitness blended with a hip California lifestyle anyone might fantasize about.

By design, the series is au courant. But thanks to Bette and Tina, with their ups and downs, it has scored a bit of unsought currency: Since "The L Word" premiered, gay marriage has been certified as a wedge issue splitting the nation.

"I'm always shocked that gay marriage is such a big deal," says Beals over coffee in a Lower East Side patisserie she loves visiting when she's in town. "You have to realize how precious human life is, when there are tsunamis and mudslides, when there are armies and terrorists _ at any moment, you could be gone, and potentially in the most brutal fashion.

"And then you have to realize that love is truly one of the most extraordinary things you can experience in your life. To begrudge someone else their love of another person because of gender seems to me absolutely absurd.

"It's based in fear, fear of the other, fear of what is not like you," she says. "But when you are able to see lives on a day-to-day basis, rather than reducing it to politics, then it humanizes a whole community of people that were otherwise invisible. I think pop culture is really helpful in letting people see another side of life."

One side of life she had a personal stake in displaying: "I requested that we make Bette biracial," says Beals, herself of mixed-race parentage.

This gave the series another useful twist, allowing Kit, a straight friend played by Pam Grier ("Foxy Brown"), to become Bette's half-sister. "A biracial character is something I would have liked to have seen on TV when I was a child."

Since she took a break from Yale to make off-the-shoulder sweat shirts de rigueur in "Flashdance," Beals has logged dozens of films. Among those for which she feels special pride: "Devil in a Blue Dress," "Roger Dodger," "Twilight of the Golds" (a 1996 Showtime movie) and "In the Soup," an independent feature released in 1992. Also "Flashdance," which she made, then _ refusing to bank on its spectacular success _ followed up by heading back to Yale.

"I never wanted to be a superstar," says Beals, flinching. "My heart just did an `uhhhhhhhhhh' at the thought of it." No wonder. This is a private person who identifies her husband only as Ken, and loves describing the Philosophy of Sanskrit class she's currently enrolled in, but declines to say where.

Hers is a career she's happy with, she says, "and I hope I'll be acting till the day I die. It's something you can never finish, never get to the center of."

Happily, she isn't finished with "The L Word": It's already renewed for a third season, which means the series' sisterhood will reconvene in Vancouver, where it's shot, in a few months.

Then Beals can again rely on one more thing she's learned playing a lesbian: That in their shared state of undress, actresses will protect each other from the camera's prying eye.

"You can say, `I don't feel so great about this part of my body today. When we roll over, can you make sure your hand is covering that cellulite?' And you can have her augment things: I've had scenes where I went, `Can you just lift it up, so I look a little bit more ripened?'

"Every guy I've ever done a love scene with has forgotten. But women understand what you mean, they understand how important it is," says Beals, smiling at this case of sisters doing it for themselves: "I'll cover yours if you cover mine."



News for 8/3/2004


The following article appeared in the August 2004 issue of Lifetime Magazine





News for 5/3/2004


The following article appeared in the April 12, 2004 issue of People Magazine





News for 4/6/2004


The following article appeared in the March 2004 issue of InStyle Magazine





News for 1/18/2004


'The L Word' here is limelight

By James Endrst
Special for USA TODAY


SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Jennifer Beals didn't sign on to a starring role in Showtime's provocative new ensemble series, The L Word, to get attention.

She's going to get it anyway, starting Sunday when the drama — a cross between a female Queer as Folk and Sex and the City— makes its debut with a two-hour opener (10 p.m. ET/PT).

Beals, still most identified with her role as the welder/dancer in 1983's Flashdance, the movie that launched her career when she was barely out of high school, isn't comfortable in the spotlight.

"I'm a very private person," she says over lunch at a Santa Monica beach hotel restaurant, seated at one of the more secluded tables.So what is she doing in a racy series about a group of trendy lesbian friends in L.A.?

"It's funny, I didn't think of it as being a bold move," says Beals, 40, who is married to a Canadian she identifies only as "Ken." (Her 10-year marriage to director Alexandre Rockwell ended in 1996)."I just read a script that had a really wonderful character, and it seemed that something really amazing was being set down in my lap."

Beals plays Bette Porter, an art curator on a mission to find the perfect sperm donor for her partner, Tina (Laurel Holloman).

Race, as well as sexuality, is an issue in the early episodes. Beals' character is biracial; her girlfriend is white. On The L Word, Beals is able to tap into her own racial heritage — her late father was African-American, her mother is white.And she says race will continue to be a "really big" part of the 13-episode series."So much of the show is about identity: How do we define ourselves? How do other people see us and what are the confines that our culture puts us into?"

The L Word doesn't waste any time proving it will embrace physical intimacy. But as Beals points out: "Two women who are in love with each other and who are having sex with each other is much more permissible in society than two men."

Though nudity is not in short supply, Beals is not one of the actors who bares it all."You don't see anything of me," says the Yale graduate. Beals made it clear to Showtime she wouldn't do nude scenes unless she saw a good reason for it, believing "a well-placed hand" suggests just as much.

Still, Beals has her share of steamy sex scenes, which are not always easy to shoot."The way we approach the love scenes, they're not always about love. Sometimes they're about possession. Sometimes they are about intimacy, and sometimes there is fighting going on at the same time."She has made one discovery, however.

"Doing a love scene with a woman is easier than with a man. Because when you say to the other woman, 'Look, I have issues with this or that part of my body, can you put your hand there,' they know what you're talking about, and the hand doesn't move. Whereas a guy will forget. Because he doesn't know the meaning of cellulite."



News for 7/15/2003


Jennifer Beals to Play Lesbian in Series


By The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Jennifer Beals didn't think twice about playing a lesbian in the upcoming Showtime television series "The L Word."

"One of the most important things for me was the fact that it could be so impactful and that it could be so helpful in terms of breaking down stereotypes," she told the Television Critics Association. "Somebody might tune into the show for one reason and then come away having learned something that they had never even considered."

Beals describes herself as a "biracial heterosexual woman." She said the question of her sexuality has come up since the show started filming.

"What becomes interesting is to think about how easy it is for a heterosexual actress or actor to play someone who is homosexual, how that's somehow permissible, but for a homosexual to be out and portray a homosexual character it becomes sort of much more problematic for an audience to accept," she said. "As a species, we're so fixated and curious about this mystery of sexuality."

The series about the lives and loves of a group of West Hollywood women, many of whom are lesbians, also stars Pam Grier and Mia Kirshner. It debuts in January. Beals gained fame in the 1983 movie "Flashdance."



News for 5/31/2003


Pop Quiz with Jennifer Beals from the May 12, 2003 issue of People Magazine.







The following article appeared in the November 11, 2002 issue of Newsweek Magazine.