Ali Larter
October, 2007
TVS HOTTEST HERO TALKS ABOUT HER ON-SCREEN SPLIT PERSONALITY,
DISCUSSES CHEST SIZE, LEARNS TO POLE DANCE AND EXPLAINS
WHY HER IDEAL MAN HAS TO BE A SPORTS FAN
PLAYBOY: On Heroes you play two parts: Niki, the good girl, and her dead sister, Jessica, who is trouble. Since they now see each other only in reflective surfaces, how has your role changed your own mirror routine?
LARTER: Not much. I feel mirrors are more for when you're young and nervous and judging yourself. When I look in the mirror now, I see happy. There's a little twinkle in my eye. It's a nice time in my life. There are always ups and downs and in-betweens, but my family is healthy, I'm in love with my boyfriend, and I love my TV show. It's a nice moment. And here comes the hurricane! [laughs]
PLAYBOY: Imagine the Niki-Jessica action figure. Will they make one with a head that flips or sell two dolls separately? LARTER: If I had to guess based on the way we're going on the show right now, there would be only one. The two characters will merge, taking the strengths of both—Niki's
vulnerability and Jessica's backbone-to make a complete woman.
PLAYBOY: The other heroes have some pretty cool powers. Who would you like to trade with?
LARTER: Ooh! I don't know. For a day I would like to teleport. I would love to experience different time periods. I would love to have felt the counterculture movement in the 1960s, to have been a flapper, to have had dinner with my great-great-grandfather.
PLAYBOY: Your current film is Resident Evil: Extinction. Give us a short course in fighting zombies, killer crows and creatures infected with a terrible virus. LARTER: The movie is two hot girls kicking ass in the desert. I play Claire Redfield, an established video-game character. She is really strong and the leader of a convoy, and she treats all the other characters in different ways: She acts as a mother to one; she
treats another like a boyfriend. She knows what's going on. It's a huge international movie, and I thought the script was pretty good. It was also a chance to go to Mexico for six weeks, kick some butt, shoot some guns, make some money and get a new audience.
PLAYBOY: As part of a sci-fi-fantasy television series, you appear at comicbook conventions. When did you last tell a fan to get a life?
LARTER: I did Comic-Con last year. This year I was at WonderCon for Resident Evil, and a guy asked me. about Heroes. "You're the worst on the show. When are you going to die?" All I could think about was how he must have stayed up late the night before thinking about how he was going to get me. I didn't say "Get a life," because his comment hurt a bit. But I'd say it now.
PLAYBOY: When do you most like being the hot blonde? (continued on page 131)
ALI LARTER
[continued from jmge 73) I-ARTKR: The older I get, the more I like it. I had a harder time when I was younger and lighting to be taken more seriously. I was in a lot of teen genre movies as the blonde character, and I wanted to be this dark, intellectual, brooding character instead. But that wasn't me. Once you stop trying to be someone else, once you give up—and for me it was giving up-— you can have anything you want. They think I'm a dumb blonde? C'esl la vie.
Q7
playboy: About your movie 3-Way, an Internet critic wrote, "The girl you want to see with her shirt off never takes it off. Where is the justice?" Why not give your fans what they want? L\RTER: I don't do nudity. I'm not saying I never will, but what's under my clothes is mine and my lover's. In the right hands nudity can be beautiful and provocative. It has to mean something, not just showing your boobs. There are certainly times when nudity can accentuate a scene. Take Kale Winslet in Uttle Children. How brave and beautiful was she?
PI.AYBOV: How does a real-chested gal of average proportions make it in the land of silicone and surgery? Are you pressured to enhance?
l.ARTKR: Average? I'd say a little smaller than average. [laughs] I have little boobs. I embrace my chest bone, right here [points]. If surgery makes you feel better about your body, I don't judge it. But I would be uncomfortable if I had made that decision. Surgery isn't who I am. It's not what I believe in and not how I want to be in bed.
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1'l.AYiioY; What part of your body do you love more than any other? [.\ri>:k. I have a little belly, and I'm learning to love it. I can't lay a ruler flat from hip bone to hip bone anymore. I definitely have a soft little area. 1 also have a bit of a bubble butt.
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HjXyboY: We read that Niki was originally envisioned as a showgirl but was changed to an Internet stripper because of your physi<|ue. How does a serious actress prepare for a stripper role? i.arikk I did some research. I went online. What struck me most was the blankness in most of their eyes. Thai was what I wanted to show. I thought it was sad, but my boyfriend thought it was thrilling. He'd call while I was researching and say, "Hey, what are you doing?" "I'm online, watching some girls stripping." He was like. "On my way!" In a recent episode I play a pole dancer. I took private lessons for a week, a couple
of hours a day. I have a newfound respect for those women. It's harder than you imagine, but I made it look good.
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im.wboV: How tough was it to flip your hyphenate from model-actress to actress-model?
lARTKR: I did a ton of commercials, teen stuff. I spent time in Milan when I turned 18 and met my best friend there, the actress Amy Smart. It was an opportunity to travel the world and experience different cultures. It wasn't about "Oh, I want to be a supermodel!" When I was 19, I deferred going to NYU and moved to Los Angeles, planning to stay for a year and then come back. I really thought I'd return. I wanted to be a news broadcaster; my goals began and ended with Diane Sawyer. But then I got into acting. I did a couple of TV guest shots but passed on pilot season because I didn't like the idea of being told what to do for the next six years of my life—that is, had I gotten a show. I was a very strong-willed girl from New Jersey who wanted to make it come hell or high water, and I was naive enough to believe I could do it at 20. When I went to Austin, Texas to film Varsity Blues, my first movie role, I felt I was in over my head.
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PLAYBOY: So you soured on Hollywood? larteR: Yes. Eventually I picked up and moved to New York to find myself. I thought I could build on my early success, but instead I made it go away. So I ran around the world: I went boar hunting in Germany, to a grand prix, to Shanghai and Poland. I read A Moveable Feast in Parisian cafes. Eventually I realized that acting is what I want to do, so I came back to Los Angeles. It wasn't easy. I wasn't fresh anymore. I wasn't the new girl in town. I hadn't done a movie in a while. Getting Heroes was definitely a second rite of passage. This time I was ready to put down nx>ts.
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im.wboY: You once wrote a magazine article in which you say you are on a "quest for truth." Gan you handle the truth? i.\rtkr: I spent a month writing it, probably about 40 pages. It was so precious. At the time, I was searching—questioning the business, the foundations of Hollywood, what it meant to be an actor, my responsibilities versus how I felt creatively. I had picked up suddenly and moved from Hollywood to New York, hoping to be around different kinds of people. I read lots of essays and articles to prepare for writing it. I ran handle the truth now, the truth being that every day I wake up and do my best to be who I want to be.
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I'l.WBov Of all the character plotlines on Heroes, which is your favorite guilty pleasure?
r: 1 love Sylar. I love the bad guys. I
always have. But then you grow up and think, Well, is he going to be there teaching my son Little League? No. My idea of the guy for me was wrong for a long while, but that's not saying I didn't have a great time. I've always loved and I've always gotten crushed, but in some amazing way I never got hardened in my heart.
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playboy: You've admitted to having a crush on Rob Lowe in the 1986 movie About Last Night.... How many times did you watch the scene with him and Demi Moore naked in the kitchen? lartkr: Oh my God, so many. And the bathtub scene! I love the scene when Demi Moore walks in, turns on the light and says, "I think we've been in the dark long enough."
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I'l.WBOY: When you cook to seduce, what do you prepare?
I.ARTKR: I'm a huge fan of finger foods: cheese and charcuterie plates. I love starting with champagne and moving to a deep red wine. 1 will definitely end up with some kind of fillet or heavy meat. You would think. Heavy? Well, we might not get to the fillet until after—and God, it's gonna taste good at three a.m.!
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playboy: What's better than a cigarette after sex? lakter: Nothing.
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playboy Describe the delights of growing up in New Jersey.
My dog. Walking to and from ele-
mentary school with my sister. Playing jail-break with all the kids in the neighborhood. Riding my bike to the swim club and eating lots of Swedish Fish. Lightning bugs. Freshly mowed grass. My dad having an orangeade after he mowed the grass, ail sweaty. I loved going to the shore, spending summers at the beach. I loved growing up there. I also had the accent, though it seems to have naturally faded away. But give me a glass of wine and it may come back. My boyfriend says it reappears when I get angry.
Q19
playboy Can you respect a man who isn't into sports?
larter: No. I've tried. I've really tried. I've dated these poetic, dark types, but the truth is, I watched the Eagles, the Phillies and the Flyers, growing up with my father. He coached my Softball team, my soccer team, my swim team. It's so who I am. I love sports, and it's definitely part of what makes a man sexy to me.
C20
phyboy: What interview question do you never want to hear again? i.\rtkr: "So how was that whipped-cream bikini put on in Varsity Blues}" I love the movie now, but 1 didn't five years ago. I was a little girl. I felt emotionally naked as well. It was my first scene in my first movie, and it was the first day of work. It actually worked for the scene, though, because I had to cry. I cried for seven hours because I was so scared that if I stopped I wouldn't be able to start again.
Read the 21st question at playboy.com/21q.
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