Julie Benz fans know her by name, but to a host of others, she's "that girl from..." She's played major roles in popular projects, if not a marquee name herself. In Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel, she was a powerful vampire, Darla, who turned Angel in the first place. On Dexter, she's been the title character's loving girlfriend, and now wife, Rita. You may have also seen her in Rambo, Saw V, Jawbreaker or As Good As It Gets.
She was not in The Boondock Saints however. That series did not require her services until the sequel, 10 years later. FBI Agent Eunice Bloom comes to town to investigate the return of the MacManus brothers. After Agent Smecker passed away (because Willem Dafoe did not return), she's the resident expert on the McManus boys, but she's not entirely who she appears to be either. As part of the Boondock Saints style, Eunice recaps the crime scenes and the audience sees her walk through them. She interacts with the flashbacks, strutting between gunmen and firing back.
Benz called in for an interview a week after wrapping Dexter for the year. This season finds marriage and fatherhood spreading Dexter thin. Rita suspects he is cheating on her or doing drugs. If only she knew he was just a murderer. With only her voice to represent herself, Benz was playful, demanding to see us in person. But, we made do with an exclusive phone call to discuss The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
SuicideGirls: How did you like playing the kickass authority?
Julie Benz: I loved it. I loved it. I had to leave all my vulnerabilities at home and go to work every day and be this strong, sexy woman. I haven't been that in a long time as far as roles that I've played. I've played a lot of victims and love interests, but never this badass, this true badass woman. It was great.
SG: It's true, you used to. Darla was a tough cookie.
JB: Yes, I used to but like everything, you go through phases. It's interesting, the same roles get attracted to you during certain phases in your life so there was a phase where I was the victim or the love interest in everything. Then all of a sudden Eunice comes into my life. It's completely different from anything I've done and a huge challenge, and so much fun to play.
SG: But to be a victim in Dexer or Saw V is not a bad place to explore that.
JB: No, it's definitely not a bad place either. I've been the victim in great material. That's always wonderful. There's nothing wrong with playing the victim. Rita started out very damaged and weak and she has grown strength, but she's still very feminine and soft and vulnerable. She has a lot of vulnerabilities and she pretty much wears her heart on her sleeve. I think that's what makes her so lovely in the series because she's the only one who really is that way. Everybody else has their guard up and has baggage and is jaded. Even though Rita probably has more baggage than anybody else, she still has this very open, optimistic side to her which I think shows her strength. But, then to walk into a role like Eunice who can take on any guy in the room and can take them on intellectually and physically is a whole different energy that I get to tap into.
SG: Do you see her as filling the Willem Dafoe role?
JB: Well, obviously, she fills the role of the FBI agent role coming in. I can't fill Willem Dafoe's shoes. I don't know anybody who can. I like to make a joke that Willem wears a 10 and I'm a size 7. There's just no way I can fill those shoes. All I can do is play Eunice to the best of my ability. I think Eunice stands alone in the bible of the story, in the bible of the script. She stands alone as her own character.
SG: How did you come up with the accent and red hair?
JB: It was all [director] Troy [Duffy]'s vision, the hair and everything. Troy wanted me to have red hair and he wanted this very specific accent. I worked really hard on the accent. Accents are not natural for me. I skyped every night with my dialect coach as well as typed out all my material phoenetically every single day. Then just prayed to God that it would be there. I lived with the accent for about three months where any time you talked to me, that's how I talked.
SG: How much of her body language was yours, or directed by Troy?
JB: I literally walked off set on season three of Dexter on our last day of filming and got in an airplane and walked right onto set in Toronto into Eunice. I had no time to get rid of Rita and bring on a new character.
SG: Her body language is very specific though with her strut and her neck crack.
JB: First of all, I think the shoes had a lot to do with it. I insisted on wearing very high heels. I mean, it wasn't much of an insistence but there were very specific shoes that I wanted to wear because it just completely changes my energy when I'm in a certain type of shoe. Then Troy gave me some very specific guidelines as far as what he wanted. In the beginning, he did help craft a lot of physicality, but then all of a sudden it became natural.
SG: Did you feel sexy in the uniform?
JB: Wow, I mean, I'm carrying a holster and a gun. Yeah, I felt hot. 6" stiletto heels, who doesn't?
SG: Did you get a chance to go to the shooting range?
JB: Not really. There was a moment where I had a little bit of some shooting but that was about it. Since I've wrapped the movie I've gone to the shooting range. Actually, I shoot to kill, I discovered.
SG: Had you been looking for a gunplay action heroine?
JB: Yeah, I mean, it's fun to play these tough women, these badass women that can handle the weapons. It's just fun. It's just an added extra thing to learn. I mean, I now know how to twirl pistols.
SG: A lot of your projects became cult hits. When you go into a series that's already got a cult following, do you feel like, "Okay, I've got this. I know this world."?
JB: I don't necessarily think about that aspect of it. It's more I went into this thinking about Eunice Bloom. I wasn't familiar with The Boondock Saints before I got the role and when they sent me the script, no one told me it was a sequel. The script was sent to me and it was titled All Saints Day. It actually was a really great script, so I didn't know it was a sequel. I had no clue about what Boondock Saints was until after I got the role. Then I discovered the following that it has. It makes sense. It makes perfect sense.
SG: Is there a crossover between this audience and your other work?
JB: I think so, definitely. There were some fans that were a little hesitant because they've only known me as playing Rita on Dexter and they're afraid it's going to be this vulnerable kind of character. They don't understand that it's not. So I hope I change their opinion.
SG: Also, you're an actor.
JB: Right, but if you're only familiar with a certain amount of my work then I don't blame anybody. If you're only familiar with one side of me as an actor and you haven't seen the other side, then it's not your fault that's all you see. It's up to me to prove myself and show that I'm something else.
SG: How does Dexter's following compare to Buffy and Angel?
JB: I think it's the same except unfortunately, with Buffy and Angel in the United States we aired on The WB which was predominantly a teenage network. I don't think we had as wide of an audience as we could have had if, say, we had aired on a major network. I think there's people that have discovered the show on DVD afterwards that didn't watch it because it was solely on The WB. But I think Dexter has that same audience. It has this wide audience. Well, the Buffy/Angel audience obviously has grown up and they're at the age where they're big fans of Dexter now.
SG: Obviously Rita is just thinking about her marriage. Do you ever look in from the outside see Rita as a force trying to normalize Dexter?
JB: No. I mean, I see that. I understand that intellectually but when I'm playing her, I really just play what's on the page. She's just a woman trying to save her marriage basically. I don't really think about the fact that he's a serial killer and all that because Rita doesn't know that. She doesn't know she's trying to normalize him. She's afraid he's either cheating on her or using drugs again. That's it. That's where her head goes. And that's normal. If you were with somebody and they started sneaking around and you found an apartment, would your head go to serial killing? No, your head would go to cheating or drug use, wouldn't it?
SG: A part of me thinks she'd be okay with the truth, since he's only killing bad guys. As long as it's not cheating or using.
JB: Well, is it okay? I don't know if she would say that. I actually don't think she would ever believe it. But let's hope we never have to answer that question.
SG: Never? You don't think the show will ever have her find out?
JB: I mean, they might. Obviously, they probably will. I just personally believe that even if you showed Rita all the evidence, even if you showed her the show and said, "We've been following your husband around. This is what he does in his free time." She would say that's not him. That's not him. It's not out of naivety or stupidity but out of love and strength because when you share your body with someone and your soul and you create a life and you create a human life with that person, it's a reflection of who you are. I think the human condition, we're not equipped to handle that kind of reflection.
SG: Isn't it great we can analyze her like this?
JB: Yes, and I love the people that think if Rita found out, they'd become like Bonnie and Clyde. That's so romantic but I highly doubt that would ever happen.
SG: I also noticed you play a receptionist in As Good As It Gets. Were you the one who asked Jack how he writes women so well?
JB: Yes.
SG: Did you sense at the time that that would be a trailer moment?
JB: No, I actually was hoping it wasn't going to get edited out. When the trailer hit, when the first trailer aired on TV, I remember I was shooting some television show. I forget which one. I went into work and someone goes, "Oh, I saw you in the trailer for As Good as It Gets." I went, "No, that's Helen Hunt. She's the star of the movie. I have one little scene. There's no way you would see me in the trailer." They were like, "No, no, no, it was you." And I'm like, "No, it's not." The next thing you know, I saw it and was like oh my God, it's me. It was a huge honor and completely unexpected. When it came out I heard everybody's bad Jack Nicholson for a good two years.
SG: Did you hear any good ones?
JB: No, because Jack is Jack. No one can do Jack. No one can and they all think they can. The guy at the makeup counter of Saks thought he did a great one and he made me do the scene with him. I got a lot of that.
SG: It's amazing how everyone thinks they should try it on you.
JB: Yeah, and they want to act the scene with me. It's really like uh, well, since I acted with the real thing, why would I want to do it with you?
SG: You became the judge and arbiter of Jack impressions.
JB: And I only spent like half a day with him.
SG: Are you wrapped on Dexter?
JB: I am. I wrapped last week.
SG: Is there a good finale?
JB: It's an amazing finale this season. This season the storyline just kind of slowly builds and builds and builds until this big giant crescendo at the end. It's going to leave you wanting more. It's going to leave you wanting season five.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day opens Friday. Dexter airs Sunday nights on Showtime.
She was not in The Boondock Saints however. That series did not require her services until the sequel, 10 years later. FBI Agent Eunice Bloom comes to town to investigate the return of the MacManus brothers. After Agent Smecker passed away (because Willem Dafoe did not return), she's the resident expert on the McManus boys, but she's not entirely who she appears to be either. As part of the Boondock Saints style, Eunice recaps the crime scenes and the audience sees her walk through them. She interacts with the flashbacks, strutting between gunmen and firing back.
Benz called in for an interview a week after wrapping Dexter for the year. This season finds marriage and fatherhood spreading Dexter thin. Rita suspects he is cheating on her or doing drugs. If only she knew he was just a murderer. With only her voice to represent herself, Benz was playful, demanding to see us in person. But, we made do with an exclusive phone call to discuss The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.
SuicideGirls: How did you like playing the kickass authority?
Julie Benz: I loved it. I loved it. I had to leave all my vulnerabilities at home and go to work every day and be this strong, sexy woman. I haven't been that in a long time as far as roles that I've played. I've played a lot of victims and love interests, but never this badass, this true badass woman. It was great.
SG: It's true, you used to. Darla was a tough cookie.
JB: Yes, I used to but like everything, you go through phases. It's interesting, the same roles get attracted to you during certain phases in your life so there was a phase where I was the victim or the love interest in everything. Then all of a sudden Eunice comes into my life. It's completely different from anything I've done and a huge challenge, and so much fun to play.
SG: But to be a victim in Dexer or Saw V is not a bad place to explore that.
JB: No, it's definitely not a bad place either. I've been the victim in great material. That's always wonderful. There's nothing wrong with playing the victim. Rita started out very damaged and weak and she has grown strength, but she's still very feminine and soft and vulnerable. She has a lot of vulnerabilities and she pretty much wears her heart on her sleeve. I think that's what makes her so lovely in the series because she's the only one who really is that way. Everybody else has their guard up and has baggage and is jaded. Even though Rita probably has more baggage than anybody else, she still has this very open, optimistic side to her which I think shows her strength. But, then to walk into a role like Eunice who can take on any guy in the room and can take them on intellectually and physically is a whole different energy that I get to tap into.
SG: Do you see her as filling the Willem Dafoe role?
JB: Well, obviously, she fills the role of the FBI agent role coming in. I can't fill Willem Dafoe's shoes. I don't know anybody who can. I like to make a joke that Willem wears a 10 and I'm a size 7. There's just no way I can fill those shoes. All I can do is play Eunice to the best of my ability. I think Eunice stands alone in the bible of the story, in the bible of the script. She stands alone as her own character.
SG: How did you come up with the accent and red hair?
JB: It was all [director] Troy [Duffy]'s vision, the hair and everything. Troy wanted me to have red hair and he wanted this very specific accent. I worked really hard on the accent. Accents are not natural for me. I skyped every night with my dialect coach as well as typed out all my material phoenetically every single day. Then just prayed to God that it would be there. I lived with the accent for about three months where any time you talked to me, that's how I talked.
SG: How much of her body language was yours, or directed by Troy?
JB: I literally walked off set on season three of Dexter on our last day of filming and got in an airplane and walked right onto set in Toronto into Eunice. I had no time to get rid of Rita and bring on a new character.
SG: Her body language is very specific though with her strut and her neck crack.
JB: First of all, I think the shoes had a lot to do with it. I insisted on wearing very high heels. I mean, it wasn't much of an insistence but there were very specific shoes that I wanted to wear because it just completely changes my energy when I'm in a certain type of shoe. Then Troy gave me some very specific guidelines as far as what he wanted. In the beginning, he did help craft a lot of physicality, but then all of a sudden it became natural.
SG: Did you feel sexy in the uniform?
JB: Wow, I mean, I'm carrying a holster and a gun. Yeah, I felt hot. 6" stiletto heels, who doesn't?
SG: Did you get a chance to go to the shooting range?
JB: Not really. There was a moment where I had a little bit of some shooting but that was about it. Since I've wrapped the movie I've gone to the shooting range. Actually, I shoot to kill, I discovered.
SG: Had you been looking for a gunplay action heroine?
JB: Yeah, I mean, it's fun to play these tough women, these badass women that can handle the weapons. It's just fun. It's just an added extra thing to learn. I mean, I now know how to twirl pistols.
SG: A lot of your projects became cult hits. When you go into a series that's already got a cult following, do you feel like, "Okay, I've got this. I know this world."?
JB: I don't necessarily think about that aspect of it. It's more I went into this thinking about Eunice Bloom. I wasn't familiar with The Boondock Saints before I got the role and when they sent me the script, no one told me it was a sequel. The script was sent to me and it was titled All Saints Day. It actually was a really great script, so I didn't know it was a sequel. I had no clue about what Boondock Saints was until after I got the role. Then I discovered the following that it has. It makes sense. It makes perfect sense.
SG: Is there a crossover between this audience and your other work?
JB: I think so, definitely. There were some fans that were a little hesitant because they've only known me as playing Rita on Dexter and they're afraid it's going to be this vulnerable kind of character. They don't understand that it's not. So I hope I change their opinion.
SG: Also, you're an actor.
JB: Right, but if you're only familiar with a certain amount of my work then I don't blame anybody. If you're only familiar with one side of me as an actor and you haven't seen the other side, then it's not your fault that's all you see. It's up to me to prove myself and show that I'm something else.
SG: How does Dexter's following compare to Buffy and Angel?
JB: I think it's the same except unfortunately, with Buffy and Angel in the United States we aired on The WB which was predominantly a teenage network. I don't think we had as wide of an audience as we could have had if, say, we had aired on a major network. I think there's people that have discovered the show on DVD afterwards that didn't watch it because it was solely on The WB. But I think Dexter has that same audience. It has this wide audience. Well, the Buffy/Angel audience obviously has grown up and they're at the age where they're big fans of Dexter now.
SG: Obviously Rita is just thinking about her marriage. Do you ever look in from the outside see Rita as a force trying to normalize Dexter?
JB: No. I mean, I see that. I understand that intellectually but when I'm playing her, I really just play what's on the page. She's just a woman trying to save her marriage basically. I don't really think about the fact that he's a serial killer and all that because Rita doesn't know that. She doesn't know she's trying to normalize him. She's afraid he's either cheating on her or using drugs again. That's it. That's where her head goes. And that's normal. If you were with somebody and they started sneaking around and you found an apartment, would your head go to serial killing? No, your head would go to cheating or drug use, wouldn't it?
SG: A part of me thinks she'd be okay with the truth, since he's only killing bad guys. As long as it's not cheating or using.
JB: Well, is it okay? I don't know if she would say that. I actually don't think she would ever believe it. But let's hope we never have to answer that question.
SG: Never? You don't think the show will ever have her find out?
JB: I mean, they might. Obviously, they probably will. I just personally believe that even if you showed Rita all the evidence, even if you showed her the show and said, "We've been following your husband around. This is what he does in his free time." She would say that's not him. That's not him. It's not out of naivety or stupidity but out of love and strength because when you share your body with someone and your soul and you create a life and you create a human life with that person, it's a reflection of who you are. I think the human condition, we're not equipped to handle that kind of reflection.
SG: Isn't it great we can analyze her like this?
JB: Yes, and I love the people that think if Rita found out, they'd become like Bonnie and Clyde. That's so romantic but I highly doubt that would ever happen.
SG: I also noticed you play a receptionist in As Good As It Gets. Were you the one who asked Jack how he writes women so well?
JB: Yes.
SG: Did you sense at the time that that would be a trailer moment?
JB: No, I actually was hoping it wasn't going to get edited out. When the trailer hit, when the first trailer aired on TV, I remember I was shooting some television show. I forget which one. I went into work and someone goes, "Oh, I saw you in the trailer for As Good as It Gets." I went, "No, that's Helen Hunt. She's the star of the movie. I have one little scene. There's no way you would see me in the trailer." They were like, "No, no, no, it was you." And I'm like, "No, it's not." The next thing you know, I saw it and was like oh my God, it's me. It was a huge honor and completely unexpected. When it came out I heard everybody's bad Jack Nicholson for a good two years.
SG: Did you hear any good ones?
JB: No, because Jack is Jack. No one can do Jack. No one can and they all think they can. The guy at the makeup counter of Saks thought he did a great one and he made me do the scene with him. I got a lot of that.
SG: It's amazing how everyone thinks they should try it on you.
JB: Yeah, and they want to act the scene with me. It's really like uh, well, since I acted with the real thing, why would I want to do it with you?
SG: You became the judge and arbiter of Jack impressions.
JB: And I only spent like half a day with him.
SG: Are you wrapped on Dexter?
JB: I am. I wrapped last week.
SG: Is there a good finale?
JB: It's an amazing finale this season. This season the storyline just kind of slowly builds and builds and builds until this big giant crescendo at the end. It's going to leave you wanting more. It's going to leave you wanting season five.
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day opens Friday. Dexter airs Sunday nights on Showtime.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
perry:
she's amazing! i loved her in jawbreaker too..but darla definitely got me hooked. she's too cute.
moz_:
Holy crap! Her voice explode my eardrums.