CHRIS NEUMER: One thing you'll notice, is there's no mention of what you're wearing on the red carpet, no mention of relationships or anything like that. Unfortunately, for this story, there's a couple things I have to ask that I just feel bad about asking. There's nothing like the Stuff magazine questions, asking you what kind of underwear you wear when you go to bed, nothing like that. It's just about whether you find dating actors hard. But one of the things I want to ask you, and don't slap me or tell me to go to hell, but have you ever come across any instances like that on the casting couch?
LAURA RAMSEY: What's the casting couch?
CHRIS NEUMER: This is actually good. Back in the day, there used to be the kind of thing where, "If you sleep with me, I'll give you the part." That's why they call it the casting couch.
LAURA RAMSEY: Oh...
CHRIS NEUMER: In the acting world, this would be like, I'm talking to my daughter, she's 18, and I say, "Have you ever had sex?" And she says, "What's sex?" A) I can't believe you've never heard of this, and B) this is pretty cool. So that's the thing. Like Don Simpson, he was Jerry Bruckheimer's producing partner until he died in '95. He did Top Gun, and he did a lot of other things, but was renowned for bringing in actresses and telling them, "You do this, you get the part." It was college hottie #1 in the credits, but he was renowned for doing that.
LAURA RAMSEY: I definitely heard about that, but I never knew that's what it was called. I would never be able to do that first of all, I have a really bad guilty conscious, you've got to work to get where you want to go, in any case, in any job. You have to work and I would feel like a miserable, miserable, lost soul if I ever had to do that, or I'd feel so sorry for the girls that do that because it's not going to get them anywhere. It makes me sick, really.
CHRIS NEUMER: But you have heard of that kind of thing going on still? I'm not looking for names, I'm just saying.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah. I've heard that it's happened, or things like that go on, for sure, and they never end up getting the job anyway, right?
CHRIS NEUMER: That's the trick, yeah.
LAURA RAMSEY: Of course! There are those guys everywhere. Here, it's like the cheating on the wives, and all that stuff. It's like a devil town. The devil.
CHRIS NEUMER: I hate this unholy city and everything in it. Except you.
LAURA RAMSEY: You know what my word is? My family and everyone knows, it's "grim." Like "You're not feeling well? Oh, that's grim." My company is even called Grim Entertainment.
CHRIS NEUMER: You have a company?
LAURA RAMSEY: Well, I'm corporate now, so I got to choose a name, and that's what I chose.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh. Getting back, so you're out here. Is there anything that was particularly strange to you about the nature of the business? Like maybe a thank you after the interview was just as important as the interview, not wearing Ugg boots to something, anything like that? Is there anything that surprised you, like how old are you now, 22, 23?
LAURA RAMSEY: 23.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is there anything that surprised you? Like, I never realized that I could just call up and get DVD's, like I could call Warner Brothers and ask for x,y and z, and they'd send them out because we have a magazine. I never realized that. I never realized that I could just ask for things. And now I look back and I think, how didn't I know that? Is there anything like that?
LAURA RAMSEY: Honestly, I'm still learning everything. Little things like calling my manager, like I didn't want to bother her. I didn't know.
CHRIS NEUMER: There's no way to say this without sounding very patronizing, but that's extremely cute.
LAURA RAMSEY: I just don't know these things. I must have been so deprived growing up. I'm literally from a town of 800 people, there's no stoplights, and one gas stations, and I lived there my whole life. I never even really went to Milwaukee, or Madison.
CHRIS NEUMER: Where are you if you're on a map? Like here's Chicago, where are you?
LAURA RAMSEY: I'm about here.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is that by Beloit?
LAURA RAMSEY: I’m by Fond-du-lac. I’m an hour and a half from Madison, northwest. East? I’m really bad at geography.
CHRIS NEUMER: You should feel right at home in LA then. Also looking at things, I saw you got a picture of yourself on gofugyourself wearing a dress to the Underworld 2 premiere.
LAURA RAMSEY: What’s that?
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s a web-site where they post pictures of celebrities wearing different things and make snarky comments about them.
LAURA RAMSEY: I had no idea.
CHRIS NEUMER: You’ve apparently never googled yourself, huh?
LAURA RAMSEY: No, I don’t like to do that.
CHRIS NEUMER: I do that on a weekly basis. But Jen Hall was really excited when she found out that she was on that site. She saw it as a sign of ‘making it’ to a degree.
LAURA RAMSEY: What’d they say about my outfit?
CHRIS NEUMER: Um… Now, I’m paraphrasing, but they said something to the effect of: when are starlets going to realizing that wearing bad outfits to get publicity is a bad idea. It was kind of tame for what they normally have. It’s like going to Ed Debevic’s or one of those other places that specializes in insulting you and they ask you if you need a comb. It’s like, "That’s the best you could do?"
LAURA RAMSEY: Those people need to get a life that do that. Don’t they have anything else to do other than be on the computer and talk about people’s outfits? I didn’t even know I was on there.
CHRIS NEUMER: It was for Underworld 2.
LAURA RAMSEY: That was my hippy dress and I like my hippy dress. (laughs) I got it at the flea market for $20. I hate buying expensive clothes, so I got to the flea market and get everything there for cheap and I wear them because I need to make a statement. Whatever.
CHRIS NEUMER: Some people have told me that they’d like to be in a car with a felon on the run because their name would get out there. A) I said, "that’s a terrible analogy and B) I asked, "Anything you can do to bring publicity to your name is good?" and she said yes. Is any news about you good news? Or are you more discerning?
LAURA RAMSEY: You know what I feel? I feel like there are a lot of girls–and it’s funny, I was just talking to this girl at a party the other night and she said, "I just can’t wait to be famous because then I won’t have to audition anymore!"
CHRIS NEUMER: Uh huh… She get’s it.
LAURA RAMSEY: Honestly, I swear to God, I want to act. I do magazines because I want to work. I want to act, I want to be on set, I want to do great movies. But I don’t go places so that I can have my picture taken and printed. This girl talked about walking down Robertson so the paparazzi would see her. Whatever they’re saying, I don’t care about. I don’t read that stuff. I just want to work.
CHRIS NEUMER: Somebody had made a comment to me about being blacklisted and followed it up with the statement, "At least I made it high enough to get blacklisted." I found it kind of depressing, but it rings a bell when we’re talking about actresses going out in order to be followed by the paparazzi.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah it is.
CHRIS NEUMER: But if you’re at a level where people are making fun of what you wear, you’ve gotten to a certain point where people care.
LAURA RAMSEY: But who are these people? And why do they care? That’s the question.
CHRIS NEUMER: That blog is one of the top 100 blogs too. It’s at 68 or something like that. Are there any things that you’re doing right now–do you have any boundaries that you’ve set for yourself? No nudity? No acting opposite CG dogs, no prequels? Anything like that?
LAURA RAMSEY: No. The thing is that I’m not going to say no right now to opportunity. There could be a great independent film with a great script and a great cast that needs me to do nudity and is there for a point or has artistic value then I will. It’s important, I’m not going to say no to anything on spec because that means I’d be turning down possibly good opportunities.
CHRIS NEUMER: I like that answer. Jen’s answer to that question is still my favorite though. She told me she’d just been offered a movie where it opened with her blowing a dog and she said that that was getting close to being something that she might consider, maybe, not doing.
LAURA RAMSEY: I would never do something like that. NEVER. I know I said never, but…
CHRIS NEUMER: The movie she was talking about was a mainstream project too.
LAURA RAMSEY: Wow. That’s funny.
CHRIS NEUMER: You’ve done teenage slasher films, right?
LAURA RAMSEY: Oh, yeah.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s about the gratuity though, right? It’s one thing to be in the teenage slasher film, it’s another to be the naked girl who gets killed in the opening scene.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah. I did The Covenant, which I have coming out in September, and there’s a shower scene in that that I agreed to do, but it was on a closed set where you wear these things over your [nipples] and they can only shoot from here up. If it was just for tits and ass, no.
CHRIS NEUMER: Can you reach a point where you’re like, "I’m not doing any more horror unless it’s Wes Craven?"
LAURA RAMSEY: Kind of, yeah, because you lose creative interest. I did an independent film called Cool World, which is a horror movie, and then I did this movie Venom, but Kevin Williamson did that, so it was like okay! And it was being done at Miramax. Then I did The Covenant, which is sort of a thriller and I did She’s the Man which was a comedy. I’m getting to the point where I want to do something artistic in that I feel like I want to control the acting and be dramatic. I want to do something that means something to me.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is there a role that would have fit that billing that you’ve seen recently?
LAURA RAMSEY: Of course, something like Monster, with Charlize Theron. Something where you can get bigger or smaller or change your look, or lose a lot of weight because you’re a drug addict or gain weight too.
CHRIS NEUMER: Just a non-sequitur, but can you actually lose weight? I’m looking at your arms and wondering if it’s even possible for you to lose "a lot" of weight.
LAURA RAMSEY: I guess not a lot of weight, but if I played a heroin addict, I’d do something.
CHRIS NEUMER: I understand what you’re saying.
LAURA RAMSEY: To play someone with no makeup and a character who is natural. I go out for these things that are like the beautiful hot girl, the popular hot girl and I would like to dye my hair or get piercings. Something cool and creative that I can build a character.
CHRIS NEUMER: So you want to go Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah, something that they don’t normally see me as.
CHRIS NEUMER: You are really attractive. It seems like in a certain way that could be an anchor around your neck in that you want to play the fat girl and they want you to be a cheerleader. Have your looks ever hurt you in trying to land a role?
LAURA RAMSEY: I’ve actually gotten that before: they think I’m too pretty for a role.
CHRIS NEUMER: I just realized how unique that is. I’ve never been too pretty for anything.
LAURA RAMSEY: I don’t want to sound conceited, but I’ve had that before. I tested for a movie that just did really well and they wanted to have someone with brown hair and all that. It’s really depressing.
CHRIS NEUMER: You have met with success. You’re starting to get leads and people are starting to recognize your name, has this impacted your personal life any?
LAURA RAMSEY: Um… not really. When you work with girls and you work on a movie with them, you start realizing that you’re always up for the same things and that’s a little odd. You’re like, "I went in for that too." But that’s the nature of this business. There are so many girls and there is so much competition.
CHRIS NEUMER: So it’s not something where you’re like, "Lacey Chabert, you bitch, I can’t believe you got that part!"
LAURA RAMSEY: No. You know what’s really odd? I feel like–here comes my guilty conscience again–I feel like as long as I’m religious, I feel like God’s watching over me and it sounds really weird, but I feel like whenever someone else gets something that I didn’t, I feel like there’s a reason for that. I trust that God has my path planned. If they get something, I’m happy for them because it wasn’t meant for me, so whatever I get is great.
CHRIS NEUMER: I feel exactly the opposite. If I don’t get something, I figure God hates me and is punishing me.
LAURA RAMSEY: (laughs) But you’re out here writing and doing what you love. That’s got to count for something.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m actually still up in Chicago, I just come out here every other month or so. I could never move out here. I hate it out here. No, that’s not true. I hate being out here and constantly having to deal with the ethos of the Hollywood society and all the people who want to make it big
LAURA RAMSEY: That’s true.
CHRIS NEUMER: Roger Ebert makes it okay to live in Chicago and write about film.
LAURA RAMSEY: Jeff Daniels is in Michigan. I can’t wait until I can move to where I want to move and not stay here my whole life. I love the weather in LA beautiful. It’s February and I’m wearing a tank top right now!
CHRIS NEUMER: I got sun burned jogging on the beach the other day.
LAURA RAMSEY: I love the weather and I love Laurel Canyon, the country store is the best. Whenever I need to go out there to audition though, uh uh. I can retreat to my house and it’s super cool and really cute. This is a little community on it’s own though. My neighbors are cool. I’m lucky.
CHRIS NEUMER: that’s the way I feel about where I live in Chicago.
LAURA RAMSEY: We’re coming through there on a press tour soon. And we’re going to the Mall of America in Minneapolis.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is that a big thing for you?
LAURA RAMSEY: Growing up I was always like, "I want to go to the Mall of America!" and my mom would tell me no.
CHRIS NEUMER: this is a little thing that you’re finally able to accomplish–even if it is only going to the Mall of America–thanks to your acting.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah, who’d have ever thought I’d ever be in Montreal or Vancouver. I know it’s only Canada, but I never thought in my life I’d get to live in California and survive and then get paid to go to all these interesting places.
CHRIS NEUMER: You do have to deal with journalists though. I don’t know what I call them, because I can’t quite accept them as my colleagues. I was talking about this earlier today: a reality TV show focused on a booth of hot women down at San Diego’s Comicon.
LAURA RAMSEY: What’s that?
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s the comic book convention.
LAURA RAMSEY: Oh, okay.
CHRIS NEUMER: This is where guys dress up like storm troopers and debate about which version of Superman is better. I’m not beyond that debate, but A) it won’t take place while I’m dressed like a storm trooper and B) not while I’m surrounded by thousands of people. You would never have anything to do with this scene if it weren’t in your contract, as evidenced by the fact that you don’t know what they are. I try to keep my distance, but sometimes a friend of mine will be in town working on one and I’ll go. The last time I was at one of these conventions, I met up with an attractive female friend of mine and hung out with her in the booth. When I went to go get something to drink, I had about three guys coming up to me to ask whether or not I could hook them up with one another.
LAURA RAMSEY: That is so funny.
CHRIS NEUMER: Is this your first press tour?
LAURA RAMSEY: Yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’ll be interesting. You’ll hear a lot of the same questions over and over and over again. The first time, someone will ask you, "What was it like working with ____" and you’ll say, "He’s an interesting guy and a good actor. I enjoyed riffing with him and he kept things lively on set, which really aided our chemistry together. We both believed in this project, as our paychecks will confirm, and I couldn’t have asked for a better co-star." The 30th time you hear that question, it’s, "It was great." Have there been any things that your team of agents, managers and publicists have warned you about? We can tackle this in two parts. First, has your publicist coached you about things and secondly, have your agents and managers advised you to steer clear of any projects or types of directors?
LAURA RAMSEY: My agent and manager guide me, but it’s a team thing. They’ll say, "The benefits of it are that you get to travel," but they’ll tell you that you can pass on it too. They never really say, "Don’t do this!" It’s more about giving me options. Ultimately, I’m the decision maker. It’s my career and my life, so I do that part.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s a good point to be at. What about for publicity? Do you have a path to create a Laura Ramsey brand?
LAURA RAMSEY: Publicity is publicity. I still thank God that people want to talk with me, you know? It’s still cool. It’s fun talking about things, it’s kind of like a therapy session, I get to get it all out.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’ll send you the bill, but I warn you, I’m so good, it’s going to be pretty high.
LAURA RAMSEY: (laughs)
CHRIS NEUMER: Have you done a lot of interviews at this point?
LAURA RAMSEY: I’ve done a lot, but not like extreme amounts of them.
CHRIS NEUMER: Do you have a preference on the type: phone vs. in person?
LAURA RAMSEY: I like in person much better.
CHRIS NEUMER: Somebody told me that he liked the phone a lot more because he had to do much less to get ready. I think he did an interview with someone naked. On the off-chance I do phone interviews, I always ask people now if they’re clothed.
LAURA RAMSEY: With the phone thing, it’s okay, but I feel like in person you get more out of something.
CHRIS NEUMER: And sarcasm doesn’t always come through over the phone. You learn this the hard way, of course. Yeah, I’d be talking to you and you’d make one Hitler joke and I misunderstand and the next thing you know, that’s the lead. Let me preface my next question with a story: I did a story on Jenny McCarthy to make my friends jealous. Looking at the questions she got asked, I have them here, take a look. [hands Ramsey some questions McCarthy has been asked] Why do you get turned on by guys with hammers? Do you like having sex with other women? So, I wanted to ask you, first, if watching guys with hammers turns you on and then I wanted to find out how you’ve dealt with these questions thus far.
LAURA RAMSEY: I haven’t actually had any of these. Those are more like guy questions.
CHRIS NEUMER: Asshole guy questions. If a guy came up to you on the street and asked you any of those, you’d slap him.
LAURA RAMSEY: Yeah, in my interviews, I’d much rather talk about art and what I’m working on that what I do in my personal life. That’s not anyone’s business, even for Maxim. What do I wear to bed or what turns me on, that’s not what you should be asking me. If you’re going to be interviewing me, you should ask me about that, you should ask me about acting and what’s going on in my professional life.
CHRIS NEUMER: So you’re probably turning down the interviews with Maxim.
LAURA RAMSEY: I don’t think I’ve been asked to do them.
CHRIS NEUMER: At the risk of beating a dead subject further into the ground, if you were asked in the future to do Maxim with a photo shoot, is that something you’d turn down?
LAURA RAMSEY: If that happened, I’d have to decided then and see what the benefits were to me then.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s a very good non-answer. Have you been coached about anything of acting? Media training or anything like that?
LAURA RAMSEY: I haven’t done that. I just want to talk. I’ve never been coached on what to say or not to say.
CHRIS NEUMER: Anything else you want to add? Any funny stories involving doing coke with Gary Busey?
LAURA RAMSEY: No, I don’t think so.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m sorry, the correct answer to that question is, "I’ve never done coke… with Gary Busey."
LAURA RAMSEY: In that case, I’ve never done coke… with Gary Busey.
CHRIS NEUMER: Good, I’ll take this to mean I did my job just that well.
