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Interview with The L Word ‘s Daniela Sea

You may have never heard of Daniela Sea, but after the third season of The L Word premieres on Showtime on Jan. 8, she’s going to become a household name. As the new recurring character, Moira, who falls in love with Jenny Schechter (Mia Kirshner), Sea promises to bring a butch sensibility to the show that has been criticized for playing it too safe on the genderqueer spectrum.

And if any actress should know their way around the complex politics of queer identity, it’s Sea. The daughter of a gay father and raised in a liberal, hippie family, Sea came out when she was a teenager and soon moved to San Francisco, where she began playing in punk bands. As an adult, she backpacked extensively through Europe and Central Asia, going so far as to pass as a man while traveling through India.

Prior to her stint on The L Word, Sea was probably best known for being the significant other of indie musician and artist Bitch (formerly of Bitch and Animal, now known as Capital B, and pictured with Sea in the photo above, right). We talked to her the day after she returned to the New York apartment she shares with Bitch, following a whirlwind six months on the set of The L Word.

AfterEllen: How did you come to get this role on The L Word? Daniela Sea : For a lot of years I’ve just been concentrating on traveling and writing and music…and about a year and a half ago I started taking my acting seriously. I had studied it when I was younger, at Laney College in Oakland. I’d run away from home when I was 16 and moved out there.

AE: You ran away from home? DS:Yeah, I ran away when I was 16 from L.A. and I moved to the Bay area, like a good gay kid would. I took my GED and I started studying at Laney College, and I had this great improv teacher, Lou. It was so cool, because it really was a great learning environment for me because I responded well to being in a really diverse class. There were single moms and senior citizens and people my age, and all different cultural backgrounds. It was really cool, so I really enjoyed it.

But I think growing up in L.A., I had this feeling that being who I was-you know, being such a tomboy, basically-why would I think I could…pursue acting? At the same time I was involved at the Gilman Street Project in Berkeley. We did some theater stuff… but mostly it was music. I was also a musician, so I started playing in a band and then I started touring and I kind of left the acting thing behind, although I did do a lot of street theater in my coming years in Europe.

AE: What kind of musician are you? DS: I played in some different punk bands. I played in a San Francisco band, The Cipher in the Snow, it was an all-women band. And I played in a band called the Gr’ups-we’re actually doing a reunion in the spring, which is really cool. That was a punk band out of Gilman, and we toured in Europe and the U.S., and I ended up staying over in Europe. I did some street theater stuff, and I traveled with a Polish circus, and I just really lived a pretty different life than what I grew up seeing around me. And that’s what I’d always dreamed of, so that was great for a lot of years.

Then I ended up back in New York [due to] a lot of different circumstances, and while I was here I just realized that I’d been missing this thing [acting] that I loved so much…. So I just [began] letting everyone know that’s what I was doing now. Basically I just said, OK, I’m an actor, and…it just felt to me, now, that there was a place for a person like me in movies and TV. It just seems like so much has opened up for queer people, you know?

So I followed my heart. And a few weeks after letting people know, I got this audition for John Cameron Mitchell’s coming film [Shortbus], which will be coming out in February. I got called back a few times and I ended up getting the part, and that was great because it was so part of my culture and scene, and it was a good…introduction into the film world, because that’s something I really believed in; I really saw his vision. I really loved the people I worked with, and it was a real communal feeling. Actually a lot of the script was based on improvisation, and…it was really exciting. We workshopped that for a while, and he came up with a script, and then we started shooting it the following year, which would be last spring.

AE: 2005? DS: Yeah, spring 2005. At the same time I was working at my restaurant job in the West Village, and I was making myself a reel. I made myself a reel and sent that off to somebody who I’d known from the Bay area who was on the writing team at The L Word, and they passed it on to whoever, and after that I got another call saying, “Can you send us an audition tape?” which Bitch and I and my friend made. We set up lights in the house. It was all really DIY and it was all really last-minute, like “Can you have this thing to us in three days?”

AE: So what do you put on an audition tape? DS: They tell you which sides they want you to read, which are in the script, and then you just…act it out. I’m not sure how people normally do it. I’ve seen that someone’s agent would set up a little studio area and they would make it, but we just made it in our house. About two days after I’d wrapped on John’s film, I was back at work. It was my first day back at the restaurant, and I got this call, it was a Thursday evening, and it was like, “Can you be in L.A.”-I’m in New York, right?-“Can you be in L.A. tomorrow at noon?”

So I said yes. And my friends were so great; they took all my shifts for me, and I just flew out there, spent my last money on tickets, and I did the audition. By the following Tuesday-so that was a Friday audition-by next Tuesday I got the call that I got the job. Then they flew me out Wednesday morning, and I actually haven’t been back to New York until last night. And that was May 30th, I think. A town car came and picked me up at five in the morning, and by the next morning I was doing my first scenes.

AE: Wow . So when you went to L.A. for the audition, did you meet any of the cast at that point? DS:Mia auditioned with me because my role is as her new romance. They wanted to see how we would work together.

AE: So tell me about the character that you’re playing. DS:Moira. Moira’s really cool. [She’s] this Midwestern butch; she’s a computer technician; really gentlemanly. Actually she has a really sweet side also, as a lot of butches that we know do. In a way, she’s a real gentleman. I feel like she’s the type who’ll open doors for the femmes, or carry heavy stuff, but also I feel like [she] has a real respect for people on the more feminine side of the spectrum as intellectuals. Definitely Jenny Schechter’s character is really brilliant, and that’s what Moira loves in her. I don’t feel like she’s condescending; she just likes to be the strong guy around to help her out.

Basically we see [Moira and Jenny] fall in love and make their way to L.A., and then in L.A., Moira starts to learn a lot about herself and…what’s possible for her in the world, kind of feeling her way out-not just to fit into L.A., but just kind of taking up space in the world. We’ll see the different trials, the cultural differences between [the Midwest] and L.A., and also a lot of class stuff. She’s coming from a working class family…. She’s a college graduate and has already started working in the tech world, but [she’s] culturally pretty working class.

AE: Do you feel that you resemble her at all, or are you totally different from her? DS: Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of similarities, definitely. I feel like my world travels and my upbringing by really liberal parents-that’s something that makes us different. But at heart, and on the spectrum [we are both on] the more boyish/tomboy side-and also the gentlemanly [behavior], we definitely have a lot in common. I just think Moira hasn’t seen as much of the world as me, and also has had quite a different upbringing [in] a more conservative area. She was also brought up with Catholic things, unlike me-my parents were total hippie artists. [But] it wasn’t a huge stretch for me at all. I could really sympathize with Moira, and of course I see myself in her in some ways.

AE: Does she get involved with anyone besides Jenny? DS: Well, that’s…I can’t answer that one.

AE: What was your favorite part about being on The L Word? DS: My favorite part? That’s a good question; I should have a ready-made answer for you. I’m not sure about my favorite favorite, but at this moment when I think about it, I think it was really great to just be able to do the work, to delve into being an actor-and on such a scale like that and for so many months. To be concentrating on that for five months was great for me. I just learned so much. I guess another thing would be that the learning environment was so welcoming, and…I really feel like I made a lot of good bonds there with terrific directors. I just learned a lot.

AE: So I imagine, since your character gets involved with Jenny, you’ve filmed some love scenes. How did you feel about doing that, especially as kind of a beginning actor? DS: A funny fact would be that our first scene was actually a making out scene. I just got thrown right in there. You know what? It’s fine. It’s funny because it doesn’t feel like you’re?I mean, I don’t know if it doesn’t feel like you’re making out with somebody, but it breaks it down to this really technical thing. For example, you start the scene, and then it’s like, “OK, cut, we’ve got to change the lights here,” or turn it around or….

When I first started…I felt a little?I won’t say shy, but it’s really revealing in a certain way. But it’s acting, so it’s not like somebody watching you making out with somebody you love, because you’re not you and they’re not them; you’re both characters. I guess I really liked it; it was fun. And they’ve seen it all?the whole crew and everything?it obviously has a lot of stuff like that in the show; it has a lot of love scenes, so it was nothing new for them. I felt pretty at ease with it, and Rose Troche was my first director and she’s just so awesome, so I feel like she really helped break me in.

AE: I was actually going to ask you what was the atmosphere like on the set there. Did you guys hang out after filming? DS: They’ve all been doing it for a few years now, so they’ve got their routines. The Canadian crew up there is just so awesome, and the directors?each one was just so special in a different way. We had all the way from Frank Pierson, who is like 80-something years old, directing some of my most graphic sex scenes, to older women, younger women?it’s just a whole mix of people. We’re all so busy, so it’s not like you’re hanging out all the time, but…I feel like definitely some of the time we’d be hanging out. But most of the time I feel like that happened on set…. You’re working so hard, and I was working with a coach and stuff, and just living my life. I just liked to go for a lot of hikes and stuff…and I think everyone’s kind of like that in a way. I feel like we definitely got some good time in together. There’s so many wonderful people that worked on it.

AE: I wanted to ask you if you personally identify as a lesbian. DS: I think that depends on how I would want to identify. I mean, I definitely have only had significant relationships since I was 19 with women. And politically I’m definitely a lesbian, or a dyke, or on the queer spectrum. Every few years it changes, how we want to define it. But I feel very woman-centered. Most of my?I won’t say most of my friends?but definitely a significant amount of my professional career has been with women, as an actor but also with music.

But I…don’t believe that gender is just binary, and I never have, so that’s what pulls me to sometimes politically identify as a lesbian, because I’m a feminist, and I feel like women are still so suppressed. I don’t feel like we’ve come that far. But I also feel like there are people all along the spectrum, so in that sense, I feel like I would be more bisexual or just, you know, open-ended.

AE: I know that you’re in a relationship with Bitch, and it sounds like you guys have a great relationship. DS:Yeah, we’ve been together for three and a half years.

AE: When you say that you might identify on the bisexual end of it, that really intrigues me, because I’m wondering: Would you ever be attracted to a man, do you think? DS: Well, a man, that’s what gets strange. Like I said, I believe that there are people all [along]…a spectrum. I’m more of a boy than some of the people who are born as men are in some ways, our society would say. [I have some] friends who were born as women, [and] they may or may not be taking hormones, but they definitely live as women, and so are they women or men? Then it starts to get hazy. In my life as an adult, since I’ve been 19, I’ve only had significant relationships with women, people who were born as women, who have stayed identifying as women.

But I have to keep it open, because what about my friends or people I meet who used to be women, and now they look like men or they identify as men? What if I fall in love [with them] or feel something? For now I’m happily committed to a monogamous relationship with my girlfriend, but I’m talking theoretically about sexuality. My father’s gay and I was raised in a really open environment, so sometimes I feel like any kinds of lines you try to draw always end up?you always end up being flexible in some way. People are so creative, I think.

AE: That’s true. Do you feel like The L Word has been accurately representing the diversity of lesbian culture? DS: I feel like it’s a slice of lesbian life of a certain group of lesbians. It seems to be mostly on the wealthy side, women from L.A., which I think is a small slice compared to my life [and] when I think of all the different kinds of lesbians I’ve met in the world. I don’t think it can represent a whole cross-section of our culture; it’s just one little piece. I do like that it age-wise it’s got a little variation, and I like that it’s a little bit culturally mixed. But I wouldn’t say it accurately represents all lesbians. I think for the L.A. scene I could imagine it’s like that.

I don’t really know; I haven’t spent that much time there as an adult. I’m not much of a TV watcher; I’d never really seen [The L Word] when I got the job, but I’ve definitely watched everything now, and I actually really enjoy the writing and the acting of it. I feel like it’s pretty creative. I did feel like some of the subject matter, especially like showing lesbians who want to get pregnant, or lesbians who have a history of drug problems…are pretty intriguing.

AE: What did you think about some of the controversies that came up last year among viewers, like the Mark storyline with the videotaping, and the whole issue with whether there enough butches on the show? DS:I don’t look to television to represent me because it never has, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was anything relatively like what I [have experienced]. The one thing I felt about the filming thing [in the Mark storyline] is [that] I didn’t understand why they didn’t just kick this dude out. It was crazy to me. Like, why did they keep bringing him back? I’ve never asked, because it’s not part of my storyline and I don’t really need to know, but I have, as the character, hypothetically tried to figure out why was it that they didn’t kick this guy out.

I actually do think that women oftentimes do act under duress from the patriarchy and do things they would not normally do, and tend to put men on some kind of pedestal or let them get away with things that, you know, even lesbians that I know [would let them get away with]. So I guess I could kind of see it, but if you think of it as some kind of representation, I would rather…kick the guy out, [and] show us being strong and standing up for ourselves.

And the butch question? That’s funny, because L.A. has a reputation of all these lipstick lesbian types. But when I’ve gone out there, it’s actually not really like that. There’s all different kinds of people. There are femmes; there are also plenty of butches on the scene. Maybe certain groups of people don’t have butches around; I don’t really know. I’m not sure if it’s accurate…but I feel like Shane fills it out pretty well. The Shane character?people tend to gravitate toward her, and I think Kate’s done a great job representing the butch side, but I always feel like the more the better, you know.

I just think it’s interesting as lesbians, or as women activists, feminists?we’re demanding, because we don’t have enough space on the airwaves. But I think sometimes we want each little thing to represent, to be the perfect thing, instead of just [being] the story. Nobody’s speaking up for some Ernest Hemingway book and saying, well, you didn’t represent all of Spain in this story; you’re just representing the people you’ve met. I wish there were 20 shows on the air about lesbians, and then we could have all kinds of shows. I don’t think that one show can represent everybody, or one piece of art, or anything. And I do think it’s probably…representative of certain kinds of women in L.A.

AE: You’re only the second openly gay regular cast member on the show. Was that a difficult choice for you to make, to be openly gay? DS:That was never a choice. I never even entertained not being out. It’s just so much a part of my life. My dad’s gay, and I was going to gay pride marches since I was a baby, and there was never a question [of not being out]. I feel like they want me and everything that I am. I can’t hide anything.

AE: Do you think that being out is going to limit your acting choices? Or even because you’re not typically feminine looking? DS: No, I don’t think so at all. In fact, I think it’s to my advantage. I’m not worried about it at all because for me, art comes first. It always has. I’ve never made choices for any safety reasons in my life?you know, hitchhiking across Bulgaria or whatever. I feel like the world is definitely opening up for us, and it takes people in the public eye to open it even more. I think that there will be a plethora of roles coming out. I don’t feel like I could only play a tomboy or I could only play boyish types of girls at all. I have different sides to me, too, and I’m confident I could play all kinds of roles.

AE: I did want to ask you about your traveling because it’s so incredible?you’ve traveled so many places. What’s one of your favorite places that you’ve been? DS:It’s hard to say because I’ve actually loved all the different places I’ve been, and I’ve lived in a lot of places for extended periods of time. Right now, when I think about it, I would say Poland , because I learned to speak Polish and a lot of my friends are Polish and I spent a very good amount of time there. It’s a beautiful, amazing country. It’s definitely got a heavy, mixed history. A good amount of my friends growing up were Jewish, and I was raised hearing a lot of different stories from grandparents about Poland, and going there definitely was a heavy thing for me in some ways.

But people are people everywhere, and we all have these heavy histories in any nation. I just learned so much from living there. Just hanging out with people who weren’t brought up under capitalism was a real eye-opener for me, and it made me learn a lot about how we can live together and work together to make change. It’s also really gorgeous there. I’ve lived in a lot of villages there, and I just really love that old way of life, where people are farming their own food and live a self-sustaining life.

AE: I was also very intrigued to learn that you lived in India for eight months while passing as a man. It sounds like a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts to me. What did you learn from that experience? DS: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to put it?a spiritual pilgrimage, because it really felt that way to me. All my travels did, really. I definitely passed as a man sometimes before that, living in some of these different rural villages in Europe, so it was just more of an extended version of what I’d already done. It wasn’t predesigned; I didn’t think of it beforehand. We were heading east…so once we got to Pakistan, I realized you either dress as a man or a woman. You know what I’m saying?

I wanted to dress in traditional clothing to be respectful, and we were in a traditional city, a smaller city, staying as guests. So I dressed in women’s clothing, and I had to hide my hair, and when I would go out in public [you had to] make sure your shawl isn’t falling off your head. People were just so great there, but what I realized was that I wanted to pass as a man because then I could be more like myself?independent, free to talk to different people, free to be out later on in the night. The women are hanging out more in the homes and with each other. When I went to India from Pakistan and we crossed the border, we spent some time in a hospital because we were sick, and then when we came out I got my hair cut short, and I just started leaving my shawl thing off, and then got some boys’ clothes [and] I started dressing like a man right there. I guess no one ever asked me, “Are you a man?” I just kind of took up space, and it’s kind of like how it is here sometimes.

I guess the spiritual side came out for me in all my travels. Instead of feeling like I didn’t belong?sometimes when I lived in San Francisco I felt like it was the only place I could ever live in the world?what I realized was that as a boy or as a girl or as some ambiguous androgynous thing, I could depend on strangers for kindness, and I could depend on the good heart of humans. And you know, a few times people may prove you wrong, but on the whole I feel like it gave me a new faith in people’s will for good, and the fact that maybe peace and love and all that is actually a reality. I think people really want that in their hearts, even if we act out in ways out of fear which would be counter to that.

AE: That’s really inspiring. Would you say that you are a spiritual person? Do you practice any kind of particular belief? DS: Yeah, I definitely find a lot of helpful tools in different spiritual practices or books I’ve read. I definitely lean toward Buddhism; I feel like it’s been very helpful for me, but as I start to read different kinds of teachings I have the feeling that the practice may seem different, but the lessons deep down within the old scriptures are kind of the same or similar. I don’t know if that sounds crazy, but basically just to love others and to love yourself, and you know, live in that. So I guess yeah, I would say I’m spiritual. I don’t feel like I’m pious or something. All different kinds of people are spiritual, whether they say they are or not. Actually, I feel like everybody is. I just happen to have some good books that I’ve read that have helped [me] out to understand more.

AE: I also wanted to ask you a little bit about your relationship with Bitch, because many lesbians know of you as Bitch’s girlfriend. Do you two work together on projects? DS: We do, we do. She definitely has her independent stuff that she does, which is her music and her writing, but for the last three and a half?since we’ve known each other?we’ve always collaborated in different ways. When we first met I came on tour with her and Bitch and Animal, and…I did a lot of the driving. I would do a lot of cooking with macrobiotic food.

AE: Wow, on the road? DS: On the road. We lived on the road for two years together, and I feel like it was definitely a cultural exchange between the two of us. I learned a lot about what it’s like being an independent artist. She’s an independent artist…[and has been] living off of that as her only income for ten years, and [knows] how to [survive] not just income-wise, but just how to take up that kind of space and how important it is to be an outspoken feminist lesbian artist in the world. It’s always taken different turns or something, how we would help each other or how we would collaborate, and in the last couple years we’ve been collaborating a lot on more theatrical [projects]. I’ve played music with her sometimes.

We’re basically incubating a bunch of ideas right now. We’re working on a script for a film; it might be premature to tell you, but we are. All in all, I just get so inspired by being around her, and I think she feels the same way, so it’s definitely a great collaboration on a whole, our life together. We live together and we share everything?not everything, but you know.

AE: You guys seem to lead very nomadic lives, though. Do you ever just long to have a stable piece of property somewhere? DS: You know, a piece of property is right. I definitely feel like in the next two years, I hope to buy with friends a piece of property where we can live as a community and make art together. But I also know that with the work that I have done in my life and that I will be doing, that traveling will always be a part of it. So we’ve been lucky to have [our home here]…. I haven’t been here since May, but it’s definitely our little nest, where we feel at home, and I know we’ll make that anywhere we are. We also have a talent to make that wherever we are, even on the road. We’re always cooking and making a home for our friends. I guess I never long for being in one place?I never have?but I long to have a place that we’ll be able to come back to. But I guess I already have that, and I’d like for it to be more inclusive of other people…. Ideally it would be like everyone could stay in trailers or build a little shack on the land, you know.

AE: That sounds like an idyllic world! DS: I just want my own kitchen, that’s all. [Laughs.] I guess that’s something that’s so great about us being together: that we both are such nomads and we have been for several years. We have a lot in common, just around how we want to live in the world but also in the things we like to make. And she’s such an inspiration. She’s such a phenomenal artist and groundbreaking person in the world, and I feel like [she] has such heart in all the art she makes and has so much talent. I feel inspired by her every day.

AE: So I have to ask you: Do you know if you’re going to be appearing in the next season of The L Word? DS: I don’t know that…. First, we don’t know if the season will be picked up…for the next year. And then we find out; they go through their whole writing time, which is in that spring time, early spring; and then they write me in or they don’t. So I don’t know. We don’t know for sure until springtime.

AE: So what are you working on now? Do you have any other films coming up besides what you’re working on with Bitch? DS: There are a few different projects. You know how films are…everything really is up in the air until it’s like, “OK, we’re doing it tomorrow” kind of thing. There are a few different projects which I’m working with. I have two different directors I’m working with on some ideas right now, and may or may not be filming something in the winter. I guess I’m just waiting to see, really, and I’m working on this thing with Bitch this winter when I’m done. I’m still not finished filming for The L Word, so I’m guess I’m waiting for that to be done to really dive in, but in December?I’ll be done by the middle of December, and then I’ll do my holiday thing. Bitch and I are definitely going to go visit her grandmother’s [who’s] 96. We’re going to go over to England , that’s where her grandma lives and my brother lives, and we’ll probably go to the film festivals in February. John’s movie will be premiering. We’ll be doing stuff like that, and then working on the script.

AE: So you have a busy schedule for the next few months. DS: Yeah, I do, and…just running any kind of business is a busy thing. But I’m happy to be back in my own little office, too. I have a little desk. My roommate and I and Bitch all share an office space and we all have our own desks and it’s fun; sometimes we’re all in there working on our stuff.

AE: That’s cute. DS:I know.

AE: Did you miss your dog? Did you have your dog with you in Vancouver? DS: Oh yeah, he comes everywhere with us. I missed him when Bitch went on tour?she took him with her…. When we go to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival every year [is] the only time usually that we put him away in a kennel.

AE: Were you there this year? DS: Yeah. But I was shooting, so I couldn’t come until Friday night and left on Monday afternoon, so it was short but sweet. But I knew I couldn’t miss even a piece of it. So I missed Bitch’s show, which was sad, because we had planned this whole thing…but you know, you can’t do it all. I was filming?I can’t remember what I was filming. [Laughs.]

AE: Well, thank you so much for your time; I really appreciate your being so open with me about everything. DS: I’m really proud of [us] as a people?lesbians or queer people or whatever?and sometimes I think it’s easy in this world to feel like we have something to be ashamed of, [that] what we do isn’t as good, or it’s not adequate compared to the rest of the bigger picture. I’ve had [some feelings] before where I feel like I have to be more uptight or not tell the whole story, but I just feel like I don’t have anything to hide. Just like any straight dude?he’s not hiding that he’s married or something. So I have that policy of being open, and I hope that it works all right people interviewing me.

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