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Interview With Lauren Collins

Canadian teen television show Degrassi: The Next Generation has maintained a growing fan base stateside since its debut on The N in 2001, and with three-dimensional characters like drama queen-turned-fashion assistant Paige Michalchuk (played by Lauren Collins), the show has stuck around for seven seasons and is still going strong.

Collins, who has also appeared in films such as Take the Lead with Antonio Banderas, is part of the reason the show was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Best Drama this year. She plays one-half of a lesbian relationship on the series, and it was one that kept viewers watching, talking and taking to the net.

Paige and Alex (Deanna Casaluce) were two straight teens on Degrassi until they fell for one another, and it was a tumultuous relationship that led fans to create “Palex” video tributes on YouTube akin to South of Nowhere‘s “Spashley” fan creations. Though the relationship ended controversially in Season 7, for the majority of their relationship Paige and Alex maintained a strong, dramatic friendship that kept viewers guessing.

Collins is straight, but she has a strong affinity for the relationship her character had with Alex, and despite having initial reservations has fully embraced Paige’s ambiguity, both sexual and otherwise. She talked to AfterEllen.com about playing gay, dating a stripper, and the possible future of Palex.

AfterEllen.com: How long have you been playing Paige now? Lauren Collins: It will be going on eight years. We’ve done seven seasons and just wrapped up production on Season 8, so it’s been a long time.

AE: I was reading that you think a lot of people assume you’re a lot like Paige – do you have no traits that are like your character? LC: I have to be totally honest – after you play a character for so long, a lot of me has gone into her, and a lot of her has gone into me. I like to think I assert myself a little more now that I’ve played Paige for so long. I would never be as brutally honest as her.

AE: Do you say “hon” as much as she does? LC: Uh, hell no! No, I do not. I think I probably completely stopped saying it. I talk constantly with the writers about Paige not saying it.

AE: How did the writers first bring up the idea of Paige having a relationship with Alex? LC: I knew they wanted to have a lesbian story line coming up in the season and were trying to figure out a character that it would work with. I think I was hanging out with some of the writers and they sort it let it slip, and I wasn’t supposed to know yet.

At first I struggled with the idea of it for a while, just because Paige was such a boy-crazy character. It was hard for me to wrap my head around it. Honestly, once I read the script for “The Lexicon of Love,” which was the first episode that dealt with it, and once I really looked at the relationship between Paige and Alex, they just did such a fantastic job, it made so much sense to me.

Paige and Alex’s first kiss on Degrassi

AE: Did you do any sort of research before you played someone who was queer? LC: I did – I mean, I’ve always known people active in the community here so I had a lot of resources.

AE: Did you watch any movies or anything? LC: No, and you know what? I’ve been dying to get into The L Word. I know people who just love it, and I still haven’t watched it. It’s on my list!

AE: How do you think Paige identifies? Would she call herself bisexual? LC: There was a scene that I think was cut out of the episode where Paige says, “I don’t believe in labels – why do we need labels?” And it was kind of a shame that scene had to go, because I think for her that about summed it up. I don’t think for her it was about being a lesbian, about being bisexual or being straight, it was about the love that she had for this person and what the relationship was.

AE: That was what was interesting because she bounced right back – she dated Jesse right after she broke up with Alex. LC: She was with Jesse, she was with Spinner – I think for her it was really about the person, not about their gender.

AE: It must have been interesting to have the whole stripper part come into it. I know when I saw the previews for that I was like, “Oh my God, they really are going to go there!” What was that like to play the girlfriend of a stripper? LC: When we first heard it, we’re like, “Someone’s going to be stripping?” But it makes sense in a crazy way because Alex was in such a desperate state, and she’s obviously such a beautiful girl for her to fall into that I suppose. I mean, it made sense. I’m not tough enough to do it, that’s for sure!

AE: Are you aware of all the Palex videos on YouTube and such? LC: You know, I’ve seen some. I’ve heard about the petitions that went around when we broke up.

AE: Do you think that has any affect on the writers? LC: I think they have to take their tips from the fans, just so people keep watching. But at the same time, it’s interesting for them to mess with them a bit. You want to keep them watching. It’s like the infamous Ross-and-Rachel relationship – are they going to be together? You always want to have that interest from the audience.

AE: Do you think anything will change now that Alex is no longer on the show? LC: Characters come in and out of Degrassi all the time, so we’ve always said, “Never say never!”

AE: One thing I thought was cool about Paige being queer is that she’s into fashion, and most people assume that lesbians have no style or fashion sense. LC: Such a stereotype!

AE: Do you think Paige will date any more women or was Alex it for her? LC: That’s the amazing thing about Paige. I don’t think anything is really off-limits for her. I think her relationship with Alex really opened her eyes to not worrying about what people think and being true to what you are. I don’t think anything is out of the question.

AE: What I really liked about the story line was that since they had already shown Marco coming out, it was less about Paige or Alex coming out and more about the relationship. LC: That’s just it – whenever I do interviews, I say it’s not about their sexual orientation; it was a love story, completely. That’s what the story was.

Deanna Casaluce (left) and Lauren Collins

AE: Do you guys have any input when it comes to the script? LC: For every script that’s written, we do a table [read] with the whole cast and writers and producers, and we read through it. Usually we have a 30-minute discussion, or it can be an hour-long discussion after talking about everything from the whole concept of the story to, “Oh this page, this line doesn’t make any sense, can we take it out?” Obviously they [the writers] are all in their 30s and we’re a little bit closer to the age of the characters. They’re really great about it.

AE: So Adamo [Ruggiero, who plays gay character Marco on the show] recently came out – do you think anyone will be looking to you or Deanna to follow suit? LC: [laughs] I don’t know!

AE: Here’s your opportunity! LC: We’re so proud of Adamo, and it was a huge step for him, and I was right there holding his hand through the whole thing.

AE: It seems like Degrassi, or maybe it’s just Canada itself, is really gay friendly. Do you feel it’s that way in general? LC: I guess compared to the States. We’re lucky to live – even though we have a conservative government right now – in a more liberal climate. And it’s nice and not something we take for granted. Going to the States, sometimes we realize how lucky we are to live here.

The cast of Degrassi: The Next Generation

AE: So what’s up with Paige in the next season? LC: There’s always relationship drama – there’s a really great story line coming up for Paige. Definitely worth it to keep watching! She may be in for more than she can handle.

AE: But she’s already been through so much! LC: I know, exactly my thought.

AE: What’s been the hardest part? I mean, Paige has been through so much crap from being raped to having awful breakups, etc. What was the hardest part for you to film? LC: You know, it’s all really tough. I think probably the rape story line. Probably the hardest was when the rape story line was brought up again, because when we shot the rape story line I was pretty young at the time. I was definitely taking it seriously, but I don’t know that I really understood what I was getting myself into or what Paige was getting herself into. So I think it was around Season 4 when that was picked up again, and that was one of the toughest things for me.

AE: Are you familiar with South of Nowhere? Do you have that there? LC: We don’t! We don’t have any of The N shows here, which is really kind of crappy. We’ve worked with some of the cast members in promotional things, but we haven’t seen any of the shows.

AE: I know they wouldn’t show an abortion episode here in the States that they’d show in Canada. Is there anything else you know they wouldn’t show here? LC: We’ve had to shoot different versions sometimes. One example was the rape episode. They just had to shorten the amount of time you saw Dean and I on the bed together. In Canada you saw a little bit more. Sometimes it just had to be alternative versions. Aubrey [Graham], who plays Jimmy, had a line calling Ashley a slut and he had to do a version for The N calling her a skank, so it’s little things like that.

AE: There’s been talk about how on South of Nowhere in love scenes, the girls will have hugs whereas straight characters will have on full-on make-out scenes. Has there ever been anything on Degrassi that you know of with Marco and a guy or Paige and Alex that you’ve had to shorten or edit based on that? LC: Not that I’m aware of. I really feel like Degrassi has treated all relationships equally and what they’re allowed to show for a straight relationship I assume is the same as what they’re allowed to show for a gay or lesbian relationship.

Degrassi: The Next Generation airs on Monday nights at 7:30 p.m. ET on CTV in Canada, and on Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. ET on The N in the U.S.

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