SHIRI BLISS
Seventeen Magazione
March 2000
Fans if the teen-alienation saga Roswell might be surprisedto
learn that Shiri Appleby almost didn't land the role of Liz Parker,
the soft spoken heroine of the WB hit series. "I actually
couldn't get an audition for the part. The casting director didn't
want to see me," reals the 21-year-old, who's made lots of
female viewers jealous this season because gets to cozy up to
her hot male costar Jason Behr-even though his extratraterrtrial
nature makes their relationship a little, um, difficult at times.
Fortunately, Appleby was hanging with the right crowd. "A
friend of mine knew the executive producer and gave him my picture
and resume. I was really embarrassed because I felt like I was
cheating," she says, shifting in her seat as a makeup artist
carefully plucks her delicately arched brows. It's Appleby first
cover shoot and she has brought her mother along for moral support.
Mom sits quietly as her daughter basks in the spotlight.
"I auditioned for three of the female roles, including that
of Liz," recalls Shiri (which means 'my song' in Hebrew).
At her seventh callback, the producers asked her to read for the
part of Liz opposite the already-cast Behr. "I had never
met him before," Appleby says, "thought I'd seen him
on Dawson's Creek." Despite their offscreen unfamiliarity,
the on-screen chemistry was there, and Appleby, then a sophomore
at the University of Southern California, got the call of a lifetime
while driving home from the final audition. "I just hung
up and called my parents right away. Had to call the parents,"
she says. Appleby describes her mom and dad (Dena, a school-teacher;
Jerry, a telecommunications executive) and 19-year-old brother,
Evan, as being very supportive of her career, which began at the
age of four with a Raisin Bran commercial. But don't expect Rosie
O'Donnell or any other talk show host to be pulling that tape
from the archives. "It never actually aired," Appleby
says.
However, those two scoops of raisins were not in vain. Apppleby
went on to make numerous commercials, but she thought of acting
more as a hobby than as an eventual career. "The audition
process was kind of like a game to me. If I got the job, that
was an extra bonus," she recalls. "Growing up, I wasn't
at all athletic, so my brother had soccer and acting was my thing."
It wasn't until Appleby was 11 that she realized actors got paid.
Her first big acting payday came in junior high when she was a
guest on TV's Doogie Howser, MD. "I played this girl in the
hospital who had a big crush on Doogie," she says, blushing
at the memory. Appleby never did get to smooch the pubescent doc.
But that was fine by her because growing up, she was more of a
Fred Savage fan. "I kind of looked like Winnie Cooper, because
I had the long hair and the bangs. I just loved the Wonder Years,"
she says.
During her own wonder years, Appleby decided to ditch Hollywood-temporarily.
"I just wanted to experience high school. I knew it was the
one time in my life I wouldn't want to miss, so I didn't work
at all for those four years," she says. Instead, the girl
who was voted Most Spirited by her classmates at Calabasas High
in Los Angeles' West San Fernando Vally stayed busy with the yearbook
committee, school leadership and, though she keeps it off her
resume these days, cheerleading for one year.
Once high school ended, so did Appleby's rah-rah enthusiasm for
academia. "When I got to college, I thought, I don't want
to do this. I know what I want to do," she says. And like
that, she was back in the auditioning game. Of course, Appleby,
would never trade what she's doing now now for the life of a coed.
But every so often she gets the urge to head back to school. So
she does. "I visit some of my friends who go to college about
an hour and a half from Los Angeles. I like the idea that there's
this little community with other people my age," she says.
Looks like Appleby hasn't lost that school spirit after all.