Lisa Sheridan plays the character Larkin Groves on Invasion. And she's cute.
UGO: Are you working today?
LISA SHERIDAN: No, I'm not. I'm shooting tomorrow and I shot yesterday so today is my day off. I'm running around trying to do as many things as I possibly can.
UGO: Invasion is set in the Florida Everglades but shot mostly in Los Angeles. Have you been to Florida for the show yet?
LISA: Every now and then they'll probably send a crew to Florida. We did that for the pilot, but I haven't gone yet. I didn't get to go during the pilot because all of the stuff that they shot was Everglades stuff, and I wasn't in any of that. I was so sad. I was like, can't you guys just write into the scene like, "Larkin crosses stream." But they weren't biting on that one.
UGO: What are you shooting tomorrow?
LISA: I'm shooting a couple of scenes that take place at the house that I live in with Russell Varon [played by Eddie Cibrian]. We live out in the middle of the woods and they doubled that on the lot at Warner Bros. It's several scenes where Larkin is home with the little girl, Rose. Russell is out trying to track down stuff that's going on in the swamp and she's by herself. She sees that someone is watching her out in the woods. It's a whole series of sequences where that starts to build and build.
UGO: What episode is that?
LISA: I think that's episode five.
UGO: By this point in the show, do we know who or what is invading?
LISA: No, we know a little bit more but we don't know everything there is to know. I hate to sound so cagey, but there's so much stuff that they're like, "You can tell him this, but you can't tell him this." I don't want to get in trouble.
UGO: Do you know all the secrets to the show or do you want it to be a surprise for yourself?
LISA: Well, there's a lot of it that they've told us from the start. When I got the part, I was very excited about certain things in the script because they were really exciting to me, like the whole supernatural element. I was kind of like, "Oh, ok." Then we had a big long day of rehearsal, [director] Thomas [Schlamme] just talked with us for like an hour and a half and explained where the story was going. Then when we started shooting, the whole cast got together and Shaun let us in on even more stuff. But the thing is, Shaun is just so brilliant that he's got no end of ideas for all sorts of twists and turns and where the thing is going and how each little clue and how each bit of information is going to be revealed. So every time I get a new script, there's a surprise, especially in the one that we're shooting now. The last page of this script is Larkin driving down the road and she's being chased and she rounds a corner and there's a huge tree that's fallen down because of the hurricane and she crashes and that's the end of the scene. I'm assuming that I survive in some way just to make it in the next episode.
UGO: Are you worried about your character getting killed, because in a show like Lost, it seems that anyone can die at any episode?
LISA: No, I'm not, because of other things that they've told me about the cliffhanger for the end of the season - so they'll need me alive for that. I'm not worried that much about it, but aLISAo, does this mean that for the next four episodes I get to just lie in a hospital bed? But I guess we'll see.
UGO: Are you a fan of Shaun's music?
LISA: I didn't know him as that. Maybe I'm a little bit too young for that or something. I have a memory of the Hardy Boys, but I never really watched it, so I just know him as a show runner and writer.
UGO: What was your Invasion audition like?
LISA: It was kind of standard really. I went in and read for them and then, like, the next thing I know, I'm testing at the studio and then I'm testing at the network and then I was on the set. So, it happened pretty fast.
UGO: It that unusual?
LISA: During pilot season, that happens. I think maybe they were trying to cast the part for awhile, so that might have had something to do with it too.
I remember going into the room and somehow in like five minutes, I was talking to them about taking mushrooms and hanging out at Duane Allman's grave when I was in high school.
UGO: So you were a Duane Allman fan, but not a fan of Shaun's?
LISA: Well, Duane Allman is a local boy where I'm from in Georgia.
UGO: What's like to do all those scenes with the great William Fichtner?
LISA: It's great. Bill is the most generous and wonderful actor. We have some great stuff together. There is one episode where the two of us were just toe-to-toe for the whole episode and it was just fantastic. I had so much fun.
UGO: Well, Tyler Bean was telling me that he was ... picking on him.
LISA: Oh, was he? Well, everyone picks on Tyler. Come on, it's Tyler. Yeah well, Tyler's great too, our whole cast is fantastic. We actually have I think, a cast with no bad apple in the bunch, which is really rare, 'cause there's always one. Unless, it's me and I have no idea, but ...[Laughs] Everybody's really great!
UGO: [Laughs] Well, Bill, they say, is kind of intense but since there are so many scenes with you, I'd imagine that you guys had to become a little closer, I guess.
LISA: Yeah. Yeah well, Bill's definitely intense, there's no doubt about that. But I think maybe he and I ... I don't know, we're both Sagittarius and we get along well. We both like old cars; he's got an amazing old car and I drive an old pickup truck. We just have a lot in common.
UGO: Oh, ok. And are you ... as a female, science fiction may not be your first love, but do you have favorite science fiction movies or television shows?
LISA: Um, God ... ah, maybe not TV shows I just really didn't watch a lot of TV growing up, but then I didn't have a TV for seven or eight years. But science fiction movies, I'm the biggest Star Wars fan as any kid you know, running around the woods growing up pretending long sticks were light sabers and all that stuff. That's science fiction of some sort, isn't it?
UGO: Yeah, would you be Han Solo or would you have to be Princess Lea when you were playing with people?
LISA: Oh, dude I was Princess Lea every year for Halloween!
UGO: Oh, really?
LISA: Yeah, yeah. No, I was never Han Solo.
UGO: [Laughing]
LISA: What else?
UGO: You seemed upset when I said that you could have been Hans Solo.
LISA: No, no, no, no. I guess, I guess it didn't occur to me as a child. Maybe I was more disappointed in myself because it didn't occur to me.
UGO: [Laughs]
LISA: I don't know, I can't think ... oh E.T. God yeah, that's science fiction. Yeah, that was ... Oh Lord, I remember going to see that movie so clearly, I was sitting in the row of the movie theatre, and I went to Catholic school when I was growing up. I was saying like ... my mom said, she looked over and I was saying like lightening rounds of Hail Mary's.
UGO: [Laughs]
LISA: Seriously, seriously, as fast as you can which you can do pretty well when you go to Catholic school.
UGO: [Laughs]
LISA: So, yeah I don't know. I guess if it's good, I like it.
UGO: And here's a question I'd like to ask: What's the best music concert you ever went to?
LISA: What's the best music concert?
UGO: Yeah, you know live music.
LISA: Oh God, that's a tough one. How do you ...
UGO: Was it Duane Allman? Duane Allman in Georgia, maybe?
LISA: Well, Duane died before I was born.
UGO: Oh, ok.
LISA: I would love to have seen him play. I saw Dylan in Prague on Czechoslovakian acid that I tracked down from some kid. That was really great. Let's see ...
UGO: When was that?
LISA: That was like ... I don't know, that was a while ago, I was backpacking around Europe. Probably like seven years ago.
UGO: Ok. It doesn't seem too hard to get drug stories out of you.
LISA: Oh yeah, you can't print that!
UGO: [Laughing]
LISA: Then what else? I saw Radiohead at what was supposed to be field day a couple years ago.
UGO: Oh, on Long Island. You went to that?
LISA: Right, yes, at Giant Stadium and it rained and rained and rained all day.
UGO: Oh my God, I can't believe you went to that - it's insane.
LISA: It was so fun, it was fun and again there were other substances that made it funner. But the rain stopped right before they started playing and it was just such a sort of incredibly hypnotic moment and they're just brilliant so that was great. And then, I mean I have so many friends that are in bands so any of their shows are also great.
UGO: And here's, like, a tentacle acting question. Was there anything specific about this character that you kind of locked into?
LISA: Ah, yeah yeah. You know, I think the thing about Larkin is ... and you haven't really seen much of that set, that house that we live in yet, because if you've only seen the pilot you haven't really seen ... I don't think we shot many interiors in it, but the house that the set they built for us is in the jungle. I mean, it is just the coolest, most amazing kind of like rambling ... looks like Russell built it himself, a kind of fishing and hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere with screens and screen doors and concrete floors ... I mean it's very sort of indoor/outdoor kind of feeling and that house, I just love that house, but I guess the thing is when I was trying to explain the character to people when we're first starting ... how I felt to the costume designer, I always go back to that house. This girl went on a date with Russell, and things were going real well and he took her back to his place and when she saw it she was down for it, she was in, that was it. She didn't ever say, "Well honey, you know, don't you ever want to move someplace with wall to wall carpeting or where we could lock the doors, or maybe have a burglar alarm or air conditioning or any of those things. Not have bugs flying in everywhere, not, you know, have all of that." That aspect of her, I think, was maybe the thing that I clicked into right away.
UGO: Okay, Lisa, thank you so much for talking to me. I really appreciate it.
LISA: That's a very long rambling answer, but ...
UGO: No, I thought it was great.
LISA: Well, cool. So tell me about what you guys do, and what you do.