PCZ Interview With Bridget Regan

The PCZ Interview With Bridget Regan From 'Legend Of The Seeker'

The second season of Legend of the Seeker debuts in syndication the weekend of November 7th and 8th (check local listings for channel and time). In the first season finale Richard Cypher, after having travelled into the future, fulfilled his destiny and defeated the dark tyrant Darken Rahl. However, if you thought that was the end of the story, you are very wrong. The premiere holds a lot of surprise revelations as well as a new addition to our band of heroes. A couple of days before the premiere we spoke with Bridget Regan, who plays the Confessor Kahlan Amnell. Check back over the weekend for our full review of the season two premiere and also our interview with Craig Horner (Richard Cypher)! For now, enjoy Joe's chat with the very wonderful Bridget Regan.

Bridget Regan: Hi Joe, how are you?

PCZ: I'm great, how are you?

BR: Really good, thanks.

PCZ: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me today.

BR: Hey, thanks for talking to me.

PCZ: First of all, congratulations on the second season.

BR: Thank you.

PCZ: You shoot in New Zealand so how early on did you guys know that the show was doing so well?

BR: It was really interesting. I had no idea how the show was being received other than talking to my mom. But she likes everything I do. (laughs) We didn't really have any idea. I didn't know if we were going to the second season or not, there was lot of talk that we would because the show keeps getting continually sold to other countries. So now we're all over the world and the show actually plays in New Zealand. We definitely get more feedback now. It's all very lovely, I love coming back home to the states and all the wonderful fan mail.

PCZ: Going back to the beginning, what did you think about the character of Kahlan when you were first approached to play her?

BR: When I first auditioned for the character they gave me a brief paragraph with a description of her and it kind of stopped me in my tracks when I read it. It was something completely different than anything I had done before. It was also something I knew that I could do. She's strong and she's weak, she's masculine and feminine and she's loyal and driven and all these things I admire and love and she has a sense of duty. She has a really soft center and I feel like she's got quite a little girl inside of her. Often with female characters they tend to be just one thing and Kahlan is not, she is a whole can of worms.

PCZ: That's what the show seems to excel at, all the characters are three dimensional and complex.

BR: I have to say that's Terry Goodkind, he's brought them to life. The story is completely straight from the book, but the characters are all him.

PCZ: How have you been with how Kahlan has progressed over the course of the first season?

BR: It's been good for me. I think I sometimes struggle with how can she be this good all the time. She's so good, she always makes the right decision and sometimes I worry is this human, you know? We all have flaws. But then it comes along that she does something that's not in her character and I love it. She has kind of this pure image, especially when I'm in the white dress, it's almost like a Mother Mary kind of look, but then she's cold, she's a soldier and a murderer. I love it! It's dynamic and cool. I don't know if I'll ever play anyone like her again, but it's certainly a joy to play because she really gets to let off some steam when it's slice-n-dice with grown men every other day. (laughs)

PCZ: And it's refreshing to see that she can be feminine and vulnerable, but when a fight starts...

BR: Yeah! I get such a great response to that. People just write me letters like, "You are so bad-ass! I love the way you kill these guys!" and it's so cool! I certainly did not see myself using my stage combat skills everyday. I actually didn't get very good grades in stage combat back in drama school. I always thought, "Ugh, when am I going to use these skills?" I was the one who totally had to eat my words, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

PCZ: Along those lines, has there been anything that you were particularly apprehensive about doing on the show?

BR: Yeah, I had never really ridden a horse before and I kind of said, "Sure…I can ride a horse!" I had been on a horse before and been on horseback riding trails, but not on a horse where you're in charge of it and you're the one that's calling the shots. Luckily, I had a very, very good teacher, Wayne McCormack, who has incredible horses that are trained really well and I got down there six weeks before we began shooting season one and he taught me everything I know. I had a few refreshers here and there. And I got a great new horse! He's so gorgeous, he's white. And me in the white dress on a white horse is just so cool. The first day I got up on it in the dress everybody just kind of stopped in their tracks and they were like, "Oh, my god!" It's so cool. And there was talk of Bruce [Spence] riding him, but somehow I won and got Shadow, the white horse.

PCZ: Ok, so, in the second season premiere you guys get literally minutes to celebrate Darken Rahl's defeat.

BR: I know! It's comical, right?

PCZ: No kidding. One thing I was wondering about at the end where Kahlan decides to continue on with Richard and Zed, it seems to be because of Cara. Was Kahlan just looking for an excuse to stay with Richard?

BR: Yeah, yeah, I totally think so. (laughs) I think that the subtext in that scene is "I don't want to leave you, I don't want to be without you. I don't want to wake up in them morning and not see you." That's the heart of the show, the romance. That's my favorite thing about it. I mean, I love the action and I love the epic beauty of the show, like when they do those gorgeous, long panning shots of the countryside. I love that. But, the truth is, what gives me goosebumps is the romance with Richard and Kahlan. But I'm a sucker for romance!

PCZ: It's almost forbidden romance too.

BR: Yeah, it's totally forbidden love. It's a story that's been told before in Romeo and Juliet, it's all that, but something so cool about them is that they're partners in crime or not crime, but justice, I suppose. They work together and they manage this season via magic and other things to find ways to get closer and closer as the season has gone on. I love that they've found ways to let Richard and Kahlan show their love for each other.

PCZ: I think that was a pretty poignant moment when the little girl, Rachel, asks Richard and Kahlan if they're going to get married.

BR: Oh, that little Jordana [Beatty], isn't she great? We were so lucky to get her back. She was in an episode last season and it was so cool to have her back. Everybody just fell in love with her on the set. The editors said they had a hard time cutting away from her face because she was so beautiful. She's this gorgeous little redhead and I just kept wanting to stroke her hair because I used to have red hair.

PCZ: And how is is this year having a new full time person joining your group?

BR: I love it, I love having Tabrett [Bethell] along. It was such a boy's club last year and now we've got all this massive girl power, which is so cool. And we've got so many great guest stars, we've got Charisma Carpenter out and now we've got Jolene Blalock and we've had Amy Teegarden. Tons of Americans are flying down and coming to play with us and I think the fans will really dig it, to see people come down and don these costumes and run around with us.

PCZ: Ok, what are some things you can tell us about the rest of the season?

BR: Hmmm, well, I will tell you on my first day back to work [from this break] I've got a love scene, so I've got to prepare myself for that one. It is fun, but it's always, I don't know, scary. You want it to be really sexy and really good, but you don't want to let your nerves get the best of you. I've got that and I've gotten to do a lot of different things. I just did a sword fight, which was awesome! I've done a lot of fighting with Tabrett where we're teaming up and we're working together. I've whacked her a few times on accident, but she's been a good sport about it.

PCZ: In between seasons did you get a chance to work on any other projects?

BR: I did a movie called The Best and the Brightest, which is a comedy, with Neil Patrick Harris, Amy Sedaris and Christopher McDonald. I play this literally crazy out of work actress. It was really interesting the first day I was on set shooting and I almost didn't know what to do with myself, I was so used to playing Kahlan. But it was a really great and fun experience for me. For nine months I'd been eating and sleeping Kahlan, so it was a real great escape. The movie is user funny and it should be out sometime in 2010.

PCZ: So after doing this movie was it an easy transition to get back into playing Kahlan?

BR: Yeah, in playing another part I found that it almost helped me. By playing someone else you kind of get to define Kahlan. I came back into season two going "All right, I know who this woman is, I know her inside and out. If I don't know her now, we've got a problem."

PCZ: That helps, playing someone diametrically opposed to Kahlan?

BR: As an actor I was really stoked, because I know sometimes in this genre you can get pigeonholed into doing one type of role and doing something different was really fun for me to do.

PCZ: Do you have any interest in maybe doing any writing or directing on the show?

BR: I actually started writing an episode last year and I really enjoyed it. I've never directed before, but I've just started producing and it's been a really exciting venture for me. I'm producing a musical for a friend of mine that I met in drama school and she's a terrific artist, Natalie Weiss. We produced it for the Fringe Festival here in New York and it was totally the hit of the Fringe and we got amazing reviews and now she's off to make it a full length show. We'll see where it will go from there. It's called Camp Wanatachi and it's really funny with really hip and cool music. It kind of takes the Broadway musical in a new direction. My love of theater and acting all stem from me being obsessed with musical theater.

PCZ: Excellent. Well, that's all I have for you for now. Congratulations on the second season and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the season.

BR: Awesome, thanks Joe!

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