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TV guide article on Carly (jan 15-21 issue)
Interviewer: Mark Schwed
Miss Popularity fresh out of High School, Carly Pope of Popular
matriculated straight into the Hollywood version.
Ah, yes. Who wouldn't want the glorious life of a young Hollywood
actress: the easy money, the stretch limos, the big house, the pampering,
the partying? So why, then is, Carly Pope, the stunning star of WB's
Popular, so miserable?
"Are you kidding me? I'm having the hardest time," she says.
"I miss my family sooo much. It's just that when you're not ready to
move out of your home, it's really hard to do so-and I wasn't ready at
all." 
Homesick? What kid wouldn't want to bop out of her mom and dad's house in
Vancouver, Canada, just six months after graduating from Lord Byng High
School, jet to Hollywood and land a job on a network TV show? Sorry,
Carly, but you won't get much sympathy from the thousands of wannabe
actress dying for a shot at the big time.
But Pope isn't having any if
it. In fact, the whole image of being a hot actress on the verge of
breaking out from the pack makes her cringe.
"What is the life of a star?" she asks. "Why is it such a
big deal? I'm from Vancouver. I came down here to do a job. I have a
real problem with celebrity and how it's glamorized. What confuses me is
why people are in awe." How tres grown-up. It quickly becomes
clear during a stroll around the Disney Studios lot, where her show is
shot, that Pope is one very mature 19- year-old. But the fact remains that
she will have to deal with continued popularity and fame because Popular
is doing well. Even with the worst time slot on TV-Thursdays at 8.P.M./ET,
opposite Friends and Jesse on NBC-it's the fourth-highest-rated program
for pulling in teen girls (behind Dawson's Creek, 7th Heaven and Sabrina,
the teenage witch). The series centers on two girls: Brooke McQueen
(Leslie Bibb), a home coming queen, and Sam McPherson (Pope), crusading
high school journal- ist. They hate each other. When Brooke's dad (Scott
Bryce) and Sam's mom (Lisa Darr) fall in love, the whole gang moves in
together, causing conflict, drama and lots of cool catfighting. Sample:
"You're like the menudo of couples," Sam meows to Brooke about Brooke and
her boyfriend. "Totally interchangeable." The show cleverly launches
arsenic-tipped barbs while dealing with serious teen issues. Thus, in the
episode "Tonight's the Night," where everybody is planning on having sex,
such a comedy of errors ensues that by the end of the hour the whole class
is clamoring to join "Knees Together," a group promoting abstinence.
WB president of entertainment Susanne Daniels remembers the day Pop
walked in for her audition, fresh off a plane from Canada.
"About 30 seconds after she opened her mouth, we knew she
had the role," Daniels says. "I love her presence. She's was perfect to
play opposite Brooke. She's not the blond cheerleader type." But there
was one hitch: People look a little funny when they have just gotten off
a long flight and raced to an audition. With alittle rest, however, Pope
is a knockout. "I'm not saying that now that I see how gorgeous she is
that I wouldn't cast her again," Daniels says. "This is TV's version of
the ugly duckling. Expect she's already a swam." So everything
is perfect for Pope, right? Not exactly. For one thing, she needs a home,
one that would make her feel safe and secure, the way she used to feel in
Vancouver. When Pope first moved to Los Angeles, she rented a house. From
time to time, her big brother, Kris, 23, also an actor, would come and
stay. One morning an earthquake, centered 100 miles east of L.A.., rocked
Pope out of her sleep. She first thought burglars were trying to break in
through her rattling windows. Then she realized that the ground was
moving. She ran out of the house and returned only to pick up her
belongings. Since then the actress has been home-hopping, sleeping on a
friend's couch here, on a friend's floor there. She's currently hunting
for an apartment.
Because she's single, it's time for the inevitable
question: Dating anyone? She won't say; the only thing she dislikes more
than Hollywood is talking about her personal life. She will tell you that
she has a mother and a father (but no names or occupations) and two
brothers: Kris and Alexander, 10. but that's it. "We don't have to get
into that." She won't even say whether she was popular in high school.
(Actually, she told TV GUIDE months ago, before she tired of the question,
that she had plenty of friends then.) After nearly a season on a series,
she's learned a few lessons:
"I felt bad when doing interviews because I was divulging
too much. I was so stressed out I really felt bad about myself and who I
was and how I was portraying that. So I just said, `No more.' "
No more interviews?
"This is the last hurrah for a while," she says. "It has
nothing to do with pretension, with trying to be mysterious or being a
prima donna. I'm not doing this so that people recognize me on the
street and tell me what my favorite color is. I mean, that's really not
what it's about. It's about the work."
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