Jorja Fox: Ten and a half years of deaths -

Ian Harvie: Yes

Jorja Fox: - violence -

Ian Harvie: What is it with you -

Jorja Fox: I just had it of dead bodies -

Ian Harvie: Yeah, seriously!

Jorja Fox: I mean I’ve just had it.

Ian Harvie: Seriously, what is it with you and these roles, like these really hard, like, and the dialog is like really hard too! And like …

Jorja Fox: Yeah!

Ian Harvie: And like “ER” and like, seriously, like, all these-

Jorja Fox: laughing It was the dialog! It was so hard! I couldn’t do it anymore.

Ian Harvie: No, I know, I-

Jorja Fox: No, I’ve been very lucky. I’ve gotten to play some very, very smart women. Which is a stretch for me.

Ian Harvie: Which is fantastic.

Jorja Fox: And, yeah, and I mean - Sara Sidle studied nuclear physics and fusion at Harvard and Berkley. And that was really excited, I was really proud of that.

Ian Harvie: I was really intimidated having you on the show because of all that.

Jorja Fox: Really? It’s not me, though!

Ian Harvie: Do you remember any of your lines from that? Cause it’s always really hot. The stuff that you say is totally-

Jorja Fox: Embarrassed Thanks, aw, thank you. Phenoethylene terephtalete.

Ian Harvie: Yeah, what the hell is that?

Jorja Fox: laughing Yeah.

Ian Harvie: I’m going to make myself wait till later -

Jorja Fox: Mass Spectrometer.

Ian Harvie: - wait till later, yeah.

Jorja Fox: laughing

Ian Harvie: Do you have any idea what that means?

Jorja Fox: Phenoethylene terephtalete? Not anymore. No. That’s the problem. Like the short term memory. You learn it for the day and then you have no idea what you said the day before.

Ian Harvie: Do they tell you what it is you’re saying, or…

Jorja Fox: At the time, yes.

Ian Harvie: So “This is what it means.'

Jorja Fox: Yeah, and that one was so hard I had to practice it for about four days. Cause you want it to, try and sort of roll off the tongue, so I’ll never forget the word, and I have “no” idea what it means.

Ian Harvie: Okay. What was the storyline? Why did you leave? You were IL, you were in love with somebody, or you-

Jorja Fox: I did. I had a smokin’ hot boyfriend on the show, and we got engaged. And then I dumped him, I gave him a Dear John letter and I just took off in the middle of the night. And essentially, for the character, it was she had this stressful experience, the serial killer took her out to the desert and almost killed her and … She’d had it, really, with the death.

Ian Harvie: Does that stuff ever feel real to you?

Jorja Fox: Well, it’s, you know, we try to make it as fun as we can. The unfortunate thing is that many of our stories are based on real … stories. So, when you get the script and it’s somebody’s life, yeah, I think it affects you a little more. You know it’s make believe that you’re shooting it, but it really happened to someone.

Ian Harvie: But - And you were on “ER” and it’s the same kind of lingo. As far as-

Jorja Fox: Depressing. Totally depressing.

Ian Harvie: Yeah.

Jorja Fox: laughing At least sometimes they lived! Every once in a while on “ER” you’d cure them. Which is good for them. But it was really high stakes, high stress.

Ian Harvie: I can’t remember how long you were on that for.

Jorja Fox: Three years. Yeah, I had a little run and then it was “West Wing” in there, and then “CSI” for the last seven and a half years.

Ian Harvie: That’s right, “West Wing”. Another easy one, another easy show.

Jorja Fox: Yeah. Another violent. laughing My role anyway. The show wasn’t violent, my role was. I was a part of this plot, this racist plot to assassinate the president. And so my role was really violent. laughing My part of the show.

Ian Harvie: So, and “Memento”, you were in “Memento”.

Jorja Fox: Violent, pretty gross.

Ian Harvie: Yeah.

Jorja Fox: Pretty gross shit.

Ian Harvie: Who’s your fucking agent!? I mean, it’s like “I think this would be really good for you.'

Jorja Fox: laughing Yeah. Well it’s been amazing. I feel so blessed. I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world, really. And it’s not that I’ll never do violent stuff again, I’m sure I will. Violence is great drama. Just for a minute, I just kind of needed to get off. You know? Just take a little break.

Ian Harvie: Right. Now-

Jorja Fox: I’m taking sailing lessons.

Ian Harvie: Are you really?

Jorja Fox: Yeah, I’m learning how to play the drums. Finally.

Ian Harvie: Awesome!

Jorja Fox: Years later. That whole rumor that I play drums is not true.

Ian Harvie: The rumor that you play guitar is true, though.

Jorja Fox: That one is true. Yeah, badly. laughing Yeah, a couple people [in the audience] have seen me.

Ian Harvie: Why do you say badly?

Jorja Fox: Bad guitar? I just really, I never really, I don’t really have any musical talent. I’m persistent and laughing I practice a lot, but I have no ear. At all.

Ian Harvie: Where are you playing the drums? Where can we see you rock it out?

Jorja Fox: Nowhere yet, thank god.

Ian Harvie: Any bands? Any garage bands?

Jorja Fox: No. I’m just taking classes. So right now it’s percussion classes. I bring my African drum and we go and we kind of do stuff. And then, hopefully, that class is about eight weeks, and then I’ll move to the kit class. Hopefully.

Ian Harvie: The what- Oh the kit!

Jorja Fox: The drum kit.

Ian Harvie: The kit. That’s what it is, right.

Jorja Fox: Kind of musician talk.

Ian Harvie: The lingo. “I’m gonna move to the drum kit.” Yeah, that’s awesome.

Jorja Fox: Wish me luck!

Ian Harvie: What was it - you said? Sailing! Where at? Where are you sailing at?

Jorja Fox: There’s sailing classes you can take down at Marina Del Rey.

Ian Harvie: Are they teaching you in like those little Sunfish boats? With the one little sail and the scoop out -

Jorja Fox: Yeah and you have to wear those plastic floatie things. On your arms. It’s in the bathtub, actually, at the YWCA.

Ian Harvie: What are those things called? Wings. They’re called wings. No, seriously, are they in that kind of little boat, or-

Jorja Fox: It’s a decent sized boat, you know what I mean. Like they’ll take - I don’t know how many people they have - the class. Our class has like 12 people in it.

Ian Harvie: Okay, so you’re all on the boat.

Jorja Fox: Yeah, most of the time. I mean there’s parts there where you have to learn - you learn the lingo. You know and like nautical. Words like that.

Ian Harvie: Right. Tacking. Tack. Tacking. Which means fucking duck. It means f-ing duck. That’s really all you need to know on that one, right?

Jorja Fox: laughter

–

Jorja Fox: I was born in New York City and then they moved to Florida. My mom had the dream, she wanted to live in the small beach town. She had that dream her whole life. And three years after I was born, they made it happen. So they moved down -

Ian Harvie: Oh cool.

Jorja Fox: Yeah. They moved down there. And I moved back when I was 16.

Ian Harvie: You when to high school there.

Jorja Fox: I finished high school in New York.

Ian Harvie: Yeah.

Jorja Fox: I actually did finish.

Ian Harvie: What was your first acting - You did finish?

Jorja Fox: It was a close one.

Ian Harvie: You did?

Jorja Fox: Yeah. I have even a real diploma. It’s not even a GED. I almost had a GED and then I-

Ian Harvie: And you didn’t get it off the Internet cause they didn’t have the Internet back then.

Jorja Fox: Yeah, no. Nothing. There was nothing, no gadgets at all.

Ian Harvie: The interwebs. What was your first acting thing? What is high school or something after?

Jorja Fox: High school was first. Actually, I wanted to be an actor since I was very little, and my mom found “one” acting class, you know, in like an hour of where we grew up. I was five years old, and I was really excited. And the deal with the acting class is that in order to take it, you also have to take the modeling classes. And I didn’t really - I wasn’t really interested in modeling at all, but I really wanted to act. So I took the classes for a while, and, um, I got a job. The first job I got, we were going to do a play at the mall, “Chicken Little.”

Ian Harvie: Uh huh.

Jorja Fox: In Florida. And I practiced really hard and I got the role of the Rooster.

Ian Harvie: Oh, awesome.

Jorja Fox: And, uh, laughing I was awesome until I did my first thing as the Rooster, and everybody laughed really, really, really, really, really hard.

Ian Harvie: Do you remember the line? Do you remember any lines?

Jorja Fox: It was like a crows like a rooster. Something like that.

Audience cracks up … Ian cracks up .. Jorja cracks up

Jorja Fox: And I quit! I was so mortified, really. Everyone was laughing at me. looks at the audience, mock accusing them of the same.

Ian Harvie: That’s awful.

Jorja Fox: I didn’t act again until high school. There was finally a drama department in high school. And oddly enough, I moved to new York for my modeling career. But it was only because that was my ticket out of Florida. Like that was the way I could go to New York. So once again I had to model to try to be an actor.

Ian Harvie: Did you do some of that?

Jorja Fox: A little bit. Yeah. It was great, actually, at that age. Cause you know, 17, 18. I got to travel a lot, I lived in Europe. I was a “terrible” model. I mean, I never really enjoyed it, I wasn’t good at it. But I made some money, and I was able to take acting classes for a couple years.

Ian Harvie: And do what you wanted.

Jorja Fox: Drink cappuccino.

Ian Harvie: Yeah. Be very romantic.

Jorja Fox: We were all 19. Yeah, smoking, the cappuccino, talking about Mamet and stuff. It was really cool.

Ian Harvie: Where were you?

Jorja Fox: Uh, mostly Italy.

Ian Harvie: Cool.

Jorja Fox: Brooding, it was a brooding time of my life.

Ian Harvie: What are your -

Jorja Fox: Not much has changed.

Ian Harvie: You had your journal open.

Jorja Fox: Oh yeah. I still have my journal. I’ve got it with me.

Ian Harvie: What’s your passion right now? What do you-

Jorja Fox: You know what I fuckin really hate?

Ian Harvie: What? Bring it, sister! Wha’d’ya got?

Jorja Fox: I fuckin’ hate the people in the “left” lane of the freeway so fucking much that won’t move over! Like when you’re trying to pass them. I really think there should be a law and people should get tickets for that shit. It’s just - It’s rude, it’s selfish. I mean- okay, maybe you mean something a little different.

Ian Harvie: No, no that was perfect. Are you thinking about a 501(c)(3)? Sort of a non-profit route?

Jorja Fox: Yeah, you know I would love to - yeah for that? Yeah. I’m accepting donations!

Ian Harvie: Now, actually, are you a vegetarian?

Jorja Fox: I am a vegetarian.

Ian Harvie: You are?

Jorja Fox: Yeah. The environment’s a really big-big thing for me.

Ian Harvie: So, if you were going to, like, swing me over the fence to be a vegetarian, what would you tell me? Like what - three things -

Jorja Fox: I, uh, try not to proselytize.

Ian Harvie: Okay.

Jorja Fox: But…

Ian Harvie: Like three things that I would need to know.

Jorja Fox: Okay. Well, cows … produce more methane from farting than any substance on the planet. So a big part of global warming is actually cows in fields – it’s true! – sending up a lot of really noxious fumes.

Ian Harvie: And because of our demand for meat.

Jorja Fox: Yeah, they’re everywhere. And it’s also a huge reason for deforestation and a big reason for - you know like the spinach thing last year. Where a lot of people ate organic spinach and they got really sick, was because cow was getting into crops. You know that stuff goes down rivers and streams and it pollutes waterways. I’ve always been kinda of like - we all do what we can do.

Ian Harvie: I think one of the things that’s hardest is the cooking part of it. Like I’m so ingrained: I have meat, I have starch. How do you change that thinking? It’s so hard.

Jorja Fox: It’s not easy. I’m French-Irish and all we ate was meat and potatoes. So it’s really all we ate. When I became a vegetarian - I’ve been a vegetarian for like 20 years, and the first two years all I did was eat cheese and eggs cause I really didn’t know what else to eat. I was extremely confused. For like every meal.

Ian Harvie: So, like, eggs are cool with you?

Jorja Fox: You know, I don’t eat that much, but I eat them. It’s a very personal choice. But, yeah, the cooking thing is hard. I think that in, like, LA or New York - If I was in the Arctic Tundra and it was like me an a seal? And I was really hungry? Maybe, you know, I would make the choice to survive. But if I’m living in LA? I mean, there’s right next door there’s Damiano’s. You can get, like, a slice of soy cheese pizza with veggie “pepperoni’. It’s easy. It’s pretty easy.

Ian Harvie: That’s good pizza over there. You have something going on that you’re -

Jorja Fox: I do.

Ian Harvie: That you’re excited about. Tell me about it.

Jorja Fox: I’m really excited about it. Kirsten Holly Smith, who’s a really old friend of mine, is here tonight and we’re doing a play. I’m producing, she is staring in it. Uh. A show about Dusty Springfield. It’s a music. crowd cheers Yeah! And the story is way overdue to be told. She had an amazing, incredible life. Pretty much a 30 year career span, over in Europe and the United States. And we’re doing this show, it opens February 7th, in Los Angeles, at the Gay and Lesbian Center, the Tomlin and Wagner Theater. Kirsten’s myspace page or my website will have it posted in a week or two.

Ian Harvie: Your website is?

Jorja Fox: Jorjafox.org

Ian Harvie: Okay, .org.

Jorja Fox: Mmm hmm. And that’s filled with political ramblings of all kinds. It’s my myspace page.

Ian Harvie: And give us a couple sentences background about her life. About Dusty’s life.

Jorja Fox: Well, Dusty’s pretty – She really came on the music scene in the early ’60s. She was one of the very first women that produced her own music and her own sound. She was one of the very first performers to stand up against Apartheid. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, today, thank you very much for that. She was also one of the first artists to come out as bisexual and lesbian. Like way before David Bowie and all those guys. So she’s a very brave lady. She dealt with substance abuse and breast cancer. We’re going to tell some of that in the story, it’s almost – it’s kind of too rich a life to tell it all in 90 minutes.

Ian Harvie: Right.

Jorja Fox: We’ll also perform, I think, 10? Dusty Springfield songs. Or 11. And the band’s amazing, the story’s amazing, Kirsten’s amazing. You’ll get to see her in a second.

Ian Harvie: Alright. Fantastic. There is one question that I’m sure is on everybody’s mind here. That everybody’s probably wanted to ask you, and I don’t know if anybody’s ever asked you this before.

Jorja Fox: Really?

Ian Harvie: And I know it’s kinda one of those things that maybe, you know, that in this sort of atmosphere I could probably ask it, and it would be okay. I guess I just want to ask, what was it like to film that After School Special back in 93?

Ian Harvie: Was it 93? I’m sorry, what year was that?

Jorja Fox: Gaaaaahd. You know- I can’t believe you asked me that. No comment. I don’t talk about that.

Ian Harvie: Fair enough, fair enough.

Jorja Fox: Cool. Alright, cool.

Ian Harvie: Fair enough. Jorja Fox, everybody! Thank you so much.