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Jennifer Lee Taylor makes her third appearance at Portland Center Stage this weekend as Sister James, the young nun who unwittingly provokes a battle of wills between her superior, Sister Aloysius (Jayne Taini), and a possibly child-molesting young priest, Father Flynn (John Behlmann), in John Patrick Shanley’s incredible play Doubt, directed by Rose Riordan. Her previous roles at PCS were Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice and Viola in this season’s Twelfth Night. We spoke about Doubt, making a living as a professional actor in the Northwest, and what it’s like to be best known as a sexy computer in Halo.

WW: What was your first paid acting gig?

Jennifer Lee Taylor: I’m sure I dressed up like a smurf or something and somebody paid me $50. But I imagine my first real paid acting gig was voice work. I think I was in some video game for kids—like a computer game. I played a baseball glove.

What motivation does a baseball glove have?
You don’t want to drop the ball. You want to hold on tight and just—wow, it just got so dirty in my head all of a sudden.

Where do you call home?
Seattle.
Did you grow up there?
I grew up in Issaquah. Which has now become Sammamish.
Do you act full-time?
Yeah. I have for probably the last 10 years. I’ve been very lucky.
Is it hard to make a living as a professional actor in the Northwest?
With voiceovers, it’s helped me a lot—but if you’re just doing theater, yeah, you have to do something else. There are probably four or five people who are just able to do live theater in the Pacific Northwest. I kind of consider doing voice work as acting, though.

Do you have a favorite role?
Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. I was in the second production of it [at Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre, in 2003], and Rose Riordan had come up to see it and suggested they do it here [at PCS]. Same script, a couple of the same actors, but it was pretty different from the fist production.

She’s feisty, she’s smarter than I will ever be. She’s just so quick and witty and agile with her tongue and her thoughts. It’s fun to play someone like that. I felt similarly about Viola in Twelfth Night. And to have an emotional journey, which Elizabeth does. My character in Doubt has quite a big change. Which is fun to play as an actor, to find that point.

I understand you voiced Cortana, Master Chief’s advisor and love interest, in the Halo series. Do you have fanboys?

After you asked me that, you have to go watch “Cortana Chronicles” on youtube [see below]. Most people don’t know what I look like, and they don’t recognize my voice normally, so it’s not something I have to deal with regularly. Bungie sent me on this trip where I went to Europe and met with these huge fans.
I’ve voiced a lot of video games. My friend David Scully is also in Halo; he plays Sgt. Johnson. I swear we’re always in games together.

Right now I am voicing Car Toys, and you would not recognize me if you heard that and then played Halo. With video games you’re just acting. It’s not so much about the words. It’s about being in the moment. At least that’s my experience. I can’t speak for the people directing me.
I’ve never received fan-mail. I don’t think most people pay much attention to the voices, really. They’re too focused on the game. We’re just there to keep them on track.
Tell me about Sister James.
Sister James—first of all, this play is probably one of the most masterfully written plays I’ve ever read. And performances of it across the country are vastly different, but the written word is just beautiful. She is the teacher, if you went to Catholic school, she’s the teacher you wish you’d had. She is invested in the kids. She is innocent in a way that we don’t come across very often anymore. She is guileless, she is pure-hearted, and I don’t think there is any other job she could have had. The play is set in 1964, and it’s been interesting to see how people are responding—the sexism in 1964 was just pervasive in a way we have a hard time understanding today. This was actually a great opportunity for [Sister James], and probably the only the thing she ever considered doing. She’s also the character that indirectly brings about change in this play, that brings us to the crisis point. Completely unwillingly.
In one sentence, why should we come see Doubt this weekend?
Doubt is about so many topical issues, but when you boil it down to its core I think it’s about what we believe in that we never question—things that we consider to be true that we never question. I think this play, even if the topics discussed don’t make you think, hopefully this is a piece that you will leave questioning things that you take for granted. And if we can do that, then we’ve succeeded.

I think this play is about—it’s set in the Catholic church, and it’s about the questionable behavior of a priest—but I think it’s much larger than that. I hope that this is a play that forces people to really think. And to question the way that they think.

Cortana Chronicles

1. Better Know an Actor: Chris Murray Chris Mu
2. Better Know an Actor: Todd Van Voris Ask just
3. Better Know an Actor: Sharonlee McLean There are
4. Better Know an Actor: Valerie Stevens Shortly a
5. Better Know an Actor: Michael O’Connell I’m

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Culture, Neighborhoods, Stage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.