Her cryptic ‘V’ character is alien to animated Baccarin

By Donna Freydkin

And don’t tell her bosses at ABC, but she has gotten a little sick of it.

“I want to bleach my hair blond. I’d love to, but they would kill me right now if I did that,” she says.

No kidding. The series V, starring Baccarin as Anna, the poker-faced president of the extraterrestrial Visitors, has proven to be a hit for ABC. The fourth episode airs tonight (8 ET/PT), and the series returns in March.

Baccarin, 30, is animated and peppy in person. On screen, she’s as cool as, well, a lizard.

So she’s particularly excited that this week, “you get to see what makes Anna tick a little bit. It’s fun to be mysterious. I know that what Anna is doing and what her agenda is are really important, but you can’t let on. I have to make her likable and intriguing to people who feel like they shouldn’t like her.”

The Los Angeles-based actress, who was born in Brazil but grew up in New York, auditioned for the part and landed the job in one day.

“I read this role and gravitated toward it, which I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing,” she says with a laugh.

Her shorn hair, which she had cut earlier, worked in her favor. “There was a tiny bit of debate in the beginning. There was a second there where we discussed if she should have long hair. But having her be different would be better. I voiced my opinion that she should be crisp and clean and precise. The costume designer totally agreed.”

Given that Baccarin played a courtesan in Joss Whedon’s sci-fi series Firefly and its big-screen adaptation, Serenity, has she been crowned the queen of the geeks?

Sort of.

“It’s been really weird to walk down the street. At the post office the other day, a woman said I looked exactly like the alien on V. It’s so weird to have people recognize you. They look at you like you’re an alien.”

(Source)