Piper Perabo - Jersey Girl
Hometown: Toms River, New Jersey, a small town in a state Perabo proudly defends. "People are such haters!" she bemoans. "Bruce Springsteen just made it into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. His [acceptance] speech was so beautiful! You should totally read it."
Currently: Making her off-Broadway debut as more than a pretty face in MCC Theater's production of the third installment of Neil LaBute's trilogy of plays on beauty, Reasons to be Pretty.
Back to the Stage: "I hadn't done a play since I graduated college 10 years ago," Perabo, best known for performances in films like 2000's Coyote Ugly and 2006's The Prestige, says of her professional stage debut. "I had small parts in school plays," she recalls of her high school years, "but my best friend was the one who had all the leads." Perabo took time after college to train briefly at LaMama, studying with Ellen Stewart and various artists in residence. Now, a decade later, the articulate actress is delighted to be sharing the stage with Alison Pill, Pablo Schreiber and Thomas Sadoski. "I never choose film over theater," she insists. "I auditioned for plays before this one-I just didn't get cast!"
Sitting Pretty: As an effortlessly lovely security guard married to a volatile factory worker played by Schreiber, Perabo personifies the theme of LaBute's play, the worth of physical beauty. (The other couple, played by Pill and Sadoski, find their relationship wrecked over his offhand remark that she's not beautiful.) But the actress herself isn't really interested in analyzing the importance of a pretty face. "Any kind of label limits you," she says simply. "How you're cast, even-I mean, I'd rather it be that label than another, but there are labels that are better, if you're going to pick."
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