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Yvonne Strahovski > Photoshoot > Malibu

If I had to sum up Yvonne Strahovski in one sentence, I’d say she’s the über-cool action hero, minus the corny acting. In her breakout role as the ass-kicking CIA agent Sarah Walker in Chuck, she gave hope to every computer geek in America that they too might meet and fall in love with a hot blonde who knows kung fu. She also made death by poison seem like a favorable way to go as the lethal Hannah McKay in Dexter. Next she’ll play a scientist alongside Aaron Eckhart in I, Frankenstein, out Jan. 24. Malibu Magazine recently caught up with the Australian gem to get the low down on Comic-Con, Broadway and how to make a perfect cup of coffee.

I just read that there’s some speculation that Dexter may not be gone forever. If the show returned, what do you think we’d find your character doing?
Well, she has Harrison now, so that’s a big responsibility, and if she hasn’t poisoned him already, she would be looking after him and really trying to be a good mom, because I think she really loved Harrison. The other alternative is she has poisoned Harrison and is doing bad things, and she’s gone dark.

There seems to be a running theme of good and bad, and the gray area between the two in a lot of your work.
I think that’s just a product of circumstance. I choose my roles based on various things but mainly the character, and if it’s something new or something I haven’t done, or something I can make into something interesting and different for me.

Can you talk a bit about Stuart Beattie’s interpretation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? How has he reimagined the classic tale?
It’s sort of launching off the end of Mary Shelley’s novel. We fast-forward 200 years from the end of Mary Shelley’s book. It’s a tale about the creature, Frankenstein, having still survived into the present day because he’s immortal and how he has come to be this way and his search for answers. And within that you meet my character, Dr. Terra Wade, who is an electro-physiologist. She’s a scientist, and she’s the modern-day Victor Frankenstein researching how to bring things back to life for medical purposes. She doesn’t believe in the myth of the creature Frankenstein, and she doesn’t believe in gargoyles and demons, but yet these things are all alive in her world, and she sort of discovers them throughout the movie.

Did you ever read comic books growing up?
I was never really a comic book fan. I’ve sort of been recently, and by recently I mean through the Chuck years. I’ve been thrown into that sort of comic world, and you know now I’m a Comic-Con regular because of it. But I do remember when I was younger I loved — I don’t know if this was just an Australian thing or not — but I used to watch the cartoon He-Man with She-Ra. I never really did the comic book, but I loved the cartoon.

Speaking of Comic-Con, you’ve gone several times, are there any alter egos you are secretly wishing you could dress up as?
Ones that exist in real life? I have a couple in my head that I wouldn’t mind playing. But I would probably just throw on a Wookie costume from Star Wars and head in.

How would you describe your personal style on a day-to-day basis?
My personal style is very carefree and without a lot of effort because I can’t be bothered really. I’m sort of the shorts-and-T-shirt girl or the jeans-and-T-shirt girl. I’m happiest when I’m in comfortable clothing that I can run around in and do cartwheels in and then, you know, go straight for a bathing suit and a wetsuit and go surfing.

Theater was your first introduction to acting. And I know you just performed in Golden Boy. Are you interested in doing another Broadway play?
Yeah. That was an extraordinary experience. I had my own theater company in Sydney for a long time, but I hadn’t done theater in about seven years before my Broadway debut. I didn’t ever think that I would go back to theater, but doing that made me rediscover the power and the beauty and the creative energy of it. It’s really something else. It’s probably one of the rare and only times that an actor is fully in control, for an extended period of time, of what he or she is doing. On camera, you stop and start, and there are different shots for different pieces of different scenes. Live theater is one take, and that’s it. So, there’s something very extraordinary and difficult and challenging and terrifying about it all, but it makes it all very rewarding in the end.

[ Malibu Magazine ]