Our fan girl this month is a little different -not only because shes not a comic book writer or cosplay celebrity- but nepotism be damned-she’s my sister! However she’s one of the cutest nerds I know so I thought she warranted a spot as our fangirl, on the month of her birthday.

CD: Tell about how you and your nerd cronies managed to set up a midnight screening of Attack of the Clones in our hometown of Bethel Ohio.

AN: Well, the woman who owned the theatre vowed never to have any midnight showings ever again after The Phantom Menace. They were a lot of work, she had to pay people overtime, and she just felt that they were not worth the trouble. Now, when you are 15 and Star Wars is a huge thing in your life, the idea of waiting fifteen extra hours to see the new movie is intolerable. It’s just devastating. So a bunch of the nerds on the school newspaper (myself included) started a petition. We got most of the high school behind us via the newspaper and made ourselves a huge nuisance, and the owner relented. I think I got in line around 3:30 or 4pm opening day. It wasn’t really a huge crush of die-hards. We showed up after school and were still first in line, which was pretty much unheard of in other places.

CD: You’ve written quite a bit of fanfic about Star Wars. Now, I know you love other films and comics that have a strong fanfiction base; why only write about Star Wars?

AN: I don’t know; any time I tried to write about anything other than Star Wars, it was pretty obvious the story was just an absolute schlocky mess. The biggest mess of a fanfic I ever wrote (and luckily never published) was an epic Lord of the Rings/Mummy crossover. A disaster. Also, Star Wars was the universe I was most connected with, that I knew all the jargon. Plus, the way a lot of the books treated the Han and Leia relationship really pissed me off, so I took it upon myself to fix it.

CD: Princess Leia in the metal slave bikini is one of the icons of the Star Wars culture-and you loathe it! Please explain your unsettling hatred of the metal bikini.

AN: I just find it really upsetting that such a strong, and before Return of the Jedi, equal partner in all the adventures is, for much of the first half of the movie, reduced to a sexual object. She’s put on parade and prevented from doing much of anything, while Luke runs around saving everyone. It, along with Han’s blindness, ruins the fairness of the movies. The first two (A New Hope and Empire) are about group exploits. Return of the Jedi turns the entire franchise over to Luke. Also, it plays into the idea that a strong women can be broken and made a sexual object on a leash. You can yell “feminist” at me all you want, but I thought Leia was just the right balance of smart and sexy in the first two, and Jedi just pushes her waaaay to far into being your basic sci-fi tramp.

CD: Have you had any moments where you went “Wow, I am really a huge nerd”?

AN: Um, every time I buy a Star Wars t-shirt? (Laughs) I have twelve I need to stop Actually, the moment I went “oh my god I just need to stop” was when an ex-boyfriend of mine told me that he thought Empire Strikes Back Luke was far cooler than any incarnation of Han Solo, and in my mind, I thought “Well I am glad we are already broken up, because if we hadn’t been, we would be now ” And I meant it, I really really meant it. That was a bit of a shock, that my loyalty to Han Solo could destroy my relationships

CD: Going off that, you and I have often discussed how every man can be placed in a Star Wars male character mold.

AN: Yeah,the basic theory goes that every man is either a Han, Luke, Lando, Anakin, Obi-Wan, or a Threepio. Seriously, go through your friends and you will be amazed how accurate it is. My dad is an Obi-Wan. I have a tendency to date Anakins.

CD: You have a tendency to date Anakins you think are Hans at the beginning of the relationship, but you do have other sci-fi crushes as well.

AN: Oh yeah. Han Solo is the eternal sci-fi crush, isn’t he? He’s a resourceful smart ass who will drop everything to save his lady. Faramir is another one; it broke my heart to see him in the movies, because it just wasn’t the man in the books. And Wally West. Always Wally West.

CD: Yeah what is up with your love for Wally West?

AN: He’s another one: Smart ass who saves the world. I have a soft spot for smart-asses. I love it when Wally and Oliver Queen get together- it’s a pissing contest with one-liners.

CD: A couple years ago when you traveled to Ghana, you noticed something strange about the movies they showed on television that implied that the Ghanian people may all be nerds…..

AN: Well, when I was over there, in between the World Cup games, they were in the middle of a Seth Green movie festival Which I thought was bizarre, until someone explained to me that the liked him because he was funny and was exotic looking. Without A Paddle showed at least twice when I was there- and I was only there a month.

CD: Now, you are a classically trained actress; how does something like Shakespeare equate to Star Wars?

AN: It’s not that far of a leap, actually. Shakespeare is heightened text, and so is Star Wars. You can’t approach either the way you would approach modern dialogue, because it just falls apart. But if you are too precious with it, you get what happened in the new Star Wars movies, where everyone is feeling everything sooooo deeply and emoting so much to cover up for the fact that they have no idea what they are saying, which means there is no emotional core to words. Ewan McGregor, also a classically trained actor, is the exception that proves it. What is boils down to is that if you know what you are saying and connecting with, and have a lot of fun, you’re homefree. Nobody likes to watch someone delivering lines like they are about to receive a lobotomy, either in classical theatre or a sci-fi film.

CD: If you could play anyone in a comic book or sci-fi movie, who would it be?

AN: Lois Lane jumps to mind, but I’m almost tempted to disregard that and go with the second one that popped in, because Lois is so obvious, isn’t she? I’d love to be Lois, though, and go back to her bitchy, ‘30’s roots, where she just makes Clark’s life hell because she wants his job and is a ruthless career woman. I don’t know that Lois’s ambitions, and the dark side of that, has really been explored. I’d also love to play Mina Harker in a League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie; you know, one that actually stuck to the comics.

Interview by Caitlyn Darr

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