losthighway
05-04-2003, 07:08 PM
This is part of an interview with Crystal back in 1997, but I still thought it had some interesting comments by Crystal:
After eight seasons behind the counter on Wings, the multitalented preacher's daughter catches her breath--but not for long
With her day job finally out of the way, Crystal Bernard has shifted into low gear. The actress-singer-songwriter has sixty concert dates booked, a new album to record, songs to write, cars and speedboats to race, and movies she wants to make. But because she is no longer playing Helen Chappel Hackett on Wings, which concludes an eight-year flight on NBC Wednesday night, Bernard now feels as if she's on vacation. Who can blame her? She's been working steadily on television for the past fifteen years.
The tireless performer couldn't be more different from Helen, a laconic figure who has been stuck at Wings' airport lunch counter for almost a decade. A thirty-two-year-old preacher's daughter from Texas, Bernard has been onstage from the time she began singing as a child at gospel jubilees across the country. At fourteen, she was discovered by country star Bobbie Gentry ("Ode to Billy Joe"), who asked her to join her Las Vegas revue. Driven by her faith in God and an innate ambition, Bernard enrolled as a theater and international-relations major at Baylor University when she was sixteen, and began her professional career in a national Pepsi commercial soon after. A year later, she left Texas and joined the cast of Happy Days as Richie and Joanie Cunningham's cousin, K.C. That stint was followed by a role as a roller-skating hooker in Garry Marshall's 1982 film, Young Doctors in Love, and a five-year run as a naive waitress on the series It's a Living. Just a few months after that show shut down, Bernard was on the set of Wings.
Can you tell me what you felt when that final episode of Wings was completed and the series was behind you?
I was crying. Tim [Daly] had come up to me right before the second-to-the-last scene and put his arms around me and said, "Sweetheart, this is the last time we're going to act together." And I cried. Luckily, I was supposed to cry in the scene. You know, I had regrets that I didn't enjoy it more every single day. We had a party the next night and I can't tell you how much I wanted to talk to every person in the room and tell them what they meant to me, knowing I probably wouldn't see them again.
In the Wings series finale, Helen has a chance to escape from behind the lunch counter. Was there ever a time when you hoped the producers and writers might give Helen a different way to go?
There were a lot of things we could have done with Helen that I thought might have been more interesting. But succeeding was never one of my suggestions. I like the fact that she was a loser. And I say that in the kindest way. She tried so hard in everything she did, and it failed on her, and it was funny. I liked her not being the homecoming queen, because I think everyone could identify with that.
The fundamental premise of Wings seems to be that in each of us there is some of the uptight, overpolite Joe Hackett (Daly) and some of the wild, irresponsible Brian Hackett (Steven Weber). Tell me about the Joe part of you and the Brian part of you.
The organization of Joe and wanting to be a good student and do everything right is extremely prevalent in my life. I can't say no. I think that's why I work so much. And I'm like Brian in that I race cars and I love games. I could go play video games forever. And I'm such a kid when I don't have to be responsible.
I read in Music City News that you've only had three boyfriends in your life. Did they get that right?
Yeah, I think so. It's not a sad thing. I think my expectations are high. I'm real happy. I've got a great life, I'm extremely fulfilled. I have a family that loves me so much they'd die for me. And I for them. I have guy friends who would do anything for me. I'm a happy girl. So, to get in a relationship where someone wants to change you so that it would be better for them--become less independent or take the very thing that makes me happy--to me that's not love. To get in a relationship just because I wanted a man? I'd just rather wait.
You played someone with an eating disorder in the TV movie Dying To Be Perfect, and weight was an issue in Helen's past. How have you dealt with Hollywood equating being thin with being sexy?
I've never had a weight problem. I go up five pounds and down five pounds without really any different behavior. I've never had a psychological problem about needing to be skinny or having that "look." I've always liked a healthy look. I've always been attracted to matters of the heart rather than matters of looks. I've never been attracted to guys who are beautiful. Never have.
I understand the weight issue so well, because I understand personal addiction and abuse. My mother was obese all our lives. I can say that now. I never used to say it, because she was obese. But four or five years ago, she dropped about 100 pounds. And she is beautiful. And happy. But I understand what it does to people when they think of what other people think of them. You can get lost in your own nightmare. I have a tenderness in my heart about any kind of addiction. Growing up, we lived in a drug rehab center for a year almost. I saw people who were drug addicts who gave it everything they had to stop, but couldn't.
After eight seasons behind the counter on Wings, the multitalented preacher's daughter catches her breath--but not for long
With her day job finally out of the way, Crystal Bernard has shifted into low gear. The actress-singer-songwriter has sixty concert dates booked, a new album to record, songs to write, cars and speedboats to race, and movies she wants to make. But because she is no longer playing Helen Chappel Hackett on Wings, which concludes an eight-year flight on NBC Wednesday night, Bernard now feels as if she's on vacation. Who can blame her? She's been working steadily on television for the past fifteen years.
The tireless performer couldn't be more different from Helen, a laconic figure who has been stuck at Wings' airport lunch counter for almost a decade. A thirty-two-year-old preacher's daughter from Texas, Bernard has been onstage from the time she began singing as a child at gospel jubilees across the country. At fourteen, she was discovered by country star Bobbie Gentry ("Ode to Billy Joe"), who asked her to join her Las Vegas revue. Driven by her faith in God and an innate ambition, Bernard enrolled as a theater and international-relations major at Baylor University when she was sixteen, and began her professional career in a national Pepsi commercial soon after. A year later, she left Texas and joined the cast of Happy Days as Richie and Joanie Cunningham's cousin, K.C. That stint was followed by a role as a roller-skating hooker in Garry Marshall's 1982 film, Young Doctors in Love, and a five-year run as a naive waitress on the series It's a Living. Just a few months after that show shut down, Bernard was on the set of Wings.
Can you tell me what you felt when that final episode of Wings was completed and the series was behind you?
I was crying. Tim [Daly] had come up to me right before the second-to-the-last scene and put his arms around me and said, "Sweetheart, this is the last time we're going to act together." And I cried. Luckily, I was supposed to cry in the scene. You know, I had regrets that I didn't enjoy it more every single day. We had a party the next night and I can't tell you how much I wanted to talk to every person in the room and tell them what they meant to me, knowing I probably wouldn't see them again.
In the Wings series finale, Helen has a chance to escape from behind the lunch counter. Was there ever a time when you hoped the producers and writers might give Helen a different way to go?
There were a lot of things we could have done with Helen that I thought might have been more interesting. But succeeding was never one of my suggestions. I like the fact that she was a loser. And I say that in the kindest way. She tried so hard in everything she did, and it failed on her, and it was funny. I liked her not being the homecoming queen, because I think everyone could identify with that.
The fundamental premise of Wings seems to be that in each of us there is some of the uptight, overpolite Joe Hackett (Daly) and some of the wild, irresponsible Brian Hackett (Steven Weber). Tell me about the Joe part of you and the Brian part of you.
The organization of Joe and wanting to be a good student and do everything right is extremely prevalent in my life. I can't say no. I think that's why I work so much. And I'm like Brian in that I race cars and I love games. I could go play video games forever. And I'm such a kid when I don't have to be responsible.
I read in Music City News that you've only had three boyfriends in your life. Did they get that right?
Yeah, I think so. It's not a sad thing. I think my expectations are high. I'm real happy. I've got a great life, I'm extremely fulfilled. I have a family that loves me so much they'd die for me. And I for them. I have guy friends who would do anything for me. I'm a happy girl. So, to get in a relationship where someone wants to change you so that it would be better for them--become less independent or take the very thing that makes me happy--to me that's not love. To get in a relationship just because I wanted a man? I'd just rather wait.
You played someone with an eating disorder in the TV movie Dying To Be Perfect, and weight was an issue in Helen's past. How have you dealt with Hollywood equating being thin with being sexy?
I've never had a weight problem. I go up five pounds and down five pounds without really any different behavior. I've never had a psychological problem about needing to be skinny or having that "look." I've always liked a healthy look. I've always been attracted to matters of the heart rather than matters of looks. I've never been attracted to guys who are beautiful. Never have.
I understand the weight issue so well, because I understand personal addiction and abuse. My mother was obese all our lives. I can say that now. I never used to say it, because she was obese. But four or five years ago, she dropped about 100 pounds. And she is beautiful. And happy. But I understand what it does to people when they think of what other people think of them. You can get lost in your own nightmare. I have a tenderness in my heart about any kind of addiction. Growing up, we lived in a drug rehab center for a year almost. I saw people who were drug addicts who gave it everything they had to stop, but couldn't.