Vanessa Marcil

Vanessa Marcil Maxim

Viva Vanessa
On Las Vegas Vanessa Marcil is the girl who does whatever it takes to make the high rollers happy. And judging from these pictures, she deserves a promotion.

Maxim, Jun 2005
By By Lian Bonin

“So…are you going to take off your clothes during the interview?” jokes Vanessa Marcil, wearing only a white terry cloth robe and panties. Apparently, she wants us to match.

Naughty, naughty. But what else would you expect from the actress who plays spitfire casino host Sam Jane on NBC’s Las Vegas? After all, she regularly faces off against drug runners and card counters and even puts professional tough guy James Caan (who plays security chieftain Big Ed) in his place. “Sam is a hard-ass,” Vanessa explains. “A little attitudey, and all about power and money. She couldn’t give a shit whether you like her or not.”

When it comes to TV, Vanessa’s been getting her bitch on for more than a decade, first playing the pill-popping, knife-wielding model Brenda Barrett on General Hospital, which netted her a mantel of awards…and almost got us to watch soap operas. She hit prime time with her turn as Gina Kincaid, the scheming thorn in goody-goody Donna’s side during the dying days of Beverly Hills 90210. Even worse, she had sex with Nicolas Cage in The Rock, giving us yet another reason to hate him.

Vanessa’s not some cookie-cutter, powder-puff starlet, however. Born and raised on the mean streets of Indio, California, she did her share of drugs and drinking in her teens—surviving break-ins into her house, girl gangs in her ’hood, and a stint in juvie hall—before cleaning up her act and landing on GH at 17. But don’t think you have to be some womanizing, alcoholic, rock’n’roll douchebag to win her heart. In fact, she prefers Pillsbury Doughboys with a penchant for psychoanalysis. “I’ve always liked nice guys,” she says. “A guy who’s been in therapy is the hottest thing to me.”

Maybe that explains why she was linked to former child star Corey Feldman (back in his unfortunate Michael Jackson impersonator phase), Prince (who is rumored to have written “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” about her), and her 90210 costar Brian Austin Green, the father of her three-year-old son, Kassius.

Deep down Vanessa’s just a tomboy trapped in the body of a hellcat, readily tagging along with her guy friends to strip clubs, kicking their ass in Halo 2, and totaling her vintage muscle cars. And while her tastes—and body—are definitely high-performance, Vanessa’s shockingly low-maintenance. “I think it’s sexy to be in a T-shirt with no bra and little cotton panties,” she says. “And actually, the boys I know think that’s sexy, too.”

Yeah, boys can be funny that way.

You went from juvenile delinquent to cover girl—not too shabby.
I know! How did this happen? I was the geeky girl with braces and frizzy hair. It’s so funny—throughout my career I’ve always played these sexpots, but I’ve never been overtly sexy.

According to you.
I never took off my clothes. Ever. It was pretty unbelievable to be on a soap for five years and never take your clothes off, but I was never in lingerie, never in a bathing suit. Even when I did The Rock with Nicolas Cage, they wanted me to be topless in a scene, but I said no. The funny thing is, I love my body.

OK, prove your nerd cred.
I’m a gadget junkie. I like cars, video games—I buy a new phone every three weeks. Now I have a Treo 650, and it’s the greatest phone ever. Before that I had a Sidekick II. Before that I had a picture phone. This one holds 600 pictures, it’s got video, it’s an MP3 player, it’s e-mail, and the phone service is the best I’ve had.

What’s your game du jour?
Right now I have a $10,000 bet with one of my guy friends on a Halo 2 tournament. I’m determined to win. I get very competitive.

Sounds like you had a calling for Vegas.
I want to win, but I’ll only wager with people I know. As far as going into a casino? I’m frugal. I’m not giving my money to them.

So what the hell do you do in Vegas?
After I got the show, it wasn’t easy to hang out in Vegas anymore. It’s comical; people are so alarmed to see me. So we walk through Vegas, experience it for a minute, then I usually go to private parties or hit the strip clubs with my guy friends. When I do hit the casinos, I’ll sit next to one of my friends who’s a high roller and watch him play. The pit bosses, who are usually very serious, will eventually lean over and whisper, “I know who you are,” then walk away.

What’s the worst thing about Las Vegas?
All the bad clothing and cheesy hotels. Visually, it hurts. You don’t want to look at it during the day. At night everything is cool because they throw lights over it, but during the day it’s bad.

You don’t actually film in Las Vegas, right?
We couldn’t shoot in Vegas, because there’s no good time to shoot there. Somewhere else you can shoot at three in the morning, but people are up that late in Vegas. And you put Josh Duhamel in a casino and he’d be swarmed by screaming girls. I’ve heard we’re the second-largest set ever built for a TV show. I think The West Wing is the largest one. You walk onto our set and you feel like you’re inside the Bellagio. We even have working slot machines.

After the first season, critics thought your show was going to be canceled, and you survived. Got any words for them now?
I didn’t know that! I don’t read magazines or watch much TV. I isolate myself from that, because there’s so much crap. A good friend of mine said if you believe the good things, you have to believe the bad things, too. So when we started working on this show, what was most important to me wasn’t the ratings or what anyone else thought—it was about having a good time. And I’d literally work craft service on a show just to hang out around Jimmy [Caan].

He doesn’t bore you to tears with stories about The Godfather?
We’ll be waiting for a scene, and he’ll pull me over to the side and start telling a story. The producer will come out and say, “Uh, Jimmy? We’re ready for you; the camera’s ready.” But if he’s in the middle of it, he’s got to finish.

So you like working with the legendary Sonny Corleone?
It still feels funny. There’s always that speck of a second when I realize Jimmy Caan is answering the phone—and I’m calling him. My family didn’t have any money growing up. I’m just a girl from the ghetto, from Indio, California. I’m still amazed that someone doesn’t call me upstairs and say, “You’re fired.”

You grew up in the ghetto?
Yeah. Our house used to get broken into all the time. I’m half Mexican and half white, so I had a hard time fitting in and had a lot of problems with the girl gangs. Our fights were pretty one-sided. It was them kicking my ass and shoving me into lockers. Although I’ve gone home a few times, and suddenly they’re my friends.

Sam has a golden tongue on the show. What’s the trick to talking your way into getting free stuff from a casino?
Be a high roller. Casinos have ways of tracking who everybody is, where they play, how much they play for, so unless you’re supercharming, there isn’t a way. On our show we can scan a face and find out where they played, how much they play for, what kind of money they have. The security surveillance routine is pretty serious.

Yeah, but that’s just TV, right? Right?
There’s a reason why Caan’s character has a CIA background on our show. I’m sure a lot of this underground, Big Brother stuff is going on.

So what happens in Vegas doesn’t really stay in Vegas?
I’ve never really understood that ad campaign, because there’s no place else in the world that has more cameras than Vegas. Go someplace else if you want some privacy. It’s ridiculous.

Are you a smooth talker like Sam?
Some people might say yes, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty honest. I’m not good at manipulating people or talking my way into things.

C’mon—you’ve never even flirted your way out of a speeding ticket?
I’m more up-front, like the girl who says, “I understand. I understand. Fine, give me the ticket.” I’m a little more New York about stuff.

Have you always been a closet New Yorker?
I think it’s been evolving. Sam is fun to play because she does things I would never do. Lying doesn’t bother her. I’m definitely more tortured, guilt-ridden, and conscious of myself, to the point where I’m really hard on myself—Sam doesn’t give a shit if you like her. My goal is to not give a shit what anyone thinks of me.

Well, we think it’s pretty cool that you’re a muscle car aficionado.
I’m an adrenaline junkie. I like to drive fast. But I’ve had bad luck with some of my cars. My friend completely totaled my white 1964 Mustang, the first car I had. It was my baby. And my Alfred Dunhill Aston Martin DB7—number 17 of just 150 or so—burst into flames on the side of the road. I’m not kidding. Look, I have a picture [scrolls through photo files in her Treo, and shows a flaming car parked by the highway]. It was totally destroyed. Luckily, nobody was hurt. Now I have a 1972 Ferrari Dino with all the original parts.

Nice! How’s Sam’s luck holding out?
She’s contemplating a possible love interest, which is rare for her, because she’s very anti-love. She’s like a dude in that sense, just wanting to get laid, thanks, buh-bye. Which I’m not.

So are you the marrying type?
Not really. That dream of getting married someday and being the princess and having your hair done sounds like being at work all day. I have no desire to have the big wedding with the dress. I’m not a fan of the idea of marriage in general. Someone might change my mind someday, but I don’t like to break promises. I couldn’t imagine promising someone that I’d be with only them until death. What if we change?

What do you look for in a guy, then?
Funny men are the sexiest men on the planet. I always say hot is fleeting but funny lasts forever. I think Jeremy Piven is the funniest man in the world—he’s a good friend of mine. Steve Zahn is hysterical. I like people who are comfortable with themselves; it’s not sexy when you try too hard. A funny boy with a wrinkled shirt who doesn’t work out every day? That’s sexy.

Weren’t you married to Corey Feldman?
I never married Corey. He’s just a kid I did drugs with when I was a teenager. If I had a gift for every time someone said I’ve been married…

Well, we’ve heard that Prince thinks you’re “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.”
Apparently. I met him when I was really young, and he’s been an amazing influence in my life. Unfortunately, when you really care about people, it’s better not to talk about them, because everything gets misconstrued.

Prince and Corey Feldman…You were a wild child, weren’t you?
Well, yeah. I got arrested a lot as a kid. I got arrested for truancy, for stealing, for having alcohol on campus. I would go to court, and the judge would say, “If you don’t stop skipping school, you’re going to juvenile hall.” I think I had 40 truancies in one semester, and I ended up there for a few weeks.

What’s it like to go to juvie?
I was the only girl there. They put me in the section for really little kids, and I was scrawny and my hair was short, so I let them believe that I was a boy. But right when I left, I lifted my T-shirt and flashed the boys I had been hanging out with. They were hysterical.

How did you turn your life around?
Sometimes all someone needs is for one person to believe in them. That’s all it took. When people are in trouble, the worst thing someone can do is say, “You’re such a loser! Why did you do that?” What that person needs to hear is, “You’re really great.” People told me those great things, so I didn’t want to let them down.

And then you landed on 90210. Who’s stranger, soap fans or 90210 junkies?
Definitely 90210 fans, because they hate themselves a little. They’ll come up to me and say, “You were on 90210, weren’t you? I watched that every week. It sucked.” I mean, what the hell? It’s almost like they’re embarrassed to have liked it so much.

What’s the most bizarre encounter you’ve ever had with a fan?
I was on a flight between New York and L.A., and the woman sitting next to me just starts in with the General Hospital questions. “So, when Brenda was arrested…” And there’s nothing you can do when someone’s sitting next to you. It’s not like you can say you’re too busy, because she’s right there. So I’m trying to answer all her questions, even though I really wanted to sleep. And then, at the end of the flight, I realized this woman was a stewardess! I hadn’t looked at her clothes, and I just assumed that every time she got up, she was going to the bathroom. But she was serving meals and pouring coffee. You know how the flight crew usually sits in the back of the plane during the flight? She decided to sit next to me because I had an empty seat.

What actresses do you find sexy?
Salma Hayek. And Meryl Streep, because there’s no role she’s afraid of. There are a lot of girls who are hot, but hate themselves. They date awful guys, they’re uncomfortable with their bodies, and it’s like, huh? Then there are women like Maya Angelou, who’s seventysomething, and she’s like, yeah, I’m hot! Or Oprah! Oprah is extremely hot!

Speaking of hot, what’s it like to be a MILF?
What’s a MILF?

A mother I’d like to…
Oh, right! [laughs] I don’t know about that, but I think my 30s have been the best. I’d hate to be in my 20s again. I’m really happy with my life now. And if I’m a MILF, all right.

Original Interview can be found here!