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Career Catching Fire
UNCSA grad has a leading role in TV drama being filmed in New Zealand and making debut tonight
Photo Courtesy of Ferencomm
Bridget Regan, a UNCSA alumna, stars in Legend of the Seeker, a new series.
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Published: November 2, 2008
In four years, Bridget Regan has gone from the School of Drama at UNC School of the Arts to a medieval realm called Westland.
She has a leading role in Legend of the Seeker, a new fantasy adventure series from producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, the team behind Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and the Spider-Man movies. The series will make its debut at 6 p.m. today on WMYV channel 48 (cable channel 15 on Time Warner).
Regan has known that she wanted to act since she was a child growing up in San Diego. In high school, she went to a summer conservatory. "One of the teachers there raved about Gerald Freedman and said this is the man to learn from, and that I should go where he is teaching."
And so she came to NCSA, now UNCSA, where Freedman is the dean of the School of Drama.
She graduated in 2004 and has spent much of her time since then working in New York, on Broadway and in TV shows including Law & Order: Criminal Intent and New Amsterdam and in movies including Sex and the City: The Movie.
But her latest role has taken her half a world away from New York.
Seeker, filmed in New Zealand, is based on the Sword of Truth fantasy novel series by Terry Goodkind. Regan plays Kahlan Amnell, a mystical woman who protects a young man with a heroic destiny.
"This is a real step out of my zone," she said -- and not only because of its locale, but because of the subject matter. "I've never been into the whole fantasy genre. I hadn't actually seen Lord of the Rings."
But at the same time, she said, this role is a culmination of her training. "I've always been a dancer," she said, "and this is very physical job, with lots of running through woods and horse riding."
Plus, she gets to spend her time in a scenic paradise.
"New Zealand is just incredible," she said. "It's so beautiful…. These gorgeous backdrops, trees, mountain ranges, rolling hills.
"It looks like another world because it is such a young country. It doesn't look like man has tromped all over it for years and years and years."
Xena and Hercules were filmed in New Zealand as well, but Seeker is less campy and comical than those shows. "Rob and Sam feel they have done that already," Regan said. "This show definitely strives for more truth and grit and darkness, as opposed to the tongue-in-cheek quality."
Raimi and Tapert selected Regan for after looking over tapes of a casting call in New York.
Asked what made them cast her, Raimi replied, "I believed the things she said."
"Obviously she's striking -- you know ,she's quite beautiful to look at, but a lot of actresses are beautiful."
Regan got the role, he said, because she was able to take fantastic situations and make them seem plausible. "She grounded them by being very human and real," he said.
Regan keeps in touch with people at UNCSA, and came back last year to see the all-school production of West Side Story.
"I miss all the teachers there," she said. "I have such a fond place in my heart for those people.
"I called Gerald from New Zealand a couple of weeks ago. I will forever be in his debt for what he taught me.
"I know I wouldn't be where I am today without that school."
Freedman said that the fact that Regan's career is taking off comes as no surprise to him.
"She has everything," he said. "She is beautiful, she has a great work ethic, she has superior intelligence and high energy. You can't ask for more. She was a wonder to work with because of her commitment, which was always 100 percent."
■ Tim Clodfelter can be reached at 727-7371 or at tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
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