ANYONE BUT ME's Nicole Pacent: WLS Interview, Part 2

In Part One of my interview with ANYONE BUT ME's Indie Soap Award nominated Nicole Pacent, the talented young actress talked about her character’s struggles, as well as the benefits of acting on a web series. In Part Two, the focus shift to Pacent's own life.

We Love Soaps: Let’s talk about you.  Did you ever watch soaps growing up?
Nicole Pacent: Not so much.  I actually was into the teen dramas.  I was into FELICITY, DAWSON’S CREEK, the WB kind of stuff, that was the soapish stuff I connected to, and I loved it.  I’m sure somewhere in there I went to NYU because I loved FELICITY [laughs].  Before it ended I did some work on GUIDING LIGHT, just background stuff.  But it was interesting the way it works, the get-it-done process.  It was incredibly smooth.  So I actually appreciated being part of that process.  The whole thing is in flux now, it’s unfortunate.  It will be interesting to see where it goes.  Maybe it’s just about an evolution.  Maybe we need to find the next generation.  I guess James Franco is now on one of them.

We Love Soaps: Uh-huh.  And that doesn’t seem like the next generation of story telling, I’ll tell you that.  I think the next generation of storytelling comes from the creative forces that made ANYONE BUT ME and other web series.  They are allowing for unique voices to be told.  In many ways, network soaps gave voice to a population that didn’t see themselves represented in media.  They showed women in roles that you would never see in prime time television.  And they’ve really gone in the other direction with that.  But now with web shows like ANYONE BUT ME, we see diverse groups of people, in realistic situations, in the way daytime shows won’t do anymore.
Nicole Pacent: And you don’t have all the network rules on you.  You can do anything.  Our show is pretty PG-13.  Our writers have kept it that way, they haven’t wanted to be a GOSSIP GIRL thing. Our show is less about the sex, and more about the emotional aspects of coping with life.

We Love Soaps: But there is still a LOT of lovin’ going on. What’s that like for you to shoot those love scenes?
Nicole Pacent: I always played the ingenue growing up, I’m totally used to kissing people at this point on stage.  However, this is more intense because we’re on beds a lot of the time, and also, you’ve got the girl-on-girl thing and that’s a whole different deal.  For me personally that’s not that big a deal because that’s part of my life as well so that transition was natural.  At the same time I was super nervous at first, I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

We Love Soaps: Were you more nervous about doing a love scene with her than with a man?
Nicole Pacent: Yes. Because with guys it’s just expected, you don’t think you’re making them uncomfortable by that.  We both signed on for it, I knew she would be fine.  But I still worried.  In any love scene you want to know that we’re acting, it’s cool, anything I do is not really coming onto you so let’s make that clear.  I remember saying that to her at our first rehearsal when she and I got together alone.  “I just want you to know I’m just acting...” and she was like, “Don’t worry.”  She was much cooler [about it].  Now we’re such good friend.  In between takes we’ll be holding hands.  We’ve gotten more affectionate on camera because we are so close in real life.  A lot of that is improv, it’s not written in.  In between takes, we’ll be talking and still holding hands.  It’s wonderful, I am blessed to work with you.

We Love Soaps: I’ve read some other interviews with you.  In some you referred to as lesbian, in some bi.  What I want to know is, how do you feel about labels?
Nicole Pacent: I appreciate that.  I’ve never minded labels.  I’m bisexual, there you go.  I’ll throw out “gay” because gay is a gigantic umbrella.  It’s become a larger umbrella term.  So I think it’s become unfortunately confusing for people.  “Is she gay? Is she bi? What’s going on?” Oh my gosh, it’s really not that big a deal.  For me I don’t mind the label if you feel a label applies to you.  I would never label someone without them doing it first.  If someone says, “This is who I am...” then I say “Of course, that’s who you are, you’ve claimed that.”  For me bisexual fits.  It just does.  It was a process coming to that. People love to look at things in black and white.  It’s not fair.  There’s such a huge range of sexuality.  We as people live on this continuum and giant spectrum so I don’t know why our sexuality would not follow that. 

We Love Soaps: Are you given a hard time from the gay/lesbian community for that?
Nicole Pacent: I haven’t been in entertainment yet.  I have been in life, absolutely.  In fact, I think the reason when I first started talking about it, that I was comfortable with the “gay” umbrella term, was this fear I’ve had about being rejected by the gay community because I’m bisexual.  People, women, get very threatened by that.  They don’t like the idea of being left for a guy.  Not that I would necessarily do that.  But I’m saying it’s a sensitive thing.  It brings up a lot of insecurities and a lot of things people have gone through.  I understand it, but at the same time it’s difficult.  It would be easier in a lot of ways if I was gay.  I still truly believe that.   But I’m happy with who I am, I’m cool with it.  But in entertainment, we’ll see.  I have thought before that if one of these days I have a boyfriend, are my fans going to freak out?  That’s a hard thing for me to think about.  If you’re lucky enough to find love with anyone, that’s wonderful, more power to you, whoever it is.  To think about backlash from the straight or the gay community just feels, wrong. 

We Love Soaps: Our culture certainly does polarize black or white, love or hate, straight or gay.  I think this is a very dysfunctional part of the culture we live in.  If we could recognize shades of gray in others I think this would be a much more compassionate and tolerant society.
Nicole Pacent: The black and white stuff is what creates ignorance.  Then when people are introduced to gray, they are taken so far out of their comfort zone that it makes them unstable.  They say, “I have to look at life like this or my house of cards will fall.”  It’s a scary thing about our world.  But I think things like our show are helping to change that, maybe just a little bit. 

We Love Soaps: I will say that I don’t think younger people get as hooked on these labels as people of my generation.
Nicole Pacent: Some was saying that recently and I totally agree.  It’s one thing I love about this show.  Teenagers are able to do a lot more experimentation.  They can do a lot more searching for who they are without immediately getting labeled as one thing or another or criticized for it.  Of course it still happens, but it’s to a lesser extent.  You see so many problems coming out of people repressing who they are in every way, sexually or otherwise.  God, repression leads to horrible things.  If we could all just be cool with everybody figuring it out, that would be awesome. 

We Love Soaps: What I hope is that ANYONE BUT ME and the other webseries coming out will be giving us different role models and different ways of seeing things.  And not be limited to network television’s prescription of how you “should” be, which is most of what TV is about.  The web is giving opportunities to tell creative enriching stories about people who may not fall into one extreme or the other.  I’m so glad you are a part of that and that ANYONE BUT ME is bringing this to life. 
Nicole Pacent: Thank you!

Damon L. Jacobs is a Marriage Family Therapist practicing in New York City, and the author of "Absolutely Should-less: The Secret to Living the Stress-Free Life You Deserve". He is re-imagining a world without "shoulds" at www.shouldless.com.