Ellen Muth is not quite dead, but she sounds as if she has just been awakened from the beyond. Or at least from a sound sleep–which is true, just a day after returning home to Connecticut after six months of filming in Vancouver.
Though she cheerfully answers all questions about her acting career and the success of Showtime’s “Dead Like Me,” (9 p.m. Sunday) the 23-year-old actress is employing quite a few dramatic pauses. (Is she still awake?) Except for the occasional giggles, it’s eerily similar to her subtle performance on the death-defining dark comedy.
In “Dead Like Me,” Muth deftly portrays a teenager whose slacker life was snuffed out on her lunch break–by a falling toilet seat from a space station. But instead of passing to the great beyond, Georgia “George” Lass is stuck in the dreary present, forced to collect an undetermined number of souls from the victims of unnatural deaths.
What are the similarities between you and your character, George Lass?
We both have a wry, dry sense of humor. We’re both very sarcastic. That’s pretty much it.
And the differences?
I’m not as bitter as she is. I don’t blame people as often as she does. I take responsibility for my actions more than she does.
Plus, George never got a driver’s license and you are a racecar driver. What about that?
I went to the Skip Barber school here in Connecticut. … Now I have a fast car. It’s a (Porsche) Carrera C4. It’s small and silver with a convertible hard top. A wing in the back comes up when you reach a certain speed. I drive as much as I can. I even brought it to Vancouver.
How do you prepare yourself to play George?
I listen to music. It sets me in the mood. I just try to remain in a tranquil place in my head.
The show has attained a sort of cult status. What’s the weirdest fan thing to come out of it?
An alligator head in the mail. That was a little strange.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Drew Sottardi (dsottardi@tribune.com)
