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| Act Natural |
Source: Natural Health - Aug 2009
Author: Christine Richmond
Article submitted by: Christopher
|
She plays Fiona, a sultry weapons expert on the spy show Burn Notice
(the second season airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on LISA Network), but off the set,
actress Gabrielle Anwar leads a much simpler and more peaceful life. The 39-year-old mother
of three prefers organic and Ayurvedic meals (and composts the leftovers), meditates daily,
and takes herbs. A natural beauty (her mother is British, her father is Indian and Austrian),
Anwar favors a minimalist style: She uses few grooming products and wears breezy, lived-in clothes.
After a long day of filming, Anwar, who is witty and approachable, spoke to us about how she stays
healthy, creative, and green.
You seem so relaxed after a hectic day. How do you manage stress? I meditate twice a day. I like the
ritual of doing a sunrise and sunset meditation--30 minutes in the morning is invigorating, and at
night it's a gentle way to wind down. I do primordial sound meditation, an updated form of transcendental
meditation devised by Deepak Chopra.
Do you follow a specific diet? I eat according to Ayurvedic [India's 5,000-year-old system
of traditional medicine] principles. I love incorporating Ayurveda's six tastes--bitter, sweet,
sour, salty, pungent, and astringent--into one simple, satisfying meal. When I feed myself one dish
with all these flavors, I am fulfilled. My favorite Ayurvedic meal is khichdi [a lentil and rice dish]--it
makes me feel nourished and warm.
Do you grow your own food? Yes. My children [daughters Willow, 15, and Paisley, 5, and son Hugo, 8]
and I grow tomatoes in our garden. We watch them ripen on the vine, we pick them, rinse them, pull
out the little green leaves, and slice them--and the scraps we don't finish go into our compost bin,
and later, back into the earth. It's a lovely process.
How do you eat healthfully when traveling? I use the Urbanspoon application on my iPhone to
find local health food restaurants. I also carry dried seaweed with me. It's the perfect plane snack--it's
nourishing and surprisingly filling, and it's salty, so I drink a lot of water, which keeps me hydrated.
Have you tried complementary medicine? Absolutely--I'll hop on the acupuncturist's table,
see a chiropractor, or take homeopathic remedies, and I take my kids to a holistic pediatrician.
Western medicine has its place, but a lot of times it doesn't address the root cause of an illness. So
if I have a cough, I'll try something like Chinese mushrooms first. Echinacea is a big staple in the house
during cold season; for bruises, I use arnica.
How do you stay fit? Well, I'd rather have my wisdom teeth pulled than go to a gym. My
dosha [Ayurvedic body type] is rata, so working out needs to be fun, otherwise it's not going
to happen. What works for me is YogaHop: it combines traditional Vinyasa flow yoga with high-energy
contemporary music. I do it almost every day, and I find myself looking forward to it. And I've become
hip again with my teenage daughter because I actually know the words to rap songs. I also spend a lot of
time outdoors. In Miami, the children, their father, and I cycle to school instead of driving--we're the only ones.
Besides acting, what are some of your creative outlets? Writing is my bliss, without a doubt. It connects me
to something greater than myself. I've been doing some screenplay writing, I've written a pilot, and I've been
working on a novel that I'm loving. I paint, too. If I don't engage in some form of creativity every day, I feel
a little disconnected from myself.
On screen, you always look sharp and well put together. What's your style off set? Whatever comes out of the wash
without a stain (laughs). I put on clothes that delight my senses--I'm interested in color and texture and the way
a fabric moves. I usually have a favorite piece for the season that I just live in. A lot of my clothes I've had
for 20 years--I love to sew, so I'll pull them out and revamp them. And when it comes to primping, I do as little
as possible. I think low-maintenance is beautiful.
What's your decorating philosophy? I like things to feel lived-in and cozy. I prefer shopping
vintage: If there's a garage sale, I'm the first person there. Secondhand items have more character,
and there isn't any packaging waste.
In what ways are you and your family "green"? We recycle and compost, and recently we renamed
our kitchen trash can "landfill." It's made a difference in how much garbage we generate. I use
eco-friendly cleaners in the house, but we're a sloppy family, so it takes scrubbing to get out paint
and beet juice.
Have you made your workplace more eco friendly? I am the one-woman green team. After three years
we finally have organic produce at our lunch station. My next goal is to use the fat from cooking
to fuel the production vehicles--check back in 2011 for that one.
(more) |
| Gabrielle Anwar of Burn Notice |
Source: dfw.com - Aug 4th 2009
Author: David Martindale
Article submitted by: Christopher
|
Do you have any insight, or have you gained any insight from playing Fiona, into why men are attracted
to and fascinated by dangerous women? It’s very interesting, because I think in my own personal life, I’ve
always been inclined to wear the pants in the relationship. And I have discovered in my ripe old age
that that is not the partnership most men gravitate towards. There’s a tendency in men to want to rescue
their woman, so that they feel she is eternally indebted to them. There’s a sense of safety in that for men,
I think. That’s the kind of woman they engage in wedlock. But then, when they fantasize, men are drawn to a
woman that is unattainable and unconquerable, a woman who really doesn’t need to be taken care of. In other
words, they’re turned on by the very thing they’re afraid of. It doesn’t get sexier than that, now, does it?
Michael and Fi are clearly crazy about each other. But he won’t commit because he has this other
agenda of getting his old job as a spy back. Do you think their relationship will ever wind up in a
satisfying place? I’m not sure Fiona is hoping for it to go to a gratifying, satisfying place. I
think that she would get dreadfully bored if that were the case. I think that part of her attraction to
Michael is the perpetual challenge.
Has it been an interesting experience, immersing yourself into a world of guns and bombs and all things
tactical? It is incredibly empowering to be around such destructive material. I mean, I get a sense of
why people pursue military careers, because it gives you this incredibly false sense of strength, this
very superficial wielding of power. I am by nature much more of a pacifist. My last resort is to wield
aggression. Yet there’s a carnal part of me that seems to be impressed when I’m handling these weapons
and explosives. It’s something I can’t seem to help. It just seems to be there. I would rather it didn’t
exist in me, but it does.
What do you think Fi’s outfits say about her, aside from the fact that she must have an enormous
closet at home? She does, doesn’t she? I think Michael has a rather Spartan spy dress-up box and
Fiona has an entire wardrobe. I think it’s wonderful. I’m very happy for her. I think it’s really
fabulous fun, if nothing else, to be dressed up. It’s a part of me that’s left over from my childhood
of my pink princess dress-up box. And I get to indulge that every day. I think if we were relocated to
another land and she tried to approach her chameleon-like attire in that realm, it might not be quite
as appealing in Lapland, for example.
What’s up with all the yogurt? It seems like the only thing in the fridge is Michael’s yogurt and
Sam’s beer. I know. I know. I would love to see a couple of mangos. Anything else. I’ve had my
fill of probiotic enzymes. It’s funny: I’ve stopped eating yogurt in my own life. Because who knows
when they’re going to say, ‘This is where Fi goes to the fridge and eats a carton of yogurt,’ and we
do it 60, 70 times in a day and I’ve had more than my fair share of cold cultured food groups.
One great element of the show is Michael’s narration. Given that he knows so much about building a
bomb, bugging a room, shaking a tail, etc., his head is an interesting place to be. But wouldn’t an
episode with Fi as narrator be fun? I don’t know if Fiona’s linear construction of thoughts would
work the way that Michael’s does. I think her voiceover would be a far more rambling and erratic
depiction of what happens onscreen. She might be talking about making a bomb and then abruptly
change to the subject to shoes. I’m not sure it would work. It’s sort of a Mars-and-Venus thing.
But it would be rather funny.
(more) |
| That Whole Michael & Fiona Thing! |
Source: EclipseMagazine.com - Feb 7th 2009
Author: Unknown
Article submitted by: Christopher
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As the stunning (in more ways than one) and deadly Fiona in USA’s Burn Notice,
Gabrielle Anwar finds herself playing a character whose first response to problems is to
shoot them, or blow them up. During a teleconference call earlier today, she got a chance
to talk about Fiona’s penchant for violence and shall we say unusual relationship with
burnt spy, Michael Weston.
I was wondering, what’s the status of Fiona and Michael’s relationship? Will we see them becoming a
couple again? Gabrielle: That depends how one would define a couple. Are you talking in the Bill
Clinton instance? Yes, like a traditional relationship, like boyfriend/girlfriend. I don’t think either of
them has a traditional bone in their body, so I think perhaps not in that respect.
Alright. Fair enough. I also love the on-screen chemistry with Fiona and Sam. I was wondering, what’s the
best part of doing scenes with Bruce Campbell? GA: The hysterical laughter that it is inevitable. I
think I may have cracked plenty of neatly executed make-up applications on my cheeks from the kind of
laughter that goes alongside with working with Bruce.
Now the show features some pretty strong female roles and now that Carla’s in the fold how does
that change Fiona for you? GA: I think that Fiona is as threatened as Fiona can get. I don’t
think it’s about necessarily how attractive physically a woman is. I think it’s how much a
monopoly she might have on Michael Westen’s mind and livelihood and thinking. So I think she
is perhaps threatened by Carla more so than anybody else she would be threatened by. I mean
there’s plenty of hot chicks down there let’s face it.
(more) |
| Gabrielle Anwar: Tops List Of Winter TV’s Sexiest Women |
Source: Fancast.com - Feb 5th 2009
Author: Todd Gold
Article submitted by: Christopher
|
She sweeps into the room dressed in elegant hippie garb a flowing green floral skirt,
a cozy brown sweater with sleeves that come halfway over her hands, and boots. Her 5-3
frame is a picture of sinewy sensuality. One look and you can imagine that Gabrielle Anwar
has heard (and rolled her velvety green eyes at) her share of lines from fast talkers.
What the hopeful suitors probably didn’t know is that the actress can talk pretty fast
herself - so fast, in fact, that as a teenager she once held the record as the world’s
fastest talker. It blows my mind that it’s continually mentioned, says Anwar, her
measured voice gilded by a soft English accent. It’s something I obviously forget
about until it’s brought up.
But I was in a drama school in London and there was an odd request for a bunch of
students to go to the Guinness World of Records exhibit at the Trocodero in central
London. They wanted to see whether the record for reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy could
be broken. I don’t know why I was invited. I guess the good students that they would
rely on weren’t at school that day. So off I trundled to the Trocodero and was live
on, I think it was Radio 3, and we were all just reading to be or not to be, that is
the question. I was so bloody nervous,
Mine was the fastest recording that they had that morning. It was because I had
such a tremendous amount of nervous energy, I just babbled as quickly as I could.
Then they played it back at a slower speed to make sure everything was pronounced
correctly, and then the next thing I know I’m doing these odd TV appearances, reciting
Hamlet’s soliloquy, as the world’s fastest talker. It was strange. It kind of it
took a life of its own.
Anwar has not done too badly making a life of her own. The classically-trained ,
British-born actress co-stars on USA network’s red hot series Burn Notice (airing
Thursday nights at 10 pm), a flippantly funny action series about a former U.S.
secret agent (Jeffrey Donovan) who helps people in dire straits after he was cut
off, or burned, by his former employers. Anwar plays his ex girlfriend Fiona, an
explosives expert formerly with the Irish Republican Army. The humor surprised me
at the beginning, but it lends itself to a larger audience, she says. And the spy
thriller aspect of it has always been intriguing to people.
The on-screen relationship between Donovan and Anwar is reminiscent of another
sexy crime-solving duo, Moonlighting’s Cybil Shephard and Bruce Willis. However,
according to the New York Times, Fiona is a character with no memorable precedent:
a genius joke-take on girls with gun lust, the joke being that above all else she is
every woman who needs to be sent a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You, next-day delivery.
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