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Tiffani Amber Thiessen Interview
She was introduced to her boyfriend, 90210 hip-hop aesthete Brian Austin Green, in typical Hollywood fashion. "I met him on the set when I was 15 and did a guest spot on Married...With Children, just after I started Saved by the Bell. As the years went by, we started hanging out more and more, and about two years ago he became one of my very good friends. About seven months ago we started taking each other seriously." They kissed at a club and she freaked out. "When we talked about it later, it wasn't a great talk. It was like, 'I can't do this. I don't want to ruin our friendship.' I didn't really want to say it, but that's the way I felt. But then I just couldn't fight it. I would just look at him and go, 'I can't help it anymore.'" Eeeeeewwww. She says that Brian's music is more important than his acting and she can see him going completely into it. He's even working on his own album. "He's really good. People are going to be shocked to see what comes out of him. It's very different from what he's doing on the showÑit's a little more expressive, with a harder edge." But although Tiffani has some illusions, just like a beauty contestant (don't they all deny that they're being exploited?), she's not totally dismissible. She shows up on time, reads her lines adequately, stays out of trouble, even stands up for herself occasionally, like when the producers sat her down and told her to lose weight. "Last year when we did the Saved by the Bell Hawaii special, I was 15 pounds heavier than I am now. You know what it was? I was changing from a little girl to a woman, and these men don't understand it. They think I can look like I did when I was 16 for the rest of my life. I've got hips, and there's nothing wrong with that. "I had to tell them, 'Look, don't mess with my feelings, don't mess with that. I'll try as hard as I can to stay in shape.' A lot of it was that I wasn't eating the right stuff like I used to. Because at 161 could eat anything I wanted to, and I didn't realize that as I got older all of it was going to start to hit me. It's really, really hard. But I finally lost the weight for myself." But isn't Tiffani fooling herself on the "I-did-it-for-myself" front? How can women ever lose weight totally for themselves when everyone else expects us to be rails? And Hollywood is the absolute worst offender. I feel like she's paying lip service to feminist ideas because that's what all beauty pageant contestants do these days. Tiffani seems to believe The College Years will be an edgy and more intense show than the Saturday morning program. "We're dealing with a lot more mature decisions as we're becoming adults. We've all changed a lot and Mark-Paul is, like, a man now. My character has to work her way through college because she doesn't come from a wealthy family. She starts working in the health center in the college and changes her major to become a doctor. She's going to have to deal with that plus working plus having a social life," Tiffani beams. So the character is going to be just like everybody else in collegeÑin other words, like a lot of people Tiffani has never met. We finish drinking our coffee (me) and tea (Tiffani), and she gives me directions to Sunset-Gower Studios to watch the taping of the second episode of The College Years. When I arrive, I see tons of people on the sidewalk who are there to see Tiffani's show, Married...With Children and Herman's Head, among others. I walk in past a fluorescently lit makeup room with huge mirrors. A woman is leaning over a blond teenage girl, poofing her hair out manically. Another blond girl rushes offstage, whining, "I think my motivation was off." This evening's episode is about Zack's run-in with his anthropology professor. The first scene is set in a classroom, and Tiffani/Kelly is sitting in the front row, giggling and whispering vapidly with the other girls about how cute the new prof is. Zack, Slater and Screech sit in the back, getting all the laughs. Then suddenly she leans forward and dramatically points a finger in the air. "Professor, will that be on the quiz?" she inquires with just the right mixture of fake graciousness and urgency. A brilliant performance for someone who's never had to ask that question. |
