Download - ERICA DASHER Q&A Transcript - JANE BY DESIGN
ABC Family’s Q&A Session with Erica Dasher – Jane By Design
Moderator On the show a lot of your scenes with Andie MacDowell are either on the phone
or on a video screen. How is it different doing those scenes versus when you
get to actually work face-to-face?
E. Dasher The great thing is Andie is always on set. At first they set it up like that because
she lives in North Carolina, but after the first episode she came and got a place
out in L.A. while we were shooting so that she could be on set. She does all her
off camera dialogue. Even if I have to look at her in the office somewhere and
she has nothing to do with the scene and I’m just supposed to be watching her
walk somewhere, she’ll do it. She’s incredible.
Moderator Also, in the show we see Jane franticly switching between her school and her
work like. Do you go and switch back and forth between those two different
scenes or do you film all of your work scenes one day and all of your school
scenes another day?
E. Dasher Usually we’ll have days where it’s half the week we’ll be on one stage, which has
the house and the school, and the other stage has Donovan Decker, which is this
grand, beautiful set. But no, there are days too where we’re literally running
back and forth across stages, the whole cast is. So it’s fun. It’s a bit of a
character setting.
Moderator Well the show is such a success. How are you finding your newfound fame?
E. Dasher Good. I mean I feel like I can still walk down the street so it’s nice. I’m getting a
little taste of it. It’s really felt very encouraging and good seeing the
overwhelming support on Twitter and Facebook, but I still feel a little removed
from it. It’s a surreal experience.
Moderator Was there instant chemistry when you began working with the cast?
E. Dasher Yes, actually I was cast first and our creator, show runner, and network had me
come in and read with all of the other characters. So they really wanted that
chemistry to exist with Billy and me, and with my brother and me. So I think
that was a really smart thing that they did to go through that process and make
sure that we connected from the very beginning.
Moderator This past episode we saw Jane go to Paris - what was that like for you
personally?
E. Dasher Awesome. It was great. We shot mostly in L.A. We have stages up in Santa
Clarita and then we did a few days in New York in order to make our New York
shots feel a little more authentic. It was just great.
Our producer didn’t want to put me in front of a green screen. They want each
episode to feel like a movie. The show really does feel like a romantic comedy
in a lot of ways, and I think what makes it special is that it’s on this grand scale.
I live in Westchester. I work in SoHo. We travel to Beverly Hills. Eventually we
go to Paris.
I was really happy we got to go. It was awesome because we ended production
there. We did three or four days of shooting in Paris and then production left
and I stayed for five days on my own and wandered around the city. It was an
incredible way to end my first job.
Moderator Is it true that you broke your ankle when you were auditioning for Jane?
E. Dasher That is very true. I had gone through the first part of the process, the pre-read
and the call back and right before the test I was at a café, writing, working on
my own stuff. I hadn’t heard anything so I figured it wasn’t happening and I got
a call from my manager that I was testing for the show. I didn’t even have the
part yet. I had never tested for a show before so I got very excited and I wanted
to step out of the café to be nice to the other patrons, since I was being loud
and obnoxious.
As I walked outside there was a step into the parking lot and I fell over. I was
still on the phone with my manager and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so excited.
Oh gosh, my ankle really hurts.” It started swelling and I went to the doctor and
he had them put me in this big boot to make sure that I could walk around
during the test the next day. They still cast me, fortunately, but it was definitely
broken and the first episode was a challenge.
Moderator What do you think Jane is drawn to and admires about each of the men in her
life—Billy, Nick and Jeremy?
E. Dasher She and Billy have been best friends since childhood. There’s a lot of love there.
They know how to push each other’s buttons. I think she really likes that Billy
marches to his own beat and she’s very much the same way even though she
wants to fit in. They have very similar nature.
Moderator What do you love and enjoy about working with Nick and Matthew and Rowly?
E. Dasher They’re all so great and I’ve become such wonderful friends with them. Nick is
so much like his character Billy on the show. He really treats women like they’re
princesses. He’s such a wonderful friend. When I was broken on the pilot he
would carry me around. We would have very long days sometimes where we
were shooting 14-hour days. I code red for chocolate around 3 p.m. every day
and he’d bring me a piece of chocolate. So he’s great. He takes very good care
of all of us.
Matt, who plays Nick, is actually very similar. We just got very lucky. We have
very nice, well-raised boys. Matt is from the South and he’s very polite. He’s
great.
And then Rowly, he’s a little bit older. He’s so charismatic and he’s really
comfortable on set. It’s fun to watch him work. I think he’s really talented. And
in real life he’s a lot like his character. He speaks Japanese and French, and
obviously he’s British. He’s very much like a sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of
guy.
Moderator What is your advice to fans that are wanting to fashionable but are on a budget?
E. Dasher I love vintage shopping. I actually don’t spend a lot of money on clothes at all. I
live right around the corner from a little vintage shop and I do a lot of
rummaging around, those kinds of places. I think the quality of the
craftsmanship in vintage clothes is hard to come by unless you’re able to buy
higher-end labels nowadays, and I think you can find a lot of higher end labels
that are more affordable in a vintage shop.
But in college too we would go to Goodwill to get costumes for theme parties or
whatever. I think if forces you to be more creative. If a dress doesn’t quite fit
you find a belt that works. But I love vintage and resale stuff.
Moderator I read that you’re from Houston, Texas. Do you miss it terribly?
E. Dasher I miss my family, but I do not miss the humidity. I’ve really grown to love L.A.,
but I do miss my family a lot. I’m able to visit them a lot, and they come out here
too. I have an 11-year-old sister so it’s really important for us to see each other
as often as possible. They just figured out how to do Skype so it’s been very
exciting. We Skype like every day.
Moderator Jane by Design is all about fashion, and as a lady you probably keep up with the
latest fashion trends, but did you have to do any special research into the
business side of the fashion industry to credibly portray your character Jane?
E. Dasher I did. I had been an assistant at different points so I had done a little of pre-
research, but yes. Our costume designer, Olivia Miles-Payne, is a genius and
she’s exposed me to a lot of young designers. I think the thing about fashion is
the industry moves so quickly. A lot of it lives online as well so it’s easy to keep
up with it, but you have to sort of stay educated in order to do that. I spend a
lot of time reading blogs and stuff online and listening to Andie, because Andie
grew up in the fashion industry.
Moderator Being on this show, has it inspired you to maybe to some more work in the
fashion industry in the future?
E. Dasher I really like fashion. The show certainly has an effect on my personal style,
which is still evolving. Yes, fashion is a form of a creative outlet and a form of
self-expression. I can see myself staying involved in a way. I’m going to Fashion
Week next week in New York. It’s just another way for me to learn about that
whole world. I’m really excited.
Moderator There’s a lot to admire about Jane in both her worlds. What strikes you has her
strongest quality?
E. Dasher I think she’s a really genuine person. I don’t think that she has any airs about—
obviously she’s lying about her age in order work in the fashion industry, but I
think she’s really vulnerable. She makes a genuine effort to do the right thing
and to help out and is willing to take on any challenges. I think that’s where her
likeability lies and that she is not an inauthentic person at all.
Moderator If you could have anyone guest star on Jane by Design who would it be and what
role would you want them to play?
E. Dasher Oh my gosh. We had some great cameos this year. We had Betsey Johnson and
Patricia Field and Nanette Lepore and the editor-in-chief of W and Teen Vogue
and Lucky Magazine. So it’s like we’re already very spoiled. It would be really
fun to have Lagerfeld on the show because I think it would add a very fun
energy on the set. But I think selfishly, I want Sarah Burton to come on the
show, who is the designer for Alexander McQueen, because she’s my favorite
and I always want her to design a dress for me.
Moderator Do they ever incorporate some of your own style to some of Jane’s?
E. Dasher I think some of my own style lives in Jane even more than it does on the red
carpet right now. ABC Family has these incredible in-house stylists that will
dress me for the red carpet. Right now on the red carpet, it’s about taking risks
and finding out what I like and what looks good on me in photographs.
Sometimes I really like it and sometimes I feel like it’s a miss, but I’m learning.
I’m learning how to do that.
With Jane, I say this all the time, but Olivia Miles-Payne, who’s our costume
designer, is a genius, and I think part of her genius lies in that she knows there is
magic in collaborations. So she really works with what looks good with our body
types and what colors look good and what we’re naturally attracted to while still
building distinct personalities for each of the characters.
But Jane has these sort of like tutu-y things, these tiered skirts. That’s sort of
how I pictured her and it’s what I wore to all of my auditions. That became
incorporated very quickly into the show. I felt like it was really fun and feminine
and flirty, and I think that’s a large part of Jane’s style.
Moderator You’ve done a documentary called Speak Easy. Is there a release date on that
yet? I know it was pending the last time I read it.
E. Dasher We’re in closed production for it now. What we’re probably going to do is finish
it in the next couple months and do festivals with it. Hopefully we can get a TV
station or someone to pick it up. I mean it would be amazing if it could go to
theaters.
My best friend and I met doing speech and debate. We used to go to speech
camp together because we were really cool, but we decided to make a movie
about it. We shot it in school and then we graduated and then we both
immediately got—she’s a producer now in New Media and I got caught up with
Jane, but we’re in picture lock. It’s almost done. It’s being composed. The
music is being done right now and it’s being animated. But I have a feeling we’ll
take it to festivals.
Moderator What I love about this show is that I know absolutely nothing about fashion, but
yet I’m like addicted to it already. How has the fan response been? Have you
come across people that don’t know fashion but are drawn in and what do you
think makes this show appealing to audiences?
E. Dasher I didn’t know that much about fashion going into it, but when I first read the
script I fell in love with it. I fell in love with Jane. I think she’s a very relatable
character. Again, I think she’s genuine and vulnerable and passionate and
makes a lot of mistakes, but her heart is always in the right place.
I was drawn to the relationship that she has with Billy. I think the male/female
best friendship is a unique one. I like that she lives with her brother. I think the
relationships are what makes the show appealing.
Moderator You guys seem like such a fun cast. What do you guys like to do when you’re
not filming on set?
E. Dasher We all got together to watch the show, the pilot, but we’ll go out to eat. We go
to the movies. We do karaoke. India, on the show, kills at karaoke. She’s very
good. But yes, I’ve become friends with everyone in the cast. It’s been a really
special, positive experience. We’re very lucky.
Moderator Do you think it’s possible for girls and boys to be just friends like Billy and Jane?
E. Dasher I think so. When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies, so that could
probably answer it better than I can. The thing about Billy and Jane is there’s so
much love in the relationship that you never know what that love could turn
into. But I do think it’s possible. I have some good guy friends.
Moderator What’s been your favorite moment filming so far?
E. Dasher It’s hard not to say standing under the Eiffel Tower doing a scene. It was the last
scene we shot and at 8:00 the Eiffel Tower lights up and starts glittering. It was
a pretty incredible moment.
Moderator Last night we saw Billy and Jeremy were both bending over backwards to help
Jane find the Lookbook. How does Jane get these guys to do everything for her,
like drop everything to help her out?
E. Dasher I don’t know. I need to figure that out too. I think she’s making such a genuine
effort. You want to help her out. It’s a magical quality that Jane has. It’s one
I’m very jealous of.
Moderator How would you say this experience is different from filming like a web series like
you did prior?
E. Dasher It’s a lot bigger and the hours are a lot more intense. I remember when I was
first cast I was so excited, and then a couple of days later I was like, “Oh my
gosh, there’s going to be huge stages and hundreds of people and there are
going to be cranes.” It’s surprising how intimate it still feels even though there
are a hundred people watching you do things, but you’re in the moment and
you’re acting. But yes, I don’t think anything could have prepared me.
Plus we had very long days. We did like 12 or 14-hour days and we were doing
11 pages. So it was a really intense process. I completely cut out my social life
and everything else and often would stay in a hotel right near the studio so that
I could even cut down my drive time. But it was like all Jane all week and then
over the weekend I would work with my acting coach on the scripts and start all
over again. It takes an incredible amount of focus.
Moderator Could you tell us any behind the scenes moment that has stood out to you or
that our fans could appreciate or hear about?
E. Dasher A behind the scenes moment, I will share one. Andie and I went to Fashion
Week in the middle of production over the weekend for two days and I was—it’s
a really overwhelming experience. I had never done it before and I continued to
be surprised by how generous everyone has been to me and how well they take
care of me.
Andie—everybody’s there from backstage, L’Oreal executives. She’s been the
face of L’Oreal for 25 years. She introduced me to everybody and everyone
wanted to take pictures with her and she pulled me into every photo and into
every interview. It was a really lovely thing. She’s a great role model. And also
there was a lot of dancing on set. Like they would call “Cut,” and people would
put—LMFAO, for some reason, became this sort of set band. They’d play it on
their phones. There was a lot of dancing in between takes.
Moderator Then I also wanted to know if you could sort of tell us how you are similar and
different to your character of Jane.
E. Dasher I think Jane and I are in a similar place in our lives because she’s getting to live
her dream in the fashion world and I’m really getting to do that in the acting
world. It’s scary and amazing and exciting, and so I think that passion we really
share. She’s much better dressed.
Moderator What’s it like for you, seeing yourself on posters and being a role model? Is that
something that you wanted?
E. Dasher Seeing myself on posters is totally weird. My parents were so cute. They came
into town over Christmas and we drove around to literally every single billboard
in the city and took pictures. So it’s just surreal and very funny. It’s sort of an
out of body experience.
As far as a role model goes, I look at it as a great privilege. My sister is 11 years
old and it’s really cool for me to be on a show that she can watch. I sort of have
a microphone in my hand to talk about things that I think are important. I look
at is a privilege.
Moderator What was it behind your decision to stay in school before you decided to start
auditioning?
E. Dasher I think my parents must have done some subtle ninja parenting. I felt like it was
by decision, but there was always a lot of great value placed on education in my
house. I really felt like I wanted that experience of going to college because you
learn so much in college that’s outside of the classroom. You learn how to deal
with ego and authority and finding yourself and making mistakes. You’re not
under a microscope the way that you are when you’re sort of in the
entertainment industry. I felt like I wanted to do that first. I feel like it was my
decision, but it must’ve been some good parenting because I’m sure it’s there.
Moderator Is there anything in upcoming episodes that you would like for the fans to look
for, that you would like them specifically to see?
E. Dasher Well next week, I think, is a really, really fun episode because India and Jeremy
come to the high school. I won’t say why, but they come to the high school.
The worlds are colliding big time, and I think it’s a really fun episode. It’s a really
heavy episode for India. I think she’s so strong and so beautiful, but she’s so
funny. I think it’s a really fun episode.
And then in episode eight there’s some drama, which I think is cool. You saw a
bit of that in four, but I think the characters really get to grow in episode eight.
And then in nine and ten I think we kill it. I think nine is really strong and funny,
and then ten, I think people will be very happy and excited for the end of the
season.
Moderator Has there been anything that’s been difficult for you to do so far?
E. Dasher Honestly, I’m so supported by the cast. Really it’s such a fun set and I think that
has a lot to do with our show runner, our Executive Producers April Blair and
Gavin Polone. They’re really even keeled people and they’re both really
passionate about the project. Everyone’s prepared and on time and
memorized. Everyone really cares about the material. I think when you have
people at the top that are cool, good people it trickles down.
But I think the hardest thing was, again, the hours. And for the writer too for
our show, she was doing the same thing. She’d stay in a hotel near the studio.
She was doing rewrites late at night and we were not doing a lot of sleeping. So
I think that was it, but it’s fine. It’s like we’re making a TV Show. We couldn’t
be happier.
Moderator Jane lives the double life between her work and high school. What do you think
her biggest issues are with the high school side of her?
E. Dasher I think she’s never felt like she fit in, in school. I can relate to that. I never felt
like I fit it. And I think there’s a lot of pressure to do that as a teenager. You
want to be unique, but you don’t want to be ostracized, and I think sort of
straddling to those two worlds and also becoming an adult and still being a kid
and dealing with your parents. Jane doesn’t have that as much because she has
a brother. She just lives with her older brother. So I think there are just a lot of
gray areas in high school and I think that’s what makes it difficult.
Moderator Do you think in the end she will maybe end up breaking out of that in the
future?
E. Dasher I think we’ve already seen a bit of that. As she starts to gain confidence from
being recognized for stuff that she’s passionate about in the work world she
brings that back to high school, and that’s why Nick Fadden starts to notice her.
She suddenly has a sort of different air about her.
One of the first things that the show runner said to me that attracted me to the
project was that there are so many things she wishes she could tell her younger
self now that she’s an adult. Jane gets to take those lessons from the adult
world and bring them back to high school with her the next day. I think that’s
really cool.
Moderator What’s the biggest thing that has changed about your life since you got the
show and it’s been airing?
E. Dasher Not a lot just yet. The publicity side of the job is a big change. I do a lot of
events and talking to you lovely people. That’s been the biggest change. It’s
just like, you know, you getting photographed and going out and realizing that
like where I am online, on Twitter, people are looking at it and reading it. So I
just have to be a little bit more conscious, at this point, about what I’m putting
out into the world.
Moderator Then my last question for you is how did you get involved in acting? Was it
something you had a passion for since you were a child?
E. Dasher Yes, I was a really precocious, obnoxious kid. I had a teacher that stuck me in a
theater class so I started doing theater very young. Then I did speech and
debate, and the speech side of speech and debate is like competitive acting. I
did that from sixth grade all through high school and went to speech camp. I did
theater all through high school and then I studied theater in college. So I’ve
always wanted to do it. I didn’t start auditioning professionally until I
graduated, but it’s always been a part of my life.
Moderator You mentioned LMFOA. Can you shuffle?
E. Dasher I think I can shuffle pretty well, yes. I pretend to shuffle. They would be a fun
cameo to have.
Moderator I think that would be a good prom band maybe.
Moderator Yes, amazing.
M. Ward What are you watching on TV these days.
Moderator I love Modern Family. When I broke my ankle, that’s like the only thing that got
me through it. I would just watch Modern Family on Hulu all the time. I love
American Horror Story on FX and Justified. I actually used to intern at FX when I
first graduated and started auditioning. They were cool with me if I had to leave
and go to an audition. It’s been really fun to go back. I went back the other day
to say hi and they had been rooting for me for a little while. So I like those two
shows. What else do I watch? I love Mad Men. I’ve been watching Pretty Little
Liars too on ABC Family. I think it’s a really fun show.