If you’re a fan of stunning, sophisticated, and hilariously talented women, -- and really, if you’re not, why would you be surfing Shewired?-- you have no doubt made note of the surplus of Portia De Rossi coming to broadcast television this week.
Today is ‘De Interview’ day. The much hyped face off between newly weds Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi where it’s promised De Rossi will reveal a secret even her wife is not yet privy to.
Wednesday, the former Bluth family member ala the now cult fave Arrested Development will inhabit a new role in the mid-season ABC series premiere of Better Off Ted. The foxy blonde, who famously inhabited an icy Nellie on Ally McBeal as well, will play Veronica, the assertive boss of the show’s title character.
De Rossi describes the show as a more “traditional sitcom” then some of her past series. She promises the show is, “very, very well written, and the characters are so well-defined that -- you know how in the old sitcoms, the characters would just walk out on stage and people would get ready to laugh? I think we have a little bit of that, I'm hoping."
With the upcoming surge of the fair Australian’s funny face in TV land, The LA Times visited De Rossi on the set of her new series to ask the actress about her work, marriage, and role as a LGBT role model by this point.
On her wife’s (daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres) winning appeal:
"I'm with Ellen every day, and I know how loved she is," she said. "So it makes sense that people want her to be happy and want to see her happily married. She's incredible, and everybody is drawn to her, and she makes people very happy, and I think they want that for her. So in that sense, it didn't surprise me that people were interested about it. But I think what touched me the most was that people really celebrated this marriage.”
On the tabloid and media coverage of the couples nuptials last summer:
"People magazine put us on the cover when we got married. And that felt like something big happened," De Rossi said. "That felt really good to me, that they could show two very happy gay people . . . I feel like we kind of get all the same stuff that any heterosexual couple would get in the public eye. And that is great, that is wonderful -- including the baby bump."
On the tabloid pregnancy rumors:
"Believe me, I think motherhood would be amazing and exciting and wonderful, but it isn't really something that's on the immediate horizon for us. How this IVF rumor started, I really, really have no idea. But I can tell you that it is definitely not happening in the near future . . . It's great that Ellen and I are a gay couple and people are open-minded enough to talk about us having a family. The only thing I'm trying to avoid by denying it is, I just don't want those horrible pictures in magazines where they circle your stomach and point and go 'baby bump!'"
On her reaction to Prop 8’s passing:
"I cried. I just remember being so excited when [President Barack] Obama was elected, it was just such an amazing moment . . . I just remember going to bed thinking, 'Prop. 8? . . .And I woke up in the morning to the news that it passed. And I -- I was shocked and I was deeply saddened."
On Prop 8’s clear violation of equal civil rights:
"I just really think that when people really understand that this is a human rights issue and that there are a percentage of people living in this country that don't have the same rights as everybody else, I think that people will be compelled to make sure that they live in a country where every single citizen has the same rights."
Be sure to catch Portia De Rossi’s visit to the Ellen DeGeneres Show today and her new series, Better of Ted premieres this Wednesday, on ABC before Lost.
