by Carrie Baker

ST. LOUIS, May 14, 2006 – It was hard losing our favorite tennis pro, Dana Fairbanks, but while we all mourn her loss and the loss of Erin Daniels on The L Word, we know that she is certainly going to go on and make more great television and with any hope, movies as well.

Erin Daniels (born Erin Cohen) got her start in the “business” by producing puppet shows in the backyard of her parent’s Clayton, MO home. After that, Erin worked on her acting skills at the Webster University theatre for kids. Erin went on to graduate from Clayton High School in 1991 and earned a degree in architecture and art history from Vassar College. She also starred in a few off-Broadway productions and flirted with success in a few TV shows in her 20’s. Erin’s most notable film role was in the 2002 thriller One Hour Photo with Robin Williams. She also starred in Rob Zombie’s House of a 1000 Corpses. In that same year, Daniels also took home the Emerging Actor Award at the St. Louis International Film Festival.

For the past three years Erin has been best known for her role as Dana Fairbanks on the groundbreaking Showtime series The L Word about a close knit circle of friends, most of whom are lesbian or bisexual. The show also stars big names like Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner, and Pam Grier along with many other fabulous and sometimes high profile guest stars! Dana’s character made an impressive evolution throughout the show going from a closeted tennis star, to an out gay tennis pro complete with big name endorsements. Unfortunately in the third season Dana was diagnosed with breast cancer and succumbed, creating a real message about breast cancer and a real tear jerker.

Erin recently did an interview with Kelli Hamilton of the St. Louis publication Alive Magazine about life after The L Word, her thoughts on playing a lesbian, and Dana’s growth throughout the show.

When Hamilton asked Erin what she’d been up to since season three wrapped she said, “I spent some time with my family in Texas and caught up with friends in LA., started auditioning for things here and there. In January, I went to New York for a few weeks to work on Tom Cavanaugh’s show “Love Monkey”—so much fun. I love doing comedy. Third season of The L Word for me, not so funny!” Erin’s character Dana, however, was often known as the “comic relief” of the show and when asked if Erin saw any of Dana in herself she said, “Absolutely, especially the goofy part. And I love characters that are awkward and flawed—I think we’re all kind of like that no matter how together we tend to be.”

Dana Fairbanks went through many emotional and physical challenges throughout the three seasons of the show. When Hamilton asked Erin how she prepared for the funny, awkward, sarcastic, and sometimes emotionally tough character of Dana, Erin replied, “For me it was spread over three or four years, so that made it easier. As far as coming out of the closet, that was something that many people I know and love have done, so I talked to them. And because I’ve never had to do that before, I looked at the character and said, “The truth is, she’s facing something about herself that she’s had a hard time accepting,” and then asked myself what I have had a hard time accepting that was difficult to tell my parents about. And I’ve certainly had those experiences, so I related it to that.”

Erin seems to be such a determined individual. When asked about her determination playing a large part in her career Erin responded, “I’ve also been extremely lucky. There’s sort of a common theme there—every time I push my acting career away, it comes back to me twofold. Sort of like love—when you’re not looking for it, it comes to you. I guess you can call this a love of mine. I wasn’t looking for it, but it came back to me when I was ready and then I was off and running.”

After working on some off-Broadway productions Erin moved to L.A. and worked on some pilots for shows (The Outer Limits) and some guest spots (Law & Order). Erin soon became tired of auditing for the same ole “bimbo” and “naive girl” roles and began to hit a wall. She decided to go back to school for environmental and interior design and told her manager not to call her unless the role was “brilliant and showed women as intelligent.” She soon received a call to read a script for The L Word and originally thought, “Ugh, lesbians for cable? It’s going to be the “Red Shoe Diaries”; I’m not interested!” Her manager said, “Just read it—it’s different.” And she was right. That was the only project that Erin auditioned for that summer and it ultimately changed her life.

Erin also discussed her reaction to The L Word’s success and that it had almost 1,000,000 viewers on the pilot episode and now generates almost a third of all traffic on Showtime’s website. When asked how she felt about the characters in The L Word and the success of the series in general, Erin said she had, “No idea. The only thing I thought about was that the characters—the way they were written—were very smart, very interesting and very complicated. That combined with the fact that it was a cast made up of thinking women blew me away, because unfortunately, up until that time there wasn’t a whole lot of that. “Sex and the City” had just started to become popular and it’s really been in the past four or five years that people have realized producing shows about intelligent women actually makes successful television.”

Erin said that she’s loved being part of a show that has changed the “social fabric of television.” She feels that making TV that actually touches people personally is “such an incredible experience. And playing this character in particular, because she has such a journey, has been phenomenal.” Erin’s character Dana has inspired women all throughout the country to think about breast cancer and it was the hope that perhaps with Dana’s death, other woman would realize that young and healthy women could, and do, die from breast cancer. When asked about Erin’s thoughts on the subject she responded, “ That’s something Ilene and I talked about when she told me the plan for the third season [to have a character die of breast cancer, with Dana being chosen because she was well-loved, not in spite of it, Chaiken told The New York Times]. It wasn’t my decision to leave the show, and I was very sad to see Dana go. But it was an important storyline to tell that applies to all women—something I think all women fear, and that’s huge.”

Erin’s upcoming projects include Fox’s new upcoming pilot, Julie Reno, Bounty Hunter and Erin is also working on a film that she’s producing based on a British novel she optioned about a group of friends dealing with the loss of a friend.

Erin also disclosed that her dream co-workers included Paul Haggis (director of Crash), Cate Blanchett, and even though it may be cliche, she’d also love to work with Meryl Streep.