[ dreamwatch ]

She's a teenager in love with an alien - and she's capturing the hearts of viewers across the universe! Roswell star Majandra Delfino tells Christine Radish about her life as Maria DeLuca, and reveals what viewers can expect from the show's upcoming third season...

In the space of just a few years, Majandra Delfino has rocketed to SF TV stardom. Following her early appearances in the likes of 'Zeus & Roxanne' and 'The Tony Danza Show', Delfino has seen her career launched into orbit by starring as Maria DeLuca in Roswell.

A suspenseful & touching drama that blends science fiction with the alienation of young adulthood, Roswell revolves around the lives and loves of a teenage ensemble which includes Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby) and her otherworldly friends Max Evans (Jason Behr), Isabel (Katherine Heigl) and Michael (Brendan Fehr). As Liz's close pal Maria, Delfino brings some much needed comic relief to the show, and later provides an extra element of romance by reluctantly embarking on a tortured but passionate romance with Michael.

While Maria's role in Roswell has taken some unexpected turns since the show's debut back in the fall of 1999, Delfino feels completely comfortable with both her character's development and her increased prominence in the series.

"I'm pretty happy with it," the 20-year-old Los Angeles resident tells Dreamwatch. "I don't even see Maria as a character any more. She's kind of like my other personality, if I were to be schizophrenic. She's a constant character in my life. It's funny [as the writers] do these things that we consider random, like 'Oh, now your character is very patient and understanding,' and everybody's like, 'Oh no, but that's not the character.' [It's only] a character! I do so many things in my personal life that contradict what I've done before.

"I'm basically happy with whatever direction they go, as long as they keep switching it up a little," adds Delfino. "I think that's a more realistic way."

Delfino believes that Maria grew up quite a lot during Roswell's opening two seasons, in much the same way that any real-life teenager would. And she firmly hopes her character will continue to mature in the series' upcoming third season.

"At first, she was ditzy," explains Delfino. "Then, next thing you knew, she was coming up with the plans, so that was interesting. Also, she was very afraid of the whole alien thing and she's not.

"But I think this year, they're going to make her a lot more mature and not such a scatterbrain and not so difficult on Michael. She'll be more into her own thing."

A couple of months ago, Roswell was dropped by its original network. The WB, and was saved from cancellation only by the intervention of UPN. In light of the show's move to UPN, Delfino says that Roswell's third year is going to be slightly different from its preceding seasons.

"The shows are not going to end open-ended," she reveals. "They're going to make it serial so that it stops and there's a new story every time, which is much better, I think, because then there's no confusion. That's basically the major change the [new network] is making us do."

On a more personal note, Delfino is looking forward to discovering how Maria's relationship with her alien boyfriend Michael will develop in season three. But when pressed for specific details, she admits that she's largely in the dark about the show's upcoming storylines.

"They haven't really told me," she shrugs. "They don't like to give it away, I guess....They've just told us how each individual character's going to be, but as for our relationships, I do know that we are together when the season starts off....Let's just see where that leads."

Since Roswell first crash-landed onto our screens, the show's focus has moved away from romance and now leans more towards the SF aspects. In Delfino's mind, this shift has helped make the series more exhilarating each week.

"I am not a person who enjoys a show like Dawson's Creek," she explains. "I need action & romance, but I also need something to throw me off a bit. I need something to raise the stakes and keep me entertained. I need action to get me to stay on the channel. So I was very glad that the show went more onto the sci-fi side...

"Also, it's just been crazy to see all of us, who are not [Buffy star] Sarah Michelle Gellar with the kick-boxing classes, deal with our stunts," admits Delfino with a chuckle. "The girls are all retarded because we're in high heels and they're asking us to run up rocks and run down canyons and stuff like that. We all definitely struggle."

The aspect of her character that Delfino enjoys the most is the fact that Maria is such a complex, multi-dimensional person. This allows her to have a lot of flexibility in comparison to the other actors.

"The other actors aren't really allowed to do a lot because they have to stick so much to their characters," she says. "But since my character's crazy, my argument is always, 'Oh well, she's crazy, so I should be able to start screaming right now.' It's great because I have the ability to really just experiment with her psychology. I can make up lines and I can say or do something, just as long as it's funny, even if it risks the seriousness of the situation."

Playing a close-knit group of friends on Roswell has strengthened the cast's friendships off-screen. "I hang out with Shiri a lot, she's really fun," says Delfino. "I hang out with everybody. Katie's really cool, but she is very, very focused in the sense that she's not as immature as me, so I'm always trying to harass her because she's such a lady! Jason is also very focused and he's more removed because he's so focused, but he's cool. I have so much fun with him at work. Brendan's cool because he's so different.

"We hang out and it's not this 'We need to tend to each other'-type of thing, because it's gotten to the point where it's like 'We've been friends for a really long time...'"

The daily demands of shooting Roswell don't leave its cast members much time to pursue other projects. "It's hard to audition because you don't have time to do that," elaborates Delfino. "It's very hard to schedule when they're only seeing people on days, all day, but you're working those two days, all day. Once you do get a job, if you do, you have to go and ask for time off.

Whenever she does have time to work on other projects [like the Academy Award-winning Traffic and the upcoming independent thriller Sticks and Stones], the actress looks for good scripts and variety. "I just like to play different roles. I don't want to be stuck in the same role, that's a little boring for me. The whole point of acting, for me, was to channel the schizophrenia and that wouldn't be channelling anything if I continue to do the same thing."

Even with all the success she's attaining in the acting field, Delfino maintains that her first love has always been singing. Tellingly, she spent a great deal of Roswell's second season hiatus adding the finishing touches to her first music CD, which she plans to release through the internet website www.MajandraMusic.com in the run-up to the launch of Roswell's third season.

"There are so many moments where I think, 'What am I doing?'", she muses. "I find no passion in acting. I mean, it's a great job - I'm not complaining - but, I rarely see a movie that makes me cry. I can't really get past the acting thing because I know it's pretend. But there's something so real in music where at least the people that are real musicians and are not singing someone else's lyrics aren't making things up. It's so far from them and yet you can relate to it in so many ways and it's not someone saying, 'Oh, let's write this for an audience so they can relate to it.'

"Acting does something for me, obviously, to the point that I'm doing it, but it doesn't bring out the passion in me like music does."

As both her acting and musical careers continue to go from strength to strength, Majandra Delfino feels very lucky that both her professions offer a vehicle for her creativity.

"It's almost like going through one big self-help journey," she states, "because you have to learn so much about your mentality and your emotions. It also gives me the ability to have money to put into my music which I'd never be able to have, so it's great in that way. It also allows me to do the music my way."

Now best known for her role as Maria DeLuca on teen alien drama Roswell, Maria Alejandra Delfino was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 20th February 1981, to a Venezuelan father & a Cuban American mother. She was nicknamed Majandra because her elder sister couldn't pronounce her name.

Moving to America when she was three years old, Majandra grew up in Florida, where she discovered a natural talent for the performing arts via roles in school shows and local theatre. At the tender age of 10, she danced The Nut Cracker with the Miami Ballet.

Some 12 months later, Delfino joined China Doll, an all-girl singing quartet whose members also included her best friend, Samantha Gibb [daughter of the Bee Gees' Maurice Gibb]. China Doll went on to perform on the same bill as the Bee Gees at a Miami benefit concert.

Within a few years, though, the group had disbanded, & by the age of 15, Delfino's parents gave her a six-monter pursue an acting career or concentrate on school. To everyone's surprise, Delfino swiftly won a role in thh deadline to eithe film Zeus & Roxanne. The following summer, she landed her first regular role on a TV series, playing Tony Danza's eldest daughter on The Tony Danza Show. Delfino subsequently appeared in the series Katie Joplin before eventually securing her central role in Roswell.

Since joining the cast, she has been seen alongside Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas in the acclaimed big-screen drug thriller, Traffic. She is currently preparing to release her first CD, and is continuing to develop her feature film career by appearing in such movies as The Secret Life Of Girls and The Learning Curve.


	[ Dreamwatch issue 85 - October 2001 ] [ Shooting Star ] She's a teenager in love with an alien - and she's capturing the hearts of viewers across the universe! Roswell star Majandra Delfino tells Christine Radish about her life as Maria DeLuca, and reveals what viewers can expect from the show's upcoming third season... In the space of just a few years, Majandra Delfino has rocketed to SF TV stardom. Following her early appearances in the likes of 'Zeus & Roxanne' and 'The Tony Danza Show', Delfino has seen her career launched into orbit by starring as Maria DeLuca in Roswell. A suspenseful & touching drama that blends science fiction with the alienation of young adulthood, Roswell revolves around the lives and loves of a teenage ensemble which includes Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby) and her otherworldly friends Max Evans (Jason Behr), Isabel (Katherine Heigl) and Michael (Brendan Fehr). As Liz's close pal Maria, Delfino brings some much needed comic relief to the show, and later provides an extra element of romance by reluctantly embarking on a tortured but passionate romance with Michael. While Maria's role in Roswell has taken some unexpected turns since the show's debut back in the fall of 1999, Delfino feels completely comfortable with both her character's development and her increased prominence in the series. "I'm pretty happy with it," the 20-year-old Los Angeles resident tells Dreamwatch. "I don't even see Maria as a character any more. She's kind of like my other personality, if I were to be schizophrenic. She's a constant character in my life. It's funny [as the writers] do these things that we consider random, like 'Oh, now your character is very patient and understanding,' and everybody's like, 'Oh no, but that's not the character.' [It's only] a character! I do so many things in my personal life that contradict what I've done before. "I'm basically happy with whatever direction they go, as long as they keep switching it up a little," adds Delfino. "I think that's a more realistic way." GROWING STRAINS Delfino believes that Maria grew up quite a lot during Roswell's opening two seasons, in much the same way that any real-life teenager would. And she firmly hopes her character will continue to mature in the series' upcoming third season. "At first, she was ditzy," explains Delfino. "Then, next thing you knew, she was coming up with the plans, so that was interesting. Also, she was very afraid of the whole alien thing and she's not. "But I think this year, they're going to make her a lot more mature and not such a scatterbrain and not so difficult on Michael. She'll be more into her own thing." A couple of months ago, Roswell was dropped by its original network. The WB, and was saved from cancellation only by the intervention of UPN. In light of the show's move to UPN, Delfino says that Roswell's third year is going to be slightly different from its preceding seasons. "The shows are not going to end open-ended," she reveals. "They're going to make it serial so that it stops and there's a new story every time, which is much better, I think, because then there's no confusion. That's basically the major change the [new network] is making us do." On a more personal note, Delfino is looking forward to discovering how Maria's relationship with her alien boyfriend Michael will develop in season three. But when pressed for specific details, she admits that she's largely in the dark about the show's upcoming storylines. "They haven't really told me," she shrugs. "They don't like to give it away, I guess....They've just told us how each individual character's going to be, but as for our relationships, I do know that we are together when the season starts off....Let's just see where that leads." LOOKING SKYWARD Since Roswell first crash-landed onto our screens, the show's focus has moved away from romance and now leans more towards the SF aspects. In Delfino's mind, this shift has helped make the series more exhilarating each week. "I am not a person who enjoys a show like Dawson's Creek," she explains. "I need action & romance, but I also need something to throw me off a bit. I need something to raise the stakes and keep me entertained. I need action to get me to stay on the channel. So I was very glad that the show went more onto the sci-fi side... "Also, it's just been crazy to see all of us, who are not [Buffy star] Sarah Michelle Gellar with the kick-boxing classes, deal with our stunts," admits Delfino with a chuckle. "The girls are all retarded because we're in high heels and they're asking us to run up rocks and run down canyons and stuff like that. We all definitely struggle." The aspect of her character that Delfino enjoys the most is the fact that Maria is such a complex, multi-dimensional person. This allows her to have a lot of flexibility in comparison to the other actors. "The other actors aren't really allowed to do a lot because they have to stick so much to their characters," she says. "But since my character's crazy, my argument is always, 'Oh well, she's crazy, so I should be able to start screaming right now.' It's great because I have the ability to really just experiment with her psychology. I can make up lines and I can say or do something, just as long as it's funny, even if it risks the seriousness of the situation." CLASSMATES Playing a close-knit group of friends on Roswell has strengthened the cast's friendships off-screen. "I hang out with Shiri a lot, she's really fun," says Delfino. "I hang out with everybody. Katie's really cool, but she is very, very focused in the sense that she's not as immature as me, so I'm always trying to harass her because she's such a lady! Jason is also very focused and he's more removed because he's so focused, but he's cool. I have so much fun with him at work. Brendan's cool because he's so different. "We hang out and it's not this 'We need to tend to each other'-type of thing, because it's gotten to the point where it's like 'We've been friends for a really long time...'" The daily demands of shooting Roswell don't leave its cast members much time to pursue other projects. "It's hard to audition because you don't have time to do that," elaborates Delfino. "It's very hard to schedule when they're only seeing people on days, all day, but you're working those two days, all day. Once you do get a job, if you do, you have to go and ask for time off. "It is definitely a process, but there is the possibility if they're not so strict on having you work every day." THE SPICE OF LIFE Whenever she does have time to work on other projects [like the Academy Award-winning Traffic and the upcoming independent thriller Sticks and Stones], the actress looks for good scripts and variety. "I just like to play different roles. I don't want to be stuck in the same role, that's a little boring for me. The whole point of acting, for me, was to channel the schizophrenia and that wouldn't be channelling anything if I continue to do the same thing." Even with all the success she's attaining in the acting field, Delfino maintains that her first love has always been singing. Tellingly, she spent a great deal of Roswell's second season hiatus adding the finishing touches to her first music CD, which she plans to release through the internet website www.MajandraMusic.com in the run-up to the launch of Roswell's third season. "There are so many moments where I think, 'What am I doing?'", she muses. "I find no passion in acting. I mean, it's a great job - I'm not complaining - but, I rarely see a movie that makes me cry. I can't really get past the acting thing because I know it's pretend. But there's something so real in music where at least the people that are real musicians and are not singing someone else's lyrics aren't making things up. It's so far from them and yet you can relate to it in so many ways and it's not someone saying, 'Oh, let's write this for an audience so they can relate to it.' "Acting does something for me, obviously, to the point that I'm doing it, but it doesn't bring out the passion in me like music does." As both her acting and musical careers continue to go from strength to strength, Majandra Delfino feels very lucky that both her professions offer a vehicle for her creativity. "It's almost like going through one big self-help journey," she states, "because you have to learn so much about your mentality and your emotions. It also gives me the ability to have money to put into my music which I'd never be able to have, so it's great in that way. It also allows me to do the music my way." THE ROAD TO ROSWELL Charting Majandra Delfino's rapid rise to stardom Now best known for her role as Maria DeLuca on teen alien drama Roswell, Maria Alejandra Delfino was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 20th February 1981, to a Venezuelan father & a Cuban American mother. She was nicknamed Majandra because her elder sister couldn't pronounce her name. Moving to America when she was three years old, Majandra grew up in Florida, where she discovered a natural talent for the performing arts via roles in school shows and local theatre. At the tender age of 10, she danced The Nut Cracker with the Miami Ballet. Some 12 months later, Delfino joined China Doll, an all-girl singing quartet whose members also included her best friend, Samantha Gibb [daughter of the Bee Gees' Maurice Gibb]. China Doll went on to perform on the same bill as the Bee Gees at a Miami benefit concert. Within a few years, though, the group had disbanded, & by the age of 15, Delfino's parents gave her a six-monter pursue an acting career or concentrate on school. To everyone's surprise, Delfino swiftly won a role in thh deadline to eithe film Zeus & Roxanne. The following summer, she landed her first regular role on a TV series, playing Tony Danza's eldest daughter on The Tony Danza Show. Delfino subsequently appeared in the series Katie Joplin before eventually securing her central role in Roswell. Since joining the cast, she has been seen alongside Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas in the acclaimed big-screen drug thriller, Traffic. She is currently preparing to release her first CD, and is continuing to develop her feature film career by appearing in such movies as The Secret Life Of Girls and The Learning Curve.