"The ugly truth" premiere



Actress and singer Tia Carrere attended the premiere of "The ugly truth" in Hollywood on July 16, 2009.

Tia and her husband arriving at the premiere (video)
Pictures

Yellow Magazine - April 2009

Tia was on the cover of Yellow Magazine in April (and for some reason it just came out on the internet a few days ago).
There are pictures, an interview, and a video of the photoshoot.

Links are set below.

Yellow Magazine - Photoshoot Video
Download link of the magazine with picture and interview





Interview

- There have been more than 43 films and 26 television series in which you
have appeared. You sure do get around.

It’s amazing. I have been doing this for 25 years ever since I was discovered
in a grocery store on Waikiki and got my first job. I feel like the luckiest girl
on earth. I come from a pebble in the Pacific Ocean and I’ve travelled the
world and met amazing people. I have to pinch myself sometimes.

- Do you have a preference between television shows and film?
It is all fun and games. It takes you back to being a kid in the sandbox.
We get paid to play.

- You look like you have a lot of fun on set. You have played a number of
comedic roles.
Even in my action adventure series, Relic Hunter, that ran for three years,
there was a lot of comedy. That’s what made it so much fun. I think they’re
going to make it into a film, too. The first time they planned on making
a film based on my character, Sydney Fox, the plug was pulled because
Tomb Raider came out with the same kind of iconography and other
similarities. It would be kind of fun to do the movie because of the
chemistry between my co-star, Christien Anholt, and me. It turned the
whole damsel-in-distress plot on its head because he was the damsel that
was always in distress who needed to be saved by the strong exotic woman
(me).

- Even in True Lies with Arnold Schwartznegger, which was not a comedy,
I found myself humored by your sheer wickedness because you seemed
to really relish it.
When I went to Europe to film Kull, the producer, Raffaella de Laurentis,
turned to me and said in her thick Italian accent, “Tia, I had no idea you
were like this. I expected you to be a real bitch because in so many of your
movies you are so mean and evil.” I think a lot of people see the characters
I play in film and think I am like them. For me it is fun and freeing. It is
safe to act that way in film and get away with it because I don’t do that
in real life. I come from Hawaii where we say, “Oh, I’m sorry that it is raining
today.” Or, “Was I in your way?” after you cut me off in traffic! Asian people
in Hawaii are polite to a fault. I have gotten a little edge since moving to
L.A., however.

- How was being in Wayne’s World? I’m one of the few people I know who
did not see it.

The movie was very clever. It broke the mold for a lot of shows that are
now on television in how the characters relate to the camera that appears
to follow them. The show, Scrubs, does a lot of that, for example.
Didn’t you just do a movie called Hard Breakers?
I did that last year as well as Wild Cherry. They’re both really whacky
comedies that should be coming out this year.
Who is in those with you?
Hard Breakers is with Tom Arnold and Sophie Monk, who is an Australian
pop artist and actress (who also happened to have dated Ryan Seacrest).
Bobby Lee from Mad TV is also in it. He is funny as hell. I love him.
How about Wild Cherry? Are you the wild cherry?
No, sadly not. I have passed the baton of wild cherryism to the younger
folk. I am now the woman of a certain age who schools the wild cherries
in the sweetness of the fruit and the unavailability of (hahahaha) such
aforementioned fruit. There are enough euphemisms in there! Basically,
I am a teacher in the school who is a freak. I mentor the lead girls who are
Rumor Willis, Kristin Cavallari and Tania Raymonde.
What movie are you about to shoot in Hawaii?
It’s called Wedlock with David Annable (Brothers & Sisters) and Mena Suvari
(American Beauty). It is one of those romantic comedy type things. I
thought, okay, a month in Hawaii, I can do that. Wait a minute, my family
just flew in from Hawaii to visit me here! Bad, really, bad. We’ve planned
big trips before and many times they’ve been sidelined because of my work.
My Dad came from the Philippines; my Mom was born and raised in Hawaii,
as was her Mom. But my great grandmother came over on a boat from the
Philippines and did backbreaking work on the sugar and pineapple plantations.
I definitely get my work ethic from my family. They were hard workers and
three generations down the line, I am the happy recipient of it all.

- You did voiceovers in the film and spinoffs of Lilo & Stitch, playing the
older sister. How was that kind of work?
It was interesting. The hard thing was not working with anyone in the
room and not knowing, for example, how far the other character was
away from me so that I would speak at the appropriate volume. You really
have to trust your director to paint a picture of the imagined surroundings.
You are working in a vacuum.

- I never thought of there needing to be a director for that kind of work.
Actually, there were two. It is almost like having to work on a green screen
except, in this case, we are dealing with sounds versus the visuals. I found
the green screen much harder as I found out when I worked on early video
games. You have to act against a spot on the wall and hope you don’t look
like a fool.

- I noticed that you produced some projects a while back.
I did and actually, I am producing another film that I will be starring in
next year. It is the life story of Rell Sunn, a huge surfing icon in Hawaii
who passed away on my birthday in 1998. She was known as the Queen
of Makaha, a single mom, first female lifeguard in Hawaii, and number
one long board in the world. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and
although given only months to live, survived another eighteen years. Hers
is a story about someone who is given a limited time span to live and
instead of closing ranks and shutting down, she became more expansive.
She took underprivileged kids from the west side of Hawaii to such places
as France and the Great Wall of China. She started the Women’s Surfing
Association, prior to which there was no women’s surfing and they had
to surf in men’s competitions. She organized a children’s surfing
competition because she believed if kids received praise for their skills,
their self esteems would be fortified, thereby removing them from the
paths of drugs, crime and other destructive activities. These competitions
have continued thirty three years after she started them which are quite
a legacy.
I co-wrote the screenplay with my husband and will be starring in the
film. It has taken me a while to get Sunn’s family to trust that I have their
best interests at heart. I realized that the depth that I wanted to reach
with this kind of work is difficult unless I created it myself.

- Aside from producing, you have a strong interest in singing. Tell us more.
When I was fourteen, I started singing with Daniel Ho. I went to the all
girls Catholic school up the street and he went to the all boys Catholic
school down the street. His school had a jazz orchestra for which he did
all the charts. They were looking for a vocalist and he heard that I had a
good voice. I sang for the band leader and got the gig. We sang at the
officers’ club and a few restaurants and stuff like that. We entered talent
contests and sung at venues with thousands of people.

- And then you got rudely sidetracked by fate into an acting career.
Yeah, until my acting and singing interests united on the set of Wayne’s
World, in which I sang. My first album, Dream, was done with Warners
Brothers right after the film. I was a little unfocused because my life was
a whirlwind at the time. Here was the legendary Michael McDonald and
Robin Zander (from Super Tramp) all singing backup on my record. The
producer of Van Halen was producing my record - it was wild.
Later, I reconnected with Daniel and we decided to cut an album,
Hawaiiana, which we had talked about doing for so long. It was based on
our favorite classic Hawaiian songs that we heard growing up.

- Hawaiiana was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Album
in 2008. And this year, you won that award for your third album, Ikena.
Tell us about this album.
It is comprised of all contemporary compositions written by Amy
Ku’uleialoha Stillman, a poet with a Ph.D in Music Ethnicology. I feel smart
just saying it. She knows the Hawaiian language inside and out. Daniel
wrote the music and I was just the mouthpiece.

- I did not realize that there was a Grammy in your category before this.
It has been around for about 5 years and is listed as “folk”. There were
about 38 nominees this year. The competition was stiff. I was a little
worried. It was twice as competitive as last year. Between co-hosting the
pre-Grammy telecast, singing at the ceremony, and receiving a Grammy,
it was quite a time. I mean, pinch me.

- Did any of the other celebrities comment on your award?
No, but in the pre-telecast Snoop Dogg told me he named his Porshe
Carerra after me. He did. He’s got an azure blue Carerra that he named
“Tia Carerra”. I told him, “Thanks, Snoop, for my street cred.”

- I know that you had a rule not do any nude scenes in your films…
I actually broke that pact. I had lived in Europe for three years and came
back feeling rather saucy. After emerging from a very bad marriage, Playboy
asked me to model for them. I said “Why the hell not?” I hadn’t had a baby
yet and I wanted to see what my body would look like now and forevermore.
The guy who shot the pictures was a fashion photographer who I worked
with when I modeled. I entrusted him with shooting the nudes because
he is fantastic.

- I understand that it was the highest selling issue in 2003.
It was very weird when it came out because I was in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch
at the time. If you base your self worth on the whims of the times, who’s
hot, who’s not, who’s up and who’s down, and you don’t have that center,
you’ll go crazy. I think embracing who you are and where you’re from at
your deepest core – your people, your family – will keep you real.

- I asked someone if they were familiar with you and they responded, “Oh
yeah, she’s the woman that every man wants to be with and who every
woman wants to be.”
Awww. That’s awesome. What a great compliment.

- How would your friends describe you?
Loyal and steadfast.

- Is there anything about you that would surprise your fans?
That I really love Spam. It’s very big in all of Asia and Hawaii. The first thing
I did when my grandma got off the plane after staying with my aunt in
Pennsylvania was to take her to a Hawaiian restaurant to have Spam
musubi which is Spam on top of a rice bowl with teriyaki sauce. I have a
deep an abiding love of Spam. A matter of fact, there is a song on iKena
called The Spam Song.

- What do you do for fun?
I love rollerblading. But the deepest luxury for me is taking a nap in the
middle of the day to catch up for all those times that my little one wakes
up in the middle of the night calling, “Mommy, mommy”.

- How old is your daughter?
Three. I’m a late bloomer. Having her so late, I use every shred of energy I
have in my body. If I had her 20 years ago, I’d have more energy. There is
a tradeoff between having the energy of your youth and the mindfulness
of a career that you have solidified. I have to say, I’ve always been able to
spend a lot of time with her. On Dancing with the Stars, I was breastfeeding
her in between my tangos. I was just happy that I could make it through
5 of the 10 episodes while waking up every two hours at night with a
newborn. On top of that, my husband was out of the country! We’re crazy,
we show business people. We’re gypsy circus folk!
It is glamorous and it is fun but behind all the glitter and glitz, there is a lot
of hard work and dedication. You just do what you gotta do to get it done.

- Have you ever been bothered by the paparazzi?
That is so funny. We just went to the grocery store in Malibu and the
paparazzi descended upon us. These guys jumped from the Starbucks
around the corner – like eight of them. I took a picture of them with my
little disposable camera to show the rest of my family back at the house.
They wouldn’t have believed that we got paparazzied at the grocery store.
It used to be that they only came out at red carpet events, but lately,
they’ve gotten a lot more aggressive. It is a little unnerving because you
are very conscious of what you look like every time you leave the house.

- What is your fashion style? Haute couture or jeans and T-shirts?
Do you know that I walked the red carpet with my Grammy in a $35 eBay
dress. I’m a big bargain shopper. My grandma used to take me to Goodwill
and the Salvation Army growing up. I guess I wanted to make a statement
during these unsure economic times. It was the best looking and sexiest
dress that I owned. You know, you can look fabulous if you feel fabulous,
at any price. That was my statement for the day.

- Were you asked about the dress?
Yeah, yeah. There was a picture of it in USA Today and CNN and Extra
showed it on TV. I think it resonated with a lot of people.

- I think that is great. And an eBay dress couldn’t have found a better model
because I think just about anything would look good on you.
Au contraire. Au contraire.

You May Not Kiss The Bride



As you all may already know, Tia is currently filming “You may not kiss the bride” in Hawaii, so I decided to create a tag for the movie here. You can read below some things about the movie, it’s the best piece of information I could get now.
They started filming it on March, 16 and as far as I know, it’s due out in 2010.

It’s a romantic adventure filmed in Hawaii, directed by Rob Hedden, and starring Dave Annable, Mena Suvar, Katharine McPhee, Vinnie Jones, Tia Carrere, and Ken Davitian. “You may not kiss the bride” is a story about an arranged marriage between a mobster’s daughter (she wants to get a U.S. Citizenship) and a photographer. Things go terribly awry on their honeymoon.

Movie IMDB page
On the set video