"I love men in bed when they are sleeping," smiles Daphne Zuniga. "But then they have to go and wake up."
Daphne, the star of the ABC Family series Beautiful People, has been in a couple of long-term relationships and twice was proposed to, and she now says she's emotionally ready for marriage and children. "I love men who are vigilantly following their passions, who are emotionally ready for commitment, and who are maybe even a little crazy. Men who are self-interested and narcissistic couldn't be more boring."
Playing a single mother who is getting back to dating on Beautiful People was energizing for Daphne. "I stopped dating for six months a year ago," she admits. "Dating requires a lot of energy and focus. I've had 40 years of fun and now I'm looking for someone for my heart."
At our Lunch at Michael's in New York and subsequent breakfast at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Daphne shared her insights on men, marriage and children; on her life since Melrose Place; on her childhood and unusual parents; and on her passions, especially the issues of mercury poisoning and women's self image.
The former star of the Fox-TV series Melrose Place whose first breakout role was Princess Vespa in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, says she doesn't look at Beautiful People as a comeback. She has done several guest star roles, films, made-for-TV movies, and was a regular guest on NBC's American Dreams. "I'm thrilled to be working this hard and relieved to be working with a generation younger than me. They have an authentic awe and excitement that is contagious. It feels fantastic, like a rebirth. There's no feeling of a comeback when you're just living your life." Daphne is also writing a one-woman show about relationships to "show a different side of myself and where I am now in my life."
"I'm grateful for Melrose, but it's a chapter in the past. When you have success when you're young in this business you focus on yourself and hope you're someone who is worthy of the success. You're on a hot show so you think you must be good, and then the show fades and you hit a brick wall. If you're dependent on anything outside your own self like other people, substances, success… you lose your sense of your own value."
After Melrose, Daphne admits she recessed into quietude, fears and relationships. I pulled back and became a private person. "I'm a triple Scorpio," she laughs, "and it panicked me to be out there in public." Four years ago, she discovered private Buddhist meditation retreats and "learned to truly be with myself." Daphne spent nine days in total silent meditation and says "it's the most powerfully shifting thing I've ever done. It was nine days of diligent practice being with myself. I faced my fears of success, of relationships, and of love. When you finally face your fears you are free of them. There's nothing in the world I need to hide from again."
In Beautiful People, Daphne plays Lynn Kerr, a mother of two girls whose husband has left her for another woman. Her teen daughter (Sarah Foret) receives a scholarship to attend a prestigious private New York City high school, and her older daughter (emerging star Torrey DeVitto) wants to follow a modeling career, so the family packs up and moves to Manhattan from New Mexico. "I can identify with the storylines because the show is all about facing fears and learning to overcome them," Daphne explains. "The show is wonderfully written by Michael Rauch, who went to a private New York City school and experienced the issues the girls confront. We're not avoiding controversial issues like drugs, eating disorders, sex and relationships. We're exploring all the rawness, absurdities and humor of real life."
Daphne has always been private about her personal life, even with her parents. "My mom was sarcastic about men," says Daphne. "She would tell me Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the final product. And she'd say 'a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.' She was a feminist minister, an earth mom, who wore a bra only on Sundays for services," Daphne laughs. Daphne's dad left home when she was six and she and her mom moved from Northern California to Vermont. Daphne says she "was afraid of men. I had crushes from afar."
Her first boyfriend was in college at UCLA, where she dated actor Laurence Olivier's son Richard but then "I started dating older men and I would fall in love with them." Is there a father complex, I asked. "Duh! Yeah! I knew it, but I was still attracted to them. They were smart and I thought they could teach me about life." She kept her personal life so private that when she visited her dad in northern California several years ago, she brought her good friend, a massage therapist, to dinner. "She has arms like a football player and some tattoos. My dad took me aside and said, 'Daphne, no matter what the answer is, I'll love you. Are you gay?' I was shocked. I adore men and I was actually seeing a big rock star at the time, but I've always been discreet."
"Actually," she adds thoughtfully, "it was probably more than being discreet. My mother was a '60s feminist and believed you don't do things for men. But there's a difference between sexism and comfort with sexuality. Being in the public eye, I've been so covered up from fear of being used and an insecurity with my body. No more! I'm comfortable with being sexual and being true to my nature. I took lap dance lessons recently and it was wonderful fun."
Daphne tells the story of her early modeling days when she was asked to lose five pounds for a photo shoot and lost ten instead, only to be told she was too thin. "Everybody's body weight goes up and down. Your body tells you what's going on emotionally and mentally. You can't always fit into the smaller size without a high price."
Daphne considers herself a "late bloomer," but realizes now "being a late bloomer is a problem when you decide at 40 you want to have children." On the advice of a friend she is exploring the possibility of freezing her eggs and hopes the right man will come along soon. "I have the idea that you meet someone and if you decide to be together you work at the relationship and hope it continues to be successful. When you put two complex people together, it becomes more complex."
When we met for Lunch at Michael's, Daphne had just flown in from Puerto Rico where she was raising awareness and funds for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance. Ironically, her friend Kerry Kennedy, who was also at the event, was dining near us at Michael's, as were several of Daphne's friends from different eras and industry notables including her former agent Ron Meyer, now head of Universal Studios, John Sykes of MTV Networks, Henry Schleiff of CourtTV, writer Ken Auletta, Nina Link, William Lauder, Katherine Oliver, and Shelly Ross of ABC.
Daphne showed off a large scrape on her knee she sustained during an aggressive Kennedy-style soccer game, and she offered an impassioned plea for greater respect toward our natural resources. "The planet does nothing but support us and we are constantly committing crimes against nature." She feels especially strongly about mercury poisoning caused by environmental damage to rivers and oceans. Daphne hasn't eaten meat since the mid-1980s and now has foregone fish as well. "One of every six women of child bearing age is toxic with mercury poisoning and it is doing damage to babies," she says passionately. "I was having memory losses, my hands would cramp, my hair was falling out, and I was having chills on summer days. I had a heavy metal blood test, which most doctors don't include in normal tests, and I had mercury poisoning from the amount of fish I was eating. I thought the issues were in the ozone, or in rivers, or the Amazon. It didn't occur to me my own bloodstream was poisoned. The problem was not in tuna boats but in my own body." She urges people to check out www.waterkeeper.org and www.nrdc.org.
Daphne is proud of the work she, Sarah and Torrey are doing on Beautiful People, and is "focused on how I can take my talents and interests and make the best use of them. We're dealing with real issues on the show," she says. "This is not a Brady Bunch view of the world."
To contact Daphne Zuniga, write to contact@mediavillage.com.