"I didn't get the impact of that scene until I saw it," says Robia LaMorte, ordering a bottled water and seeming quite alive as she discusses her final scene as the dearly departed computer teacher. "I knew [the producers] wanted to do something dramatic and get rid of someone, and there was no one really that they could get rid of but me," she laughs. "It was sad, but it felt like it was time."
LaMorte has never been one to wear out her welcome. True to her character's gypsy heritage, much of the actress' childhood was spent moving from state to state, and her role on Buffy which was originally planned for only one episode, soon expanded into 14. Playing Calendar, however, did give LaMorte to live out a childhood fantasy.
"I've always wanted to be a teacher. That was my dream job," she says. "Because I travelled around so much and I'm an only child, I really had to entertain myself, so I loved to play school. I had a zillion stuffed animals and a grade book with all their names in columns and gold stars. I'd put them all in a big circle, then I'd get carbon paper and write out tests by hand and go around putting all the tests in front of them. Then I'd go around and do all their tests for them, collect them, grade them, and of course, my favorite stuffed animals got the best grades- I was partial. The whole process would take a day."
As she got older, however, LaMorte found that playing school was a lot more fun for her than actually going to it.
"I loved school- loved it, loved it, loved it- until I hit seventh grade," she says. "Living in the Florida Keys, everything is so laid back. It's a flip-flops and cut-off shorts-to-school kind of environment. But right after the Keys, I moved to Westport, Connecticut, which is not that at all- by the seventh grade they're training for SATs and college and all that, so it was a huge transition, and I was really behind. I was very good in school, but the cirriculum was just so different. That's when I started to get like, 'Ugh! School's hard."
At the age of 16 and then living in southern California, LaMorte decided to leave school and home behind to pursue a career as a dancer. She began travelling the world with several sporting goods companies, dancing and modeling fashions at trade shows before landing a spot on a world tour with Prince.
"I really did the growing-up thing fast," she says.
But after so many years of constantly being on the road, she found herself growing tired of the rock-n-roll lifestyle. "We did so many parties and so many clubs," she says. "It was really fun while it lasted, but when you dance for a living, you don't want to go out dancing."
Having reached a pinnacle of sorts by sharing the spotlight with Prince, LaMorte began to wonder where to go next. Not exactly anxious to spend the next decade shakin' it on MTV, she decided to make a transition into a career with more longevity, so she began taking classes.
"A lot of my dancer friends ae still out there, but I wasn't loving it anymore," she says. "there's a certain level you can reach- it's not like being in theater of modern dance where you're in a company and constately streching artistically- it's music videos. So I thought, 'Do I just want to keep repeating what I'm doing?' I don't know what would have happened, I just thank God that I'm not there."
Thanking God exemplifies another profound transition in LaMorte's life over the past couple of years. Just in speaking with her briefly, the importance of religion in her life became apparent. Raised Catholic and interested in nw age philosophies for a time, LaMorte never quite found satisfaction in either.
"I just was confused," she remembers. "I was in my car and said, 'God, you know I love you, but I don't get the whole Jesue deal. I don't understand it. I don't know if I believe in it- it just doesn't make sense to me. If this is really the truth; if this is really what you want me to believe, you're going to have to show me signs. You're going to have to make it so clear to me that I can't even possibly doubt it. You're going to have to put it in my face, because that's how I need it to be."
LaMorte got the response she was looking for a few seconds later.
All of a sudden, vroosh! This motercycle gang comes up around the car. I wasn't scared, but a whole biker gang enveloped the car- and they were bikers- with jackets and hair, they looked kind of tough and mean," she says. "I thought, 'How ironic. Here I am praying and all these bikers surround me.' Then, I look a little closer at the ones in front of me, and there are crosses on the backs of their helmets, crosses on the backs of their jackets, and on the jackets it says, 'We Ride for Jesus.' Christian bikers encircled my car! I was like, 'Okay, I asked for a sign, you showed me a sign.' I mean, that's pretty cool."
Her devotion to Chrisitianity has not come without career conflicts, however. She's made and effort to become much more selective about choosing roles that she feels don't contradict her beliefs, and the supernatural elements of Buffy have really left her torn.
"I have nothing against Buffy," she says. The show is really well-written. It's so intelligent, and it's not cliche like most television...but there are a lot of dark things in it. I mean, it's a show about a lot of witchcraft and a lot of dark stuff. The timing for me coming off the show was good. The theme of the show is that good conquers evil and good overcomes- I can get behind that, and I'm glad that I portrayed a light character."
Returning for a dream sequence in this season's Christmas episode, LaMorte was especially concerned to see a demon speaking through Miss Calendar.
"I agreed to do it before I read the script, and ir was really, really hard to do," she says. "Every part of my spirit was saying, 'Noooooo!' I learned a lot from that. To me, evil isn't ficticious."
Another concern of LaMorte's is her status as a role model for young people. Letters from fans identifying themselves as "fellow" technopagans and saying how inspired they are by her Buffy persona worried LaMorte that she was sending the wrong message.
"I don't even know what a Technopagan is," she says exasperated. "I don't want to be a fake representative to kids."
Drawing and even greater distinction between actor and character, LaMorte reveals the she's just recently bought her first computer and hasn't quite figured out how to use it.
"It's been in a box for two weeks," she says with a laugh. "I'm kind of nervous. I'm in the generation that just missed the whole computer thing in school. Now I know all the kids are doing it. I went and took a class to learn to type, though. I like it, but I'm slow."
After battling demons on the Hellmouth and riding with Heaven's Angels, a slower pace suit LaMorte just fine. She's currently at work filming a new series for the WB (not a Jenny Calendar spinoff show- this time, she plays a nurse), she stars in the Jay Lowi-directed film 12 Stops on the Road to Nowhere which will be showing at the Slamdance Film Festival in January, and she's penning a screenplay with a friend. It should make for some facinating cinema. Lord knows, she's got plenty to write about.
© Copyright Sabrina Wish 1999
