Q&A; : ‘I’m in What You Could Call a Regrouping Stage’

For an actress who claims to be “regrouping,” Lindsay Wagner has her daily planner in overload.

She’s host of tonight’s “Best Sellers: Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them,” a two-hour magazine-type show on NBC based on the nonfiction book by therapist Susan Forward.

She starts two back-to-back television movies Aug. 15, one a sequel to her late-1970s series “The Bionic Woman,” the other about a woman searching for a teen - age daughter turned prostitute.

Then there’s the flip, hip Wagner as seen in her commercials for Ford dealers in Southern California and, more recently, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

She still has her causes: rebuilding programs in South-Central Los Angeles, vegetarianism, TV violence. But, she insists, she’s regrouping, spending a lot more time with her two sons, 8 and 12, cutting down some of her activities, planning what comes next. *

Question: Are you stuck with the image of being “The Bionic Woman”?

Answer: I don’t think something like that ever goes away, but it’s not anything that has hindered me. If it did, I wouldn’t go near it again. I have such a body of work since that series that people definitely relate to all the television movies I’ve made since then.

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Q: Could “Bionic Breakdown” (the new movie) lead to another series?

A: No. I don’t want to do that. I started out in this business in feature films. “Bionic” just dropped in my lap. I didn’t want a TV series. As it turned out, it was rather karmic, you know; it wouldn’t go away. The series was just what it was, and I learned a lot about the business. I came out of it with a lot of exposure enabling me to go into things I wanted to do.

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Q: Like feature movies?

A: No. Features in the ‘80s were in a stage of Rambos and Rambettes--beat her up, rape her, kill her. You want out of the kitchen? Fine, we’ll just terrorize you then. That’s where we were. I stayed in television because that was where I could work and do the type of movies I wanted to do.

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Q: What do you look for in your movies?

A: I pay far more attention to what the reverberations of the movie will be in the audience rather than looking for a good role for myself.

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Q: What do you mean by “reverberations”?

A: You can expose ideas in a film that will be helpful to viewers while being entertaining. I tend to look for projects that have some meaning and value so that people will be left with something that might enrich their lives in some way.

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Q: You have many involvements away from acting. Have you ever made a movie that addresses your concerns about these issues?

A: I’ve been able to juggle my time so that while I work a lot I still can spend a lot of time with my kids. If I start producing what I would like to do, it would take my time totally. Now that my children are starting to have their own lives I may have time freed up a little bit more.

I zip in and zip out of things, sometimes lecturing on holistic health, but I’m in what you could call a regrouping stage. I’ve pulled back.

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Q: What do you mean by regrouping?

A: It means that I’m not out there putting out a lot of me right now. I worked a great deal during the periods of civil unrest in L.A., spending a lot of time in South-Central, and I still work with a group that’s helped start up businesses there and some projects with the National Council of Negro Women. I don’t question a lot of things that go on inside me. I just do them. I feel I’m getting ready to start using my creativity back in my business again.

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Q: You’ve been critical of television violence. Do you see any good in the medium?

A: The best thing about television is its potential and that at times it’s willing to do meaningful pieces. A certain amount gets through each year.

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Q: What bothers you?

A: I find it ironic that there’s a children’s show where heroes are set up to spend their whole time physically fighting the bad guy and that’s how they solve problems. Then, at the end of the show, a two-minute skit tells children not to fight.

Children should see how to resolve a problem. You just don’t tell them to work it out. You show them how someone works through a problem and how violence can be avoided.

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Q: You’ve been doing the Ford commercials in Southern California for the past seven years. Have they affected your career?

A: If they have, it wasn’t part of my thinking. I was a little nervous about that since there are a lot of prejudices in our business. Theater people look down on film people, film people look down on television people and everybody looks down at commercial people.

We’re all actors. My goal with the commercials was to make each one a little movie about the car, and I play whatever character is appropriate. Sometimes I play a ditzy blonde in the back of the truck with my hair all frizzed out and a sweater slung over my shoulder, and other times I’m a housewife looking for the most economical car. A lot of it is ad-libbed.

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Q: Have you done comedy?

A: That’s what the commercials have done for my career. People say, “You know, you’re really funny.” I say, “No kidding.”

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Q: Have you been offered comedy roles?

A: I don’t want to do sitcoms. But after my next two movies are over, I may be ready for comedy.