Diva with a devil inside

Type Jane Badler into YouTube, and one of the first videos you’ll come across is a rather impressive clip of Badler devouring a live guinea pig whole.

Thankfully, no rodents were harmed in the making of the video: rather, the clip (from campy ’80s sci-fi series V, in which she played foxy alien Diana) is a testament to Badler’s long and varied career as a B-movie actress. She’s refreshingly carefree about her list of less-than Oscar-worthy roles.
I just did another one, she told Sydney Star Observer with a chuckle.

I’m very honest. I shot this film last November and I just saw the screening and thought, -˜OK, here’s another B-movie to add to my ever-growing list’.

While her extensive filmography might contain a few flops, her much-shorter discography is all class: at 54, Badler has released her first album, The Devil Has My Double, a collaboration with Melbourne band Sir. The Brooklyn native has lived in Melbourne for 18 years.

The album is a woozy, noir-ish excursion, equal parts Nancy Sinatra and early Goldfrapp. At its centre is Badler’s evocative voice, loaded with a lifetime of experience. She explained that the time felt right to release her first album.

I just felt like I wasn’t saying anything original before. Unless you’re doing some incredibly new twist on a standard or you’re writing your own material, there’s no point going into a studio. I was always singing jazz covers, and even though I was working with some beautiful musicians, I didn’t feel like I was making any clever or innovative inroads into anything until Jesse [Jackson Shepard, of Sir] approached me.

Sir were around for eight years before I came along, and I thought it would be an amazing merging of me, who’s sort of a glam diva, and this grungy indie band. But when Jesse first asked me, I thought he was a bit mad.

Badler and Sir plan to start work on a second album in January, this time with more creative input from the singer. Outside of her work with the band, she’s also been following the rumours that the creators of hit series Lost are working on a new version of V. She’s hoping for a small cameo to reprise the guinea pig-guzzling role that made her famous.

God, I was so lucky to get that role. And who’d have known that all these years later it would reverberate and people would still remember it?

info: For more on Jane Badler visit
www.myspace.com/janebadler