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Shannen Doherty – wants to be alone
America’s favourite drama princess talks about her life-changing arrest, mystery backstabbers on Charmed, and her new movie, Another Day
Shannen Doherty is never boring. Her long-time reputation as a naughty girl and her recent embarrassing arrest for drunken driving and somewhat mysterious departure from the television series charmed have put her in the path of uncomfortable gossip. But the 30 year old is proud of her new movie for the USA Network, Another Day, a supernatural drama that asks a lot of “what if?” questions as it movies from past to future. Making the film has Doherty thinking about her own path and where she is now. You’ve been through some tough times. How have you been holding up? My personal life was disrupted, which was sort of heartbreaking. As a result, I have days when I think about quitting. Then the passion just takes over and I’m like, what else could I possibly do that I would love as much as acting? I’m only 30, and I’m bound to make mistakes. The only thing I can do when I make a severe mistake that is sending a really bad message to the public is own up to the fact that I did something wrong, apologise profusely and move past it. So what really happened when you were arrested for DUI? I cannot make an excuse for myself. Like I said, I will always own up to a mistake that I made. It was really a misjudgement. After my last drink that night, I had gone and eaten food with my friends. Everyone felt I was sober, and I thought that I was sober. You know, its very odd. They have bumper stickers out in Ventura, where it happened, which say, ‘Come to Ventura for a vacation, leave on probation.’ They’re quite proud of that. They probably have some of the strongest police out there. They are quite strict, and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be. Are you saying you weren’t drunk? If I was drunk, then they had a right to pull me over, and a right to throw my ass in jail, and a right to give me a DUI and do whatever else they did. I was wrong, and I made a very bad judgement call, which I will never make again. I won’t even have, like, a half a glass of wine and gent in a car. I’m quite paranoid about it now. The thing is that you sort of realize you could have hurt somebody else. It happened in December, and still not a day goes by when I don’t relive it in my own head and feel guilty and humiliated by it. I found it a horrifying experience, and it will always be one of the most embarrassing moments in my life, the biggest screw-up that I’ve ever done.
It seemed like a cruel twist of fate that not long after the DUI incident you got more headlines when you announced you were leaving Charmed.
I didn’t leave charmed entirely of my own will. It was something that I had desperately wanted to do six months earlier. I just wanted to get out of that environment. But at that point in time they wouldn’t let me leave, then when the season ended, it was a different story. There are reasons for my departure that I won’t go into. The people who are responsible for it know who they are and God help then in life because that’s absolutely a frightening karma to have. It was a shock to me. But I am the sort of person who’s like, Okay, you want to just keep on throwing crap at me? You want to test my strength? Let’s see if I can get through it. Somehow I’ve always managed to survive and become a stronger person. But this has been a bit harder on me than anything I’ve gone through, to be honest with you.
A lot of jokes have been made about your volatile image and your reputation for losing your temper. Can you laugh at it yourself?
I could after the whole 90210 thing when a lot of that started. I did Saturday Night Live and sort of spoofed what people were saying about me. I mean, everything written about me was blown so out of proportion that after a while even I was like, Okay, this is hysterical, this is really funny. But at this point in my life, I have no desire to make fun of myself anymore.
No one is likely to make fun of your performance in Another Day. It’s a very strange story. Why did it connect with you?
Well, I understood it because my character is losing what she thinks is a great love, only to encounter a greater love. It’s about how she deals with loss and the fact she has to go back for closure, and that she has to finally give in to what was destined to be. She needs to accept fate. It paralleled things that I was going through in my life, ending a relationship that I’d been in for seven years. I had, you know, grown up with somebody [Hollywood producer Rob Weiss], and suddenly it was time to end it and move on. It’s a difficult situation and if you don’t part as friends, that makes it even more difficult. But it’s just accepting what is meant to be. We weren’t meant to be together. It just means that a greater love is waiting for me. Once I accepted that, I encountered so much more beauty in my life that I’d ever known.
It’s so funny how things can be around us, and we don’t pay attention This character touched me because she is this strong woman who goes through so much tragedy. I found it empowering to discover how she survives it and comes out a better person.
Are you making life-changing moves to get your own life back on track? I’ve wanted to live on a ranch, so I just bought one. I’m there with my dogs and lemon and grapefruit trees. I have 25 acres, and I’m building a barn, so my horses will be on my property soon.
If we had a crystal ball, what would we see in your future? I’m actually destined to, like, make a lot of money very quickly and move to some remote island somewhere. That’s what my goal is at this point. I want to work really hard and earn the respect of my peers and prove myself as a businesswoman, producer and director, and definitely as an actor. Then maybe I’ll lead a normal private, quiet life, and sort of try to fade into the background as much as possible.
My crystal ball says fat chance I hope one day it could happen. But it’s almost like I don’t want to test fate, because I appreciate every single moment I’m able to earn money and do something that I love. But that’s not to say in 10 years I don’t want to settle down and get married and have kids, and just be a mum.
It sounds like you’ve really been working on your head God, aren’t I always, though? It is like this perpetual process. You think that you are this really profound person who has gone to therapy and you just know everything, and then you turn 30 and you’re like, God, I was a jackass when I was 26. I’m sure that when I’m 35 I will look back on all this and go, “What was I taking about?” But that’s what’s so great about my life: You just keep on evolving. Right now I don’t know whether I’m in a good place, but I am in a much more quiet, more serene, leave-me-alone place.