American actress,
who grew up in Wyckoff, aims to parlay her role as Bunny Lebowski,
the bikini-clad trophy wife in the Coen brothers' latest comedy,
into Hollywood power.
"I don't want to just
act," Reid says in a phone interview from her current
home in the Hollywood hills. "I want to produce, direct,
and write films. I want to be a powerful voice in Hollywood
at a young age, and it's going to happen."
Reid says this with such conviction
it's impossible to disbelieve her. And anyone who's seen her
in "The Big Lebowski" knows that despite a grand
total of about 45 seconds on screen, Reid makes a big impression,
including delivering one of the more memorable lines of the
movie season to Jeff Bridges.
Her rock-solid belief in herself
comes from her parents, Donna and Tom Reid, who run a pair
of day-care centers, in Wayne and Mahwah, with the irresistible
name of Donna Reid's Child Development Centers.
"My father always told
me that a life without a dream is no life at all," Reid
says. "They've both always been very supportive."
Reid's acting career started
right here in Bergen County, at the food court in Paramus
Park mall. She was 4 years old and had a habit of getting
up on the table and singing and dancing, much to the annoyance
of her mom.
But other mall patrons loved
the little girl's song-and-dance routine, and encouraged her.
One of them was a New York talent agent, who went on to book
little Tara on national commercials for McDonald's, Jell-O,
and Citrus Hill, among others.
At 6, she appeared as a cast
member on "Child's Play," a CBS-TV game show for
kids, and at 12, in a Stephen King movie, "Return to
Salem's Lot." She played a vampire named Amanda.
After Reid graduated from
Barnstable Academy, she headed west with her parents' blessing,
taking on Hollywood at the age of 18 without an agent. It
didn't take Reid long before she appeared on sitcoms like
"Saved By the Bell" and the daytime soap "Days
of Our Lives."
Following a brief stint back
in New York for acting classes, Reid's big break came.
"Right after I moved
back to L.A., I heard about auditions for 'The Big Lebowski,'"
Reid says. "It was at the Coens' office, and Charlize
Theron ['Devil's Advocate,' 'Mighty Joe Young'] was in the
waiting room, too. Charlize went in and auditioned, and when
she came out, she wasn't smiling. I went in there and I got
it. You know when you nail something, and you know when you
don't. I saw the way they reacted, and I just knew I had the
part."
That's when the offers started
pouring in.
"Everybody in Hollywood
loves the Coen brothers, and when I got the part, they wanted
to know who Tara Reid was," Reid says. "I wanted
to prove I'm not just hype, I'm talented."
Reid will have that opportunity
in a string of films due out over the next 18 months.
She plays a couple of roles
in "a weird, really crazy silent movie" based on
a script by Ed Wood, "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died,"
starring "Titanic" villain Billy Zane. She plays
the nurturing girlfriend of a drug addict in "Around
the Fire." She plays a lesbian rock star in "Girl,"
opposite Sean Patrick Flannery and Dominique Swain. She's
"a little psycho" in an upcoming ABC movie of the
week, "Fork at Devil's Glen," with Rick Schroder.
She has a small role in "Cruel Inventions," which
stars her former high school classmate, Sarah Michele Gellar.
And she's the romantic lead, opposite Jared Leto ("Prefontaine,"
"My So-Called Life"), in "Urban Legends."
In addition, her older brother,
Tommy, 24, has just moved right up the street from Tara. He's
currently at work on a screenplay.
"The Reids will definitely
team up," says Tara. "I absolutely want to have
one of my friends write a film. I'll produce and star, and
my brother will direct. It's absolutely going to happen."
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