And then there’s the intensity. Vampire Pam’s laser focus on her dastardly deed du jour is just the evil twin flip side of the actress’s ability to zoom in on causes that move her.
Fortunately, unlike the character she plays, Bauer-van Straten uses her considerable powers for good.
Recently the actress took the time to talk via email with Animal Policy Examiner (APE).
Bauer-van Straten on trash, personal responsibility, and the BP oil spill:
“I keep doing things that seem a tad obsessive and a bit nerdy like collecting my water bottles from the set or the gym (I use metal bottles that I refill at home but sometimes I get a bottle out and about) and taking them home to the recycle bin instead of putting them in the trash, when there are huge trash bags being filled by everyone else that will go to a land fill. Out of sight out of mind.
"My one or three bottles won't make any difference...except to me. And I have seen a landfill.
“One lesson I got from Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see,' haunts me. I just feel like I can't keep stomping around pointing the finger at BP when I am supporting the oil industry with my very own dollars and actions by buying their products, helping to pay their mortgage — plastic is from oil... polyester, shower curtains...
“They only have a job because I need them, like everyone else. When I get mad I think, ‘I'll be damned if I won't at least try in my own way.’ Why? Well, it feels like the right thing to me, and this is very personal — but it also feels like it defines who I am. And I think that is very important.
“So much of our lives are defined by habit or what the guy next to us is doing, never wondering and knowing who and what we support with our actions, from the detergent Mom always used, to my favorite dish I make... A lot of my life is unexamined habit.
“So...AM I someone who does all I can, or someone who believes the other guy will take care of it—it's his fault ‘over there’?
“It IS also his fault over there. That also needs to be addressed and we have a HUGE right to be mad! But we learn from all great spiritual teachers about living in glass houses and throwing stones. Personally, I don’t want to be the pot calling the kettle. I want to rest easy now and forever.
“Trash goes off to someone else's back yard. It may not be mine but it is still someone's, at the least it's still on God's earth, it's still nature’s, or God's, backyard. So how can I put less in someone else's back yard?”
Please check this page in coming days for more from APE’s interview with Bauer-van Straten.
Her husband, South African singer, songwriter, and guitarist Abri van Straten, has composed "Voices," a song about whales to help the International Fund for Wildlife's (IFAW) efforts. It can be downloaded from iTunes for $1, or from CD Baby for $2, with the extra dollar going to IFAW. HIs new CD containing the song is due out in the next month.
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris is the author of 17 novels for
publishers including Avon, E.P. Dutton, and Simon & Schuster, and
hundreds of articles for publications such as National Geographic
Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, and Veggie Life. She wrote a
teleplay for CBS and short fiction for The Bark magazine. With coauthor
Shelley Frost, she wrote Your Adopted Dog
(The Lyons Press). Holding a B.A. in Environmental Science Studies and
a lifelong interest in animal issues, she spends a lot of her time
battling a severe addiction to dogs.
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