An Interview with Kat Barrell

Kat Barrell Interview By: Kate McCrea How’d you get involved with the show? Um, I auditioned for it a long, long time ago. Um, like, almost 12 years ago now. I auditioned for other characters at first, and then I got cast as Nicole Haught, and, yeah, the rest is... Did you have any idea how, um, well received the show would be by the fans? No, I had no idea. No, everything's been, like, such a surprise. I can't believe here we are 10 years later. And a 10 year anniversary, like, with so many people still loving the show, it's, like, been the highlight of my career.

Why do you think it's so important to LBGTQ fans? I think the show particularly came at a time where there was a real lack of representation, so there was a combination of, like, the show coming at just the right time when people really needed it, but I also think what's so wonderful about the show is that the characters, there's such a wonderful, long term progression of this relationship, so you're not just seeing them meeting and falling in love for the first time, but you're seeing them work through, you know, troubles that every couple goes through. And then, you know, family dynamics, and then getting married. So it's just, it's a show we don't get to see queer couples go through such a long, beautiful journey together, and I think that's why it's just so important.

How hard were the stunts on this show? The stunts were, um, we had an amazing stunt team, and, um, Lindsay is the woman who is my double, and she doubled me, um, almost the entire show. And it was incredible to see, like, just how cool they made everything look, and, um, I remember watching her, like, jump off of a train. And, uh, it was it was really awesome. Like, they worked so hard, and it was so fun to get to collaborate with them.

I remember seeing pictures from sets where it was like 50 below or something.How grueling was filming in Canada? It was really challenging. We talk about it a lot, but I think it's because it's so present. Like, in our crew too, like, we're outside a lot on this show. Its nature and the surroundings of the town are very important to the aesthetic of the show. So I think it's a real challenge. I mean, I got really lucky because I'm in a cop uniform all the time, so there's lots of places to hide warming things, but some of my castmates are not wearing a lot of clothes. And so I always felt like I could complain the least. So I really tried hard not to complain because inevitably, Tim, Dom and Mel were always colder than I was.

Who was your favorite guest star on the show? My favorite is definitely Jan Arden. Jan is, like, a legendary Canadian music star, and she's also an incredibly kind, amazing person. And, uh, she just, every time she came on, I learned so much from her as an artist because she was an example of somebody who was so fearless, stepping into the part. She was a singer-songwriter first, and acting was newer to her at the time. Now she's gone on to do lots of it, but, um, I just really loved watching such an accomplished artist, try a different art form with so much, like, open heartedness, and lack of fear, and, um, also just, you know, willing to make mistakes and be messy. When you are, like, a, you know, superstar, like, legendary singer songwriter, um, to go into a different medium and be like, I don't know, this isn't my thing. Like, I'm learning. That's so incredible because that's really hard to do.

Was there a lot of room for improv or did you have to stick to the script? Improv is definitely always very welcome. Melanie, who plays Wynonna, is like the queen of improv and so good at it. I always loved working with her because she would just throw things out all the time. She's so brave. Um, and I think our showrunner Emily, they were so open, especially because we worked on the show, you know, we did four seasons, and then we did a movie, and then we did an audible. So we really knew these characters, and I think the more and more we fell into them, the writers would write for us, 'cause they started knowing what our strengths were, and what things just felt really good for us. They would also welcome things we would, we would offer, which is pretty cool.

Sisterhood was a pretty big part of the show. What does that mean to you? Sisterhood? Yeah, I think a big part of the show. I think there's a lot of themes of sisterhood, family, and I think one of my favorite ones was that you can choose your family. I think there are a lot of people out there who may be the family they're born into, is not the place that they want to be, but I think there's so much to be said for a found family, and that can be your family. And I think having the sisters and watching their journey, there were a lot of relationships we got to see grow and develop. And I think, you know, the one beautiful thing about the Earp sisters is that no matter what, there was always such a deep love there, even if they were mad at each other, even if they disagreed, even if they thought there should be doing different things on a mission, there was always love.

Did you know going in that you'd be playing a, um, love interest with Waverly? I did, yeah, that was actually my audition scene. So the 1st scene, where Nicole is introduced in the bar, was my audition scene. So yeah, I was, like, super excited. That was funny. With the shirt. Yeah, the whole thing. And I remember I remember thinking like, there's no way I'm going to book this. Like, I'm not cool enough. I don't have enough swagger. Like, I could never play a cop. I was like, this is such a cool part. There's no way I'm gonna book this, but, like, I'm gonna go, you know, have some fun. And I booked it. I can't believe that.

What was it like working with Dolls and trying to get into that room with them, basically? Into the black Badge? Yeah, it was really cool because I think for me as an actor, Nicole's journey kind of followed my journey. I always felt like I was a little bit one step behind because I wasn't in the pilot. I didn't come until episode two. Um, so I always felt what, as an actor, what Nicole felt like, I was always one step behind. Everyone had always been there a little bit longer than I had. And I think for Black Badge, I'm really happy, retrospectively, like, as an actor, I was like, I want to be in the Black Badge division and do all the cool supernatural stuff. I don't wanna do, like, the boring humans stuff. I wanna be on the supernatural team. Um, as an actor, and that's also what Nicole felt. But I'm so glad that Nicole essentially stayed human right till the end. Um, because I think it was really important to have a character that represented our audience base, the humans that are watching the show, and what that feels like, and that you can be just as much of a hero working in the real world, as you can in the supernatural world, even if you don't have powers, and you don't like your power becomes who you are as a person.

Well, is it important for the character for you to have the character be respected by Dolls? I think it was, yeah, I think it really was. I think there was definitely an unspoken competition, and at the time, Nicole wasn't a sheriff. She was just kind of coming up, and, you know, and then there's this whole, like, secret division that she knows about, but she's not supposed to know about that she's supposed to work with, but not supposed to be involved with. And she was, I think there was, um, definitely a sense for her that she wanted dolls to respect her and, like, work with her.

How difficult was working with all the special effects? Because that had to be done later, right? Yeah, I remember Dom and I were reflecting on, there's a scene in season 4 on the stairs where Dom’s the angel, Waverly, Dark Angel, Waverly, and it was very epic, and I have this whole declaration about being, you know, the angel's shield. And we're literally just on these stairs. We're literally just on these stairs in the middle of the forest, and all our crews are looking at us, like, there's no special effects, there's no wind, there's no nothing. And we're doing these epic speeches, and I remember us looking at each other and being like, This feels so silly. We hope this is coming across, you know what I mean? Like, we hope that this doesn't feel as artificial as it's feeling now. And then when you see it, with the work of all the effects artists and the music and all the composition, like, that's what I love about filmmaking, is it's such a, um, team effort. It's such a group effort. And, uh, you know, the actors were lucky, 'cause we get to be on camera. We’re just a small part of it. There’s so much artistry that comes into making us look great. And that's what I really comes across when you're doing special effects work. The costumes really reflected the characters. Totally. Yeah, Jen Hafferton's our costume center. She did such an incredible job. I loved how my uniform got to evolve throughout the seasons, you know, different seasons. We tried different things. I also really love talking to the fans about, like, what's your favorite uniform? What's your favorite? Because Nicole went through a lot of different looks, and I actually, my favorite is where we landed.

Did you get to keep any of the props from the set? Yeah, I have my two belts, so I have a very tactile kind of army inspired belt that I wore in season two and three, and then I have my, um, my leather. A more classic cat of cowboy sheriff belt. And I love those, and we got asked at the end what we wanted to keep, and I chose those because every time I put those on, I felt like Nicole.