DATE: June 12,2001
COMPANY: eonline.com
AUTHOR:

If you think it is difficult to wrestle with CHYNA in the WWF, just wait until you see how hard it is to wrestle files from her in Touchstone Pictures' upcoming comedy, ' Frank McKlusky C.I. ' Chyna tackles the role of Freeda, a menacing gatekeeper of the company's classified files with a very unique fashion sense.

ET: Explain the catsuit.

CHYNA: What do you mean explain the catsuit? I don't know what you are talking about. It is just another day in the life of JOANIE (LAURER, Chyna's real name). Now people get to know the real me. This would be a typical house-cleaning outfit -- easy to clean with a little Windex.

ET: Describe what you are wearing.

CHYNA: This is a latex outfit. And believe me when I tell you this baby is skin-tight. What you see is what you get because there is not an ounce of air between the latex and my body. I feel very, very naughty. (Imitates a cat hissing.)

ET: Is it comfortable?

CHYNA: It honestly is so much like a second skin that if it is cold, I feel chilly, and when the sun comes out, I feel really warm, so it is really weird temperature-wise. The weird thing is the cap. It gives me tunnel vision, so I am tripping over everything and hitting everybody because I can't see what I am doing. It is very Freeda. It goes with the character.

ET: : But you are not Catwoman?

CHYNA: What I am is a woman with very, very bad taste. The best part in playing Freeda -- for me Joanie -- is I happen to love costumes and makeup. In this movie, I get to wear every kind of costume and imitate celebrities very badly. I wear a little MADONNA outfit, the famous JENNIFER LOPEZ dress and the Catwoman outfit, amongst other very horrible outfits.

ET: So you are satirizing celebrities?

CHYNA: I am doing a satire on different celebrities and it is a blast, it is so funny. I don't have a huge speaking role, but just the outfits say a whole lot in themselves.

ET: Describe the Madonna outfit.

CHYNA: I wore a peach corset with a very pointed bosom, and I had my hair up with the braided ponytail and I wore some black stockings and boots. I felt like I wanted to vogue, it was so Madonna. It is funny because all of the outfits are kind of the cheesy imitations. That outfit was one of Madonna's very first outfits. The shot starts out and all you see are these pointy boobs sticking out at you. It is very comical.

ET: : What do you mean by the Jennifer Lopez dress?

CHYNA: As most of us know, Jennifer wore this very, very risqué dress to the Grammys about a year and a half ago. It was very low cut. I think people were wondering how she even kept the dress on. I wear kind of my own version of the Jennifer Lopez dress. You have to understand that I am wearing all these outfits in an office atmosphere. This (indicates catsuit) is how I would typically dress to go to the office. And I throw everybody who walks in and out of the office for a loop.

ET: Your knee is all scraped. What happened out there?

CHYNA: Can you believe it? Here I am talking about the real me and that is definitely showing my true colors. Here the big athlete comes on set and falls on her face in high heels, but the ground is real uneven out there and I am wearing five-inch heels. I am hurt, not so much physically, but my feelings are hurt.

ET: But you are still working with your injury?

CHYNA: It happens. Doing what I do, I have been physically abused on a daily basis, so a little knee scrape isn't that bad. I am not worried about my knee but the outfit -- I ruined my outfit.

ET: Considering all the fighting you've done in the ring, what is the worst injury you have had?

CHYNA: I've had shoulder surgery, rotor cup surgery, broken my nose many times, broken my ankle and broken my tailbone. It is all part of being an athlete and trying to look good doing it, too. That is the hard part -- being an athlete and entertainer all rolled into one.

ET: Considering all the fighting you've done as entertainment, is it true that you've never gotten into a fight in real life?

CHYNA: I have always been very competitive all my life. I was an amateur boxer and the wrestling and, even now, I love being physical. I love that physical competitiveness, but from a personal standpoint, I am probably very sensitive. I would cry and walk away before I would ever hit you -- unless you made me really mad. So, I have never ever been in a physical fight. That is probably how I learned to hit guys in the nuts. Whoo! I learned from being smacked around over and over that hitting them in the privates takes them down every time.

ET: Are you at a crossroads with the WWF -- there are not a lot of women out there to challenge you.

CHYNA: I think I am definitely at a crossroads with the WWF. I am one of those people who are extremely happy for their roots. I know what that platform did for me, and I think I really have been able to display a strength and a power and be a real inspiration to women out there in the television industry, but there is only so much I can do now. I don't mean this in a bad way, but so many women are not in the same league as me. I have been training and wrestling men for five years. Now it is very difficult. I can't go through the top guys -- ROCKY would never let me beat him. It is very difficult for me to develop a program with the women right now, too, so the best part about the Chyna character now is she is more of an attraction than anything. I think the more acting skills I get under my belt, or the more modeling that I do -- as Joanie -- just gives me an opportunity to progress in my career, which is what I want to do as a person.

ET: Is it important for you to separate Joanie from Chyna?

CHYNA: Absolutely. I always have to remind people because that is what they see on TV every week. You start to become known as your character, and I make no bones about it, Chyna is just a character. My name is Joanie and I am a completely different person from my character. I would like to be me.