Charisma Carpenter has had a very interesting and diverse career. Many fans will know her primarily as the feisty Cordelia Chase from the cult favorite television Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. It was a 9 year career defining role. After that she’s gone on to be in other cult favorites including Veronica Mars, Expendables I and II and recently The Lying Game (I’m bitter that it just got cancelled, right after I got completely hooked). Now she’s hosting a new series for the Investigation Discovery Channel – I Survived Evil.
I Survived Evil is a weekly series that focuses on people who survived horrible moments and tragedies in their lives. Through a combination of interviews and reenactments these survivors tell their stories. Charisma is the perfect host for this show. At the age of 22 she was almost raped in by a serial rapist. What makes this even more terrifying and shocking was the discovery that the rapist was a San Diego cop. If not for the actions of her two friends who knows what could have happened. Check your local listing for showtimes and be sure to catch this episode, you will have a new found respect for Charisma Carpenter.
I really didn’t want to have her rehash her experience during this interview so I wanted to focus a little bit more on the mechanics of the show and her relationship with her friends from that night.
I’m a huge fan of yours, but I don’t follow the personal lives of celebrities. Was what happened to you common knowledge?
When it happened we did an interview on 20/20 but after that, I went on to do other things. I think Parade magazine did a small piece on it when I was on Buffy, but it was a story that didn’t really take off and I didn’t spend a lot of time talking about it.
Can you talk a bit about what it was like the first time you told this story in a public forum and how it feels to tell it now?
I wanted to tell this story and this show gave me complete control over how and when the story would be told. There were things and people that I was interested in protecting.
How did you get involved in this project?
I had been looking to do something new when ID and Cineplex approached me about working on this show. We had several meetings and phone calls and everything came together.
What do you hope people will take away from watching your story?
I hope that the viewers get that we’re trying to tell an authentic story and be inspired by it. I lived through this and I have a good life now. There is support available to help people get through this and it doesn’t have to have a permanent, negative impact on your life.
What was your reaction the first time you watched the completed show and the reenactments?
I loved it, I thought it did everyone and the story justice. It turned out so much better than I expected it to. It was not intrusive, nor exploitative but just raw.
When you have such a traumatic shared experience, how did it impact your relationship with Arthur and your other friend from that night?
I have not seen or spoken to Aldo since it happened and I saw Arthur a little bit after the incident happened. I think we all kind of went our separate ways to deal with this on our own. I really wish Aldo could have been involved with this project. It was great seeing Arthur again, he was the same fun guy that I knew when we were younger.