Traci Dinwiddie has been keeping busy since we last saw her on Supernatural in the season 4 episode ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ where, unfortunately, death did not take that holiday for her character of psychic Pamela Barnes.
The vivacious and beautiful Dinwiddie has been involved in a number of projects both personal and professional including writing quite a bit and looking into the Women’s Directing program at AFI and she has an upcoming guest starring role as Madame Flanagan in the CW series 90210 in an episode titled ‘Between a Sign and a Hard Place’ which will be airing this Tuesday, April 21st and repeat Wednesday, April 22 on the CW at 9pm.
“Please do tune in, if you’re able! She’s a fun character! A British fortune teller/counselor for the Stars,” Dinwiddie says of her character on the upcoming 90210 episode.
Aside from acting, Traci Dinwiddie has been keeping quite busy as a drummer for yoga classes and is often a guest musician for the world fusion band, ‘Yeh Dede’.
“I’m also a part of a very special community theater outreach group called ‘Turning the Wheel Productions’ (TTW). We are in the midst of a major residential project right here in LA.”
Traci describes TTW as a sweetly inclusive form of artistic expression on all levels including music, theater, dance, poetry and visual art within the community and it’s power transcends age, gender, race, economic status…all of it. “Basically, it rocks one’s socks off! Which is the way I like to roll, yo! Fierce artsy fartsyness!” Dinwiddie says with undisguised enthusiasm for this project.
It’s that enthusiasm and zest for any project she comes in contact with that fans will miss now that her character of Pamela Barnes is no longer a part of the world of Supernatural. From the first moment she graced the screen with her beauty, her quirky kickass attitude and strength of character in the Supernatural 4th season opener ‘Lazarus Rising’, psychic Pamela Barnes quickly became a Supernatural fan favorite. Which is sometimes not an easy task for any female character coming onto the show. In the episode ‘Death Takes a Holiday’, the Winchester brothers (played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki) lost a valuable ally and the fans lost one of several truly interesting and well-written and acted recurring characters to grace the show with the death of Pamela Barnes.
I had a chance to catch up with the lovely Traci Dinwiddie shortly after she did her first Supernatural convention appearance at the Creation Salute to Supernatural held in Cherryville, NJ the first weekend in March, 2009 to discuss her character’s departure from the series and ask her what her thoughts were about Pamela’s untimely demise.
“I felt truly bummed! Seriously, I cried. It was really, really tough to go to the convention with that big secret to carry around as well. Every time someone mentioned the idea of Pamela coming around more regularly…I felt this little lump in my gut, much like poor PB did too,” Traci says with genuine sadness over the loss of her character.
In her last appearance in the episode Death Take’s a Holiday’, Pamela Barnes seemed to be carrying around a lot of bitterness about the loss of her eyesight by attempting to see the true form of the Angel Castiel in the 4th season opener ‘Lazarus Rising’. A lot of fans and viewers, myself included, felt that Pamela’ bitterness was sort of out of character. I asked Traci what her thoughts on this were and if she found it to be a natural progression for her character given what happened to her when she was first introduced.
“I did notice the dark essence of the script and was surprised by it,” Traci admits candidly. “Yet, that is the nature of Supernatural. It’s takes quick turns and good folks fall prey to the dark side all the time,” she concludes aptly pointing out the sense of realism this brings to show like Supernatural where there is currently a war going on between good and evil.
Since her introduction in the 4th season opener, ‘Lazarus Rising’, Traci Dinwiddie’s character of Pamela Barnes has had a playful, sexy on screen dynamic with both Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) and Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki). Yet in ‘Death Takes A Holiday’, fans were noticing that there seemed to be an interesting dynamic developing between the characters of Pamela Barnes and Sam Winchester so I asked Traci if this was that something the writers came up with or that she and Jared Padalecki decided to play into.
“What you hear spoken in our scenes was written. “We don’t really get to write the scenarios. That’s just the law of most TV in this format,” Traci says, but also notes that that it is their job to add chemistry and special nuance to what is given to them as actors. ”We be the cool puppets,” She tells us with a laugh.
In ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ the beautiful actress had to have her character come into some pretty hard knocks during a fight scene between Pamela and a male demon who had come to kill her and the helpless bodies of the Winchester Brothers whose spirits were on an astral plane.
I asked Traci Dinwiddie just how much of the fight scene did she do herself and what was the most difficult part of it for her.
“I topped and bottomed it”, she says with a laugh. “My stunt double was gracious enough to take the neck jerking toss to the top of the dresser. She was such a good sport too!” Traci goes on to explain that that she’s has a metal plate in her neck, so it’s imperative that she has doubles for that kind of work in a scene.
Dinwiddie’s character also has a pivotal scene with Sam Winchester and a messy death scene all at once so I asked her if it was hard to hold focus on the dramatic aspects and also having to do the visual effects with the blood from the fatal stab wound that was inflicted onto Pamela by the demon.
“It was mayhem! I was blind for the most of the filming, so I couldn’t be moved around as easily. Plus, I had only a sense of where the blood was dripping. So, I had to be extra cautious not to let it spill everywhere for potential second and third takes.”
Tracie Dinwiddie also shares with us how having to wear the special contacts to make it look like she has fake eyes and blindness changed her perception of the things around her.
“I’m not sure if it was because I was blind, but the set seemed louder and more rambunctious than usual. Still, as soon as “action” was called, we all locked in on each other with total focus. The boys are da bomb, plain and simple,” she says with admiration for series stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki and their work ethic when it comes to getting it all together for the camera.
Speaking of working with Ackles and Padalecki, I asked Traci if there was anything fun from ‘behind the scenes’ she could share with Eclipse readers from this episode
“Besides Jared’s green foggers? My goodness that fella let’s ’em fly!,” She says with a laughing reference to Padalecki’s notorious reputation for being very gassy on set. “I can tell you that I just got a sneak peak of the Gag reel for the Season 4 box set and it rrrrrooocks!”
Ah we see that Traci is still living under the fear of Kripke so I moved on to asking her a bit more details about just having had her first convention experience and was she ready to do another one?
“I am totally ready to do another and would love to travel abroad for one sometime too! I really look forward to hanging with the fans, especially now that I’m well. I was super sick at the New Jersey Con. The whole crew was awesome, though, and took such good care of me. I loved chatting it up with Richard Speight. He’s a great man and actor.”
Traci Dinwiddie is scheduled to make her next convention appearance at the 2009 Chicago Creation Salute to Supernatural the weekend of November 13th to the 15th .
Lastly we ended the interview with the question that I am sure is on the minds of many Supernatural fans and viewers like myself who adored the character of Pamela Barnes: Is there any possibility that Pamela might come back since this is Supernatural after all and characters seemed to come back from the dead on a regular basis.
“Yes, anything is possible! There you have it!”
From your lips to Eric Kripke’s ears, Traci!
Meanwhile fans of the talented Traci Dinwiddie can see her on the hit CW series 90210 this coming Tuesday, April 21st at 8PM EST and Supernatural fans can tune into an all new season 4 episode, ‘Jump the Shark’ on Thursday April 23rd at 9PM EST following an all new episode of Smallville.
Learn more about Traci Dinwiddie at her official website.
Traci Dinwiddie Photo courtesy of Traci Dinwiddie.com. Still photo from Lazarus Rising courtesy of The CW Network.
Pamela was such a wonderful character on SUPERNATURAL; her death gave me great sadness. I was really hoping she'd become a semi-regular, but should have known a great female character like that is doomed! Traci is vivacious, beautiful and so much fun, I really hope to meet her at a Con one of these days!
I really enjoyed this article! Love, Robin