Actress Landry returns home for holiday fete
Source: 2theadvocate.com

By STEVEN K. LANDRY

Special to The Advocate

BREAUX BRIDGE -- Actress and former Miss USA 1996 Ali Landry -- first made famous in an acrobatic, chip-smacking, sexy 1998 Doritos commercial during the Super Bowl -- will be the guest hostess of holiday celebrations in her hometown today.

The seventh Fourth of July celebration on the banks of Bayou Teche, the "Patriotic Fete de Pont Breaux," near downtown begins at 6:30 p.m. and includes U.S. jet flyovers, parachute jumps, a performance by the Acadian Wind Symphony, a tribute to national war heroes and a grand fireworks display.

Admission is free.

Landry, star of "Spy TV" and the current "Full Frontal Fashion" and several feature films, said Tuesday she is living out of her suitcase, having just returned to Los Angeles from a recent New York taping of "Fashion."

"It's crazy. I'm running errands, picking up my vitamins, then heading home to finish packing," Landry said from near her canyon home where she lives with her younger sister, Gena, and her Shih Tzu, Cosmo.

Landry, 29, said her visits to Breaux Bridge always amaze her because everyone treats her so well. She said she's ready for today's activities and will arrive on the banks of the Teche by boat to host the show.

"That's what I hear," she said, laughing. "They go all out, every time I come in town. It's so nice. So when they asked me to do this, I said I would come down and do it, even though it's in the hottest part of the season in Louisiana. I'm not sure I'm used to that kind of heat anymore."

Her fiancé, "The Other Half" star Mario Lopez, formerly of "Saved By the Bell," will accompany her for a brief autograph-signing ceremony at today's event.

"Mario and I just bought a home in Glendale (a suburb east of Los Angeles), but we probably won't live there together until after we're married. He's living there now; I'm still at my other home," Landry said. They tie the knot "next April, probably over here (Los Angeles). I finish work on my new television show in March, so it's easier for me to handle things here."

Her new sitcom on UPN this fall is titled "The Opposite Sex," she said, which also stars Grammy Award-winning hip-hopper Eve and Natalie Desselle. It's about best friends who offer conflicting advice on love and life.

It's not easy to secure a TV spot, however.

"Most people go for years and years and never get a television show," Landry said. "So I auditioned for a show on UPN with Eve. I go in and first audition for the casting director, then they told me to come back and audition with Eve, then I go with Eve and another girl, then I go in to audition for the network people. That's where you find out if you get the job or you don't.

"But they tell me, 'You have to come back again for the studio people (Warner Bros.) and the network people (UPN)!' They still weren't sure. By this time, I had so many knots in my back I could hardly walk. It's just such a stressful thing."

Finally, "They tell me I get the job. I was so excited. But then, once you get the job, you could go to the table, read for the script and they could fire you like that. It's just crazy. I told my mom (Renella), 'Oh, my God, I think I got this job, I get to be funny!' And she's like, 'Ali, I never really thought of you as funny.' And I'm like, 'Thanks a lot, mom!'"

Landry plays one of the three fashion designers in Miami.

"My character was a model, she traveled, dated lots of men," Landry said of her character, Rita. "It's kind of like a 'Sex and the City' thing. We got picked up for 13 episodes. We start shooting (in Los Angeles) in August."

She says she likes movies better than TV, but you must take what you can get, she said.

She has starred in "Repli-Kate" and "Beautiful" with Minnie Driver and is waiting for the release of the college-aged romp "Who's Your Daddy," in which she plays an angel.

"You know what? It's kind of like you just want a job, basically," Landry said. "I like films, but this whole comedy thing, you do it in front of a live audience. It's so addictive. The laughter you get is such a high. I can see how comedians totally crave that. To have somebody laugh at something you say and to put yourself out there like that? It's really great. It's a lotta work but it's exciting."

Back in Acadiana, her three-day visit will include this morning's talk show on Lafayette's ABC affiliate, TV3, for "Good Morning, Acadiana." It airs from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.

"They're getting me up early," she said. "I hope I'm not just waking up at 5 just to sit there and look cute. But I'm used to kind of being off-the-cuff. I don't even know what we will be talking about. I asked them to give me some sort of guideline, but I just want to have fun.

"I can remember as a kid, waking up with my grandmother, watching the show early in the morning, with my grandma drinking her coffee. I'll probably be like a zombie."

Her "Fete" duties will include "introducing the different people; they have speakers, they have a choir, they have airplanes flying over."

She talked about her specific plans after she leaves her hometown.

"(Mario and I) are going on vacation, our only vacation this year, to Mexico. And then I come back to L.A., then I go back to New York, then I come back here to start the show," Landry said.

Lopez is from Los Angeles, but his family is from Mexico.

"He's so close to his family. I find that our culture and their culture are both very distinct. I think that, in that way, we have a sort of bond. You know, family comes first. You take care of your family, that whole thing," Landry said.

One bonus important to people in south Louisiana: They're both Catholic.

"He loves that. I told him just about everyone in Louisiana is a Catholic. It's the best thing ever," she said.

She loves Breaux Bridge but is staying put in Los Angeles for now, Landry said.

"Every time I'm on anything on television, I talk about Louisiana," she said. "But we just bought an amazing home in a historical district and our neighbors are amazing. It's like a Mayberry, like a small town. They threw a party for us there already, everybody watches out for everybody.

"Seriously, there's a little barber shop there with the candy-cane-looking thing on the front, there's an old-time pharmacy, a little coffee shop, a meat market, a little French bakery. It's just so cute. You could walk everywhere. I know all my neighbors already. We feel blessed."

Editor's note: Correspondent Steve Landry is not related to Ali Landry.