Photo credit: Pierre Gautreau

Lindy Zucker has played a host of fascinating theatrical and indie film roles (among them, an evil clown), but AfterEllen.com readers best know the out Toronto actor as B.J. Fletcher, bumbling-but-talented private investigator on the web series B.J. Fletcher, Private Eye.

Zucker is a comedy veteran with a theater degree and plenty of improv experience, and she brings it all to the role of B.J. We recently chatted her up about B.J.'s roots, the importance of web series for queer audiences, and why it's always a good idea to have a giant tape recorder handy.

AfterEllen.com: You've done tons of theater and indie film. How does a web series compare to that?
Lindy Zucker: Well, a lot of the film stuff I've done has been independent, so it's pretty similar. Doing a web series, it's obviously a lot faster — we've had to sort of juggle our lives in an amazing way to be able to shoot this stuff, especially the amount of scenes we've had and different locations. Because we have a new one that launches every week, we've sort of been just running around like crazy people trying to get it all.

Whereas on a film, you're shooting until it's done — perhaps with or without a deadline in mind. But when you have something you need to have up every Tuesday, you have to have it done, and so it's kind of wild to do. But it's been good, we've had a lot of amazing people volunteer their time and it's working out well.

AE: So tell me, how did you become B.J. Fletcher?
LZ: Well, Regan [Latimer, producer and director of the series] is a good friend of mine; we've actually worked together in the normal world of box office, which is what most Toronto actors are doing. She had been doing all kinds of little films and we wanted to work together, and she told me about the [web series] contest [on AfterEllen.com].

I said: "Sure, let's work together. I'll develop a character and you can write scripts." We came up with this really ridiculous P.I. character who has really terrible cases, but thinks she's "bigger" than she is. So we came up with this series.

AE: Whose idea was it to use the giant tape recorder? Because it's fantastic.
LZ: [laughs] the tape recorder was mine. We were trying to think of props and things, and it was actually my grandfather's tape recorder from, like, the '70s. I suggested to Regan that B.J. Fletcher does her own film noir-esque voiceovers on the tape recorder, and then I showed her this tape recorder that I had, which is huge, and we all sort of loved it. It's just a ridiculous thing to carry with you.

Zucker (right) with co-star Dana Puddicombe

Photo credit: Jonathan Thomas

AE: The series has a lot of physical comedy — have there been any injuries or really funny outtakes yet?
LZ: [laughs] Oh, there are a few. Regan actually started to put together an outtake reel that we might put on the site with the final episode of Series 1. There haven't been any major injuries — it's a lot of physical comedy, and I haven't done a lot of training in physical comedy. I'm just sort of inclined to find like the wrong way to go over a table or something, stuff like that.

So it's a lot of bruises, but nobody's broken anything. We're not leaping off of roofs or anything like that. [laughs] There have been a few moments when we slap each other and there are a few outtakes where the slap is too hard, but it just makes us laugh more than anything else.

AE: You just mentioned "Series 1" — is there a possibility of a Series 2 on the horizon?
LZ: We really want to make a Series 2, it's just sort of — all of us for various reasons are very busy this summer, but we're thinking in the fall we'd like to do it. It's just a matter of trying to find a way to make some money off that — we might do some fundraising. Just because we've done all of Series 1 for maybe fifty bucks.

For Series 2 we want to be able to pay people. It won't be, like, union rates or anything like that, but something where we can take the time to do it properly, whereas now we're sort of working around our various jobs. We'll see what happens [laughs].

AE: Fair enough. … It seems like you've been really involved with the producing aspects of the show. Do you think the web series phenomenon is more important for the lesbian audience, since we don't see ourselves — very often, anyway — on TV?
LZ: I'd like to think so. We definitely don't see that on TV, but even without the lesbian content of the show, I don't think we've ever seen a show where, as a woman, I would be cast as an inept detective. It's naturally a male role, even without the queer content at all.

But definitely, it being queer, it appeals to a lesbian audience, because obviously they're not going to see that on TV. They're not going to see the lead lesbian not taking her clothes off, being in this weird sort of comedic role.

So, it's kind of fun that we can do that — I totally appreciate the audience we have, and that we can do this sort of thing and we can make this queer series and people like it. Or maybe people are just waiting for another horrible season of The L Word and they're bored! [laughs]

I mean, queer audiences are very dedicated, so it's great. You have to respect their devotion, and we try to give them something awesome to watch, and so far, people seem to like it.