It’s late summer and I’m heading to Vancouver, B.C., where the hot new Showtime series The L Word is shot. I have the chance to visit the set of this first-ever lesbian ensemble drama, and I’m not about to miss it.

The show stars a talented — and attractive — group of actors: Jennifer Beals, Pam Grier, Laurel Holloman, Katherine Moennig, Erin Daniels, Mia Kirshner, Leisha Hailey, Karina Lombard and one lone male, Eric Mabius. The writing team includes several names familiar to lesbian circles, including Guinevere Turner (Go Fish, American Psycho), Rose Troche (Go Fish, Six Feet Under), Angela Robinson (D.E.B.S.) and Ilene Chaiken, the show’s creator.

None of the actors are around when I arrive about noon to the location shoot, at a warehouse-turned-studio with a line of trailers parked out front.

Inside the cavernous soundstage, it’s clear who’s in charge — director Rose Troche. She might be among the shortest in the room and dressed in jeans, a hooded sweat shirt and gym shoes, but she’s a commanding presence. Blocking camera angles, consulting with technicians and giving orders, she’s also quick with a smile or a joke, and the set feels relaxed.

Pam Grier, who’s made a career of playing foxy crime fighters (Foxy Brown), is in every scene today, playing the dysfunctional diva Kit. Her scenes include a limo ride, a studio arrival and a music video rehearsal.

In the original pilot (which never aired), Grier’s character was one of the lesbian friends. A few changes have occurred since then — Mabius replaced Scott Bairstow, who has legal troubles, and now Grier plays it straight as Bette’s (Jennifer Beals) half sister. She makes a believable diva in shimmering black pants and sheer top over a black halter — and she does her own singing.

“Pam is so amazing,” Jennifer Beals says later in the day, as we sit together on an off-camera sofa. “She’s got so much energy and she seems to enjoy herself at every given moment. It’s really a pleasure to be around her.”

Beals’ and Grier’s characters have the same father, played by veteran actor Ozzie Davis, just one of numerous celebrity guest stars on the show. (Today, Snoop Dogg is playing a character named Slim Daddy in the video rehearsal scene).

“Pam’s character had a terrible relationship with her father; Bette has tried to be the model daughter,” says Beals, offering a little insight into the family dynamic. “I love him and want to please him, but I think it’s hard for him to accept Bette being gay.”

It’s been 20 years since Beals made a splash in Flashdance, but as we sit face to face, I’m thinking to myself that she must’ve been about 12 when she did that role. She might be a mature actress now with a husband and two stepchildren, but she’s still stunningly beautiful.

“I’m a lesbian and biracial on the show, and we deal with it all the time,” says Beals, adding that she’s “immensely proud” to be involved in a series that has the potential to break down stereotypes and “help people look at each other in a different way.”

Typically, the cast will work all day, then go out to dinner together, but not tonight. Location work is notorious for dragging on, with actors waiting for hours to shoot a scene. This is one of those days.

The good part about this marathon shoot is that the cast has time to talk to me. (Lombard, Mabius and Kirshner all have the day off.) What I hear repeatedly is that after five months into the six-month shooting schedule, the friends on the show are pals off the set as well. In their free time, the actors dine together, go to clubs, hike around scenic Vancouver or watch Sex and the City.

“I had everybody over to my house last weekend; it was really fun,” says Beals, who loves the area so much she has owned a home here for several years.

“I consider some of these girls to be some of the closest friends I’ve made — ever,” says Erin Daniels, who plays closeted tennis pro Dana.

Daniels certainly looks the part of a professional athlete — lean and fit with intensity in her blue eyes, her hair restrained in a sporty do. She’s one cast member who is even prettier in person.

“Hi, it’s Erin,” she says, playfully grabbing my tape recorder. We sit at a lunch table while she snacks on her “snappy.” Snappies are a concoction that Leisha Hailey and Mia Kirshner invented: a rice cake or cracker piled with tuna and covered with avocado.

“It’s very healthy,” assures Daniels, who stays in shape not only because of her snappy diet but also because of regular tennis workouts.

“That’s all me, there’s no faking in there,” Daniels says proudly of her matches on-screen. She’s been taking lessons since last November to ace the physical demands of the role.

But Daniels wants more than just to look the part. She feels “a huge responsibility” to lesbians who expect to see their lives reflected for a change. Dana struggles with low self-esteem and insecurity. Tennis is the one thing she thinks she does right, and she fears she’d lose it if she came out.

“I think that scares her to death but being miserable in the closet is not a fun place to live either, so there’s that struggle,” Daniels says.

Daniels grew up in St. Louis with parents who supported the arts and had many gay friends, so she understands the struggles and wants to get it right.

“There’s so much fluff out there, I think it’s really special to be part of something that can make a difference in people’s lives,” she says.

All of the actors are taking their roles seriously, but one can’t help but notice something as they wander around the set together, especially today with Daniels, Hailey and Moennig loitering in low-rise, form-fitting pants. Youthful, attractive and model-thin — I’m thinking a lesbian Charlie’s Angels.

Later in the day, Laurel Holloman, who plays Bette’s partner, Tina, admits that the cast has been asked “why everyone has to be so beautiful.”

Sadly, the average viewer will probably argue that “real lesbians don’t look like this” because they’re used to the stereotypes. Personally, if I want to see an overweight dyke with no fashion sense, I’ll look in the mirror. I, for one, am glad that this is not reality television.
The show is set in West Hollywood (Vancouver is just a stand-in for financial reasons), a trendy, upscale city where celebrities and industry people eat, shop and play. It’s an environment that’s familiar to Ilene Chaiken, a former television executive and the show’s creator, head writer and executive producer.

But even if the characters confound your gaydar, the issues are universal.

Take Shane, the resident hairstylist-heartbreaker, played by Katherine Moennig (referred to as Kate around the set). There’s a Shane in every bar from here to Pensacola.

In the script, Shane is described as a confident single babe who can get anyone she wants. (Actress Tammy Lynn Michaels makes a guest appearance as one of Shane’s conquests who does not take rejection well.)

It’s easy to see why Moennig was cast as the irresistible yet unattainable lesbian. Tall, dark and steamily seductive, she has an angelic face but a cool, streetwise demeanor.

Raised in an artistic home in Philadelphia, after prep school Moennig attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

She has performed sexually diverse characters before, including a girl disguised as a boy in the Dawson’s Creek spinoff Young Americans, and a recent role as a transsexual on an episode of Law and Order.

“I didn’t plan it,” she says, seated outdoors on the metal steps of a trailer. “They were just these amazing, meaty roles. I thought, I’m not going to turn down the opportunity, this is a great character.”

When she read the L Word script, “I just remember that the character description was very complimentary. I thought if I got it, wow, I’d be immensely flattered.”

Asked if she has Shane’s “gifts,” Moennig gets flustered — for once — and laughs: “Oh god, I don’t know. You should ask the people who I date — I don’t know. No comment!”

One thing Moennig isn’t embarrassed about is her character’s sexuality. If she has a good rapport with another actor, she says, “I’ll go as far as needed” on-screen. “Why hide it? It’s what we all do in life.”

One of the steamiest scenes in the pilot, however, is between Bette and Tina (Beals and Holloman), the committed couple who’s been together for seven years. They want a baby, and Tina quits her job to have it. They deal with stressful issues as they race to find a donor, and the ordeal strains their relationship.

Tina is “incredibly maternal,” says Holloman, who is best known to lesbian film fans as the particularly nonmaternal Randy in The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. Tina is nothing like Randy, which is why Holloman was eager to play another lesbian.

“[Randy] was incredibly butch,” says Holloman. “Tina was in a heterosexual relationship until she met Bette, the first and only woman she’s ever been with.”

Tina seems to have more in common with Holloman herself.

“I’m married now, and I have been for a year,” she says. Her husband, Paul, is visiting the set today, and she spends most of the day with him.

“I think I connect with her wanting to be a mom … a lot of issues women have in their 30s about having children and wanting to still have a career comes up with my character. When she decides to walk away from her career and have a child, she loses a lot of identity … and becomes incredibly codependent on Jennifer’s character.”

Holloman grew up “tomboyish” in North Carolina and went to boarding school with “tons of lesbians.” But today she appears decidedly femme, not only because she’s dressed in a sari but because of her delicate voice and mannerisms and shoulder-length blond hair.

“There are all types of different women on our show,” butch, femme and everything else, she says. So it’s “bizarre” to her that some people complain that the actors are too pretty. “I don’t know one woman on our set who hasn’t gone on an audition and been told we’re too short, too tall … or you’re constantly being told you’re not pretty enough.”

While she hopes the show will act as a bridge between the gay and straight communities, ultimately, her responsibility as an actress is to Ilene Chaiken. “It’s her story; she wrote it,” Holloman says.

Chaiken is the most intense person on the L Word set, darting from soundstage to trailer with cell phone and notes in hand. Getting her to sit for 20 minutes in a secluded upstairs office feels like a coup.

“I want to tell my stories,” says Chaiken, who’s been pitching The L Word (originally titled Earthlings) to television execs for years. With the success of Queer as Folk on Showtime and all the other gay-themed shows cropping up, the climate is finally right for the project that she calls more personal than anything she’s ever done.

But The L Word is not just her story.

“We have a mixed writing staff dominated by these lesbian voices, and we’ve all had these very different life experiences,” she says. “I’ve been with my partner [Miggy] for 20 years, and we have 8-year-old twin girls. Some [of the writers] are single and out in the clubs, some are in new relationships. … Other people have lived more on the fringes and been interested in the subcultures.”

So if you can’t relate to chic West Coast chicks, Chaiken says, if the show is around long enough most lesbians will eventually see themselves.

“We’re telling a story about a group of friends. I wouldn’t characterize them as a particular kind of lesbian. They’re just a group of people who know one another and whose lives are linked because of friendship and romance,” she says.

The work plods into the night. Leisha Hailey, the only “out” lesbian in the cast, is off-limits because she’s agreed to an exclusive interview with another publication. But she’s friendly, cheerful — and maybe a little flirtatious? She plays a bisexual reporter and is wearing a pair of pointy beige boots with 4-inch heels, so I have to ask, “Are they yours, or do they belong to wardrobe?”

Alas, they came from wardrobe. But she has a pair just like them at home — in black, she says slyly, flashing a Cheshire grin.

I’m smitten! But then, that’s been a recurring theme all day — not just because the actors are striking, but because I’m impressed with their openness and their commitment to the show and to portraying their lesbian characters honestly.

The shoot edges toward midnight and it’s time for my visit to end. I think Moennig’s comment sums up my feeling about the show well: “I don’t know what kind of response it’s going to get, but it’s definitely going to get a response, and people are going to take notice.”

Meanwhile, the cast and crew order pizza.

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