Body of work

SINGAPORE — Imagine if getting dressed for work took seven hours every single day. And we are not talking about layering, either.

That is the case for Jaimie Alexander, the actress known for her part as Sif in the Thor films, as well as for her work in the TV series Kyle XY. She returns to television as the star of a new series Blindspot, in which she plays a mysterious Jane Doe who emerges from a duffel bag left in the middle of Times Square, her memory erased and every inch of her naked body covered in fresh tattoos, each one a clue to a crime.

Tattooed between her shoulder blades — in her blind spot — is the name of FBI agent Kurt Weller (played by Strike Back’s Sullivan Stapleton), who is just as clueless as she is about who or what could be masterminding this riddle.

Because her wardrobe involves a full body of tattoos, Alexander spends seven and a half hours standing in the makeup department getting them transferred on — and that is before her day in front of the camera begins.

“I can’t sit down, so it gets a little rough towards the end of the makeup session,” said the 31-year-old in what we are sure must be a tremendous understatement. To take her mind off the process, “we blast The Beatles and watch Daniel Boone reruns because that’s the only thing on at 3.30 in the morning”, she said.

This elaborate torture is actually something the actress is quite prepared for. “The worst thing that happens in television or in film is the way they just cover you up because they don’t want to put the actor through makeup every day. They’ll say, ‘Let’s just put a jacket on her so we don’t have to do her arms’. Well, I don’t like that. I’ll be in a tank top all the time because the tattoos are such an important part of the show,” she explained.

And it is all worth it for the effect it creates. She recounted: “I went into a Starbucks the other day, where I bumped into this guy who was covered in tattoos — I think he was a tattoo artist — and he said to me, ‘Who does your work?’ I had to reply, ‘My makeup artist!’”

As someone who has nine tattoos of her own, which are either covered or incorporated into the designs, Alexander is enjoying being a walking canvas. “If I wasn’t an actor, I would probably be sleeved by now,” she said. “Some people get claustrophobic in them, but I like them. My poor stunt girl, who has been with me for way too long, cannot stand them. She’s like, ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do this!’ I keep telling her, ‘You had to wear a double corset on Thor. Relax. It’s not that bad.’”

Apart from all the ink, the thing she enjoys most about the series is getting to showcase her acting chops. “The last time I had the opportunity to work on scenes where you could see that I could act was on Kyle XY because the rest of my work involves a lot of action,” she said.

Not that this show is not action-packed, of course, which resulted in a spot of trouble during a Navy SEAL training session she was put through in a hotel in New York City. “We had the windows open because we’re idiots, and we were messing around with shotguns and assault rifles. Somebody saw us and called the cops,” she recounted. “The police came and started to bang on the door … They were trying to arrest us because they probably thought we were part of ISIS.”

Somehow, our work day is starting to look slightly less punishing by comparison. Interview COURTESY of WARNER TV

Catch Blindspot starting tonight at 9.50pm on Warner TV (StarHub TV Ch 515).