Memories From The Set: Inbar Lavi
INBAR LAVI
CHARLIE'S ANGELS
In the ABC reboot, "I played a lifeguard who was dating some kind of royalty played by the wonderful Romeo," Lavi shares, but it was another actor and how she spent her time offscreen that stand out. "What I remember from that experience — other than meeting [series star] Ramón Rodríguez and drooling the whole time — was that I was in Miami, in a beautiful hotel, getting to live my best Florida life, and jumping into the ocean after we wrapped, completely naked, and enjoying it and just getting in touch with nature and myself."
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CSI
Some girls dream of being a princess. Other dream of getting to portray a prostitute with a heart of gold on a crime procedural. "Like everyone else on this planet, I've watched Pretty Woman like a gazillion times, and I got to play a prostitute. I checked that off my list!" Lavi says. "I really got to play around with her a lot. They really let me do whatever I wanted to do in terms of wardrobe and ideas, and bring a lot of myself into it, as well." Plus, the actress got to film in Las Vegas for the first time. "It was incredible. There were massive crowds all around us when we were filming."
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ENTOURAGE
The HBO comedy, on which Lavi played an employee at The Pleasure Chest, came at the "roughest time in Los Angeles" for the actress. "I was working maybe four different jobs just to make ends meet," she says. "I was really broke. I could barely pay rent. I didn't have a car. I was riding my bike from one job to another and then to audition in between." The actress knew she had to make a change, and so she did. "This is going to sound so superficial, but I walked into that audition with my curly hair — the first time I had my curls out — and that was it, I booked it, and I was able to breathe again. The show is focused on the business, so a lot of the industry was watching it. It made a difference." And once she got on set, "[star] Kevin Dillon was incredibly funny and sweet and welcoming. The director was wonderful. The whole set, it was such a great experience. I learned a lot from that."
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GANG RELATED
The Fox drama threw Lavi for a loop when the producers suddenly decided that her ICE agent Veronika "Vee" Dotsen should be Russian. "Originally, they were thinking about making her Israeli," the actress shares. "Then after we got picked up for a full season, they changed the story because they wanted to incorporate the Russian mafia in Los Angeles, and they turned me into a Russian character, and I had never spoken Russian before. They had written full-blown scenes — we're talking four or five pages a scene, at a time — in full Russian with my Russian brother! So I was freaked out, and I buckled down and I studied, and I hope I did OK. It was so much fun, and it's such a beautiful language."
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PRISON BREAK
Lavi joined the Fox revival as Sheba, the love interest of tough guy Lincoln Burrows, and as such, shared a lot of screentime with star Dominic Purcell. "[He] is unlike any person I have ever met. He is so cool," Lavi says. "He was so welcoming and so honest. There's something about his honesty that was very refreshing. He wasn't trying to be anyone's role model. He wasn't trying to live up to anyone's expectations of him. He was just truly being himself, for good or bad, and I appreciated that. I really did."
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SONS OF ANARCHY
Lavi only appeared in two episodes as a prostitute, but she still garnered a strong audience reaction thanks to her close proximity to Charlie Hunnam's Jax. "I think every woman in America and in the world wanted to kill me for getting to be in the same room with him, let alone have a sex scene with him. And I don't blame them! It was a magical day," she recalls with a laugh. "It was the first time in my life where I was half-naked, and no one was looking at me. It was all about Mr. Charlie. And again, I can't blame them. I was right there with them! That man is beautiful, what can I say?"
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UNDEREMPLOYED
The MTV dramedy about a group of post-college twentysomethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives marked Lavi's first series-regular role — and her first stable paycheck. "I don't come from a wealthy family, so for me to have to struggle as long as I have in New York and Los Angeles and finally know that I have an income coming in for the next 10 episodes was a major, major life-altering moment," she shares. "There's so much serenity that comes from economic safety." The series also allowed Lavi to "stretch" herself as an artist. "I was playing a singer-songwriter, so I started writing, and I started going up to different places around Los Angeles and reading poetry of my own, which terrified me, but I had to do it. I picked up a guitar and started learning guitar," and eventually wrote a song that would be featured on the show.
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PRIVILEGED
Lavi's first TV gig came courtesy of the short-lived CW drama, which earned the actress her SAG card. "I was so excited and so happy, I felt like I was floating on a cloud the entire day," says Lavi, who played the new girlfriend of Rose's ex-boyfriend (Once Upon a Time's Andrew J. West). Co-star Lucy Hale "was incredibly sweet and kind. She invited me to come hang out in her trailer... We were playing this game on set of coming up with 'Who would you be if you were an animal?' and I remember thinking she would be a dolphin because she's so sweet and friendly and giggly." On the downside, "I didn't like what I was wearing," Lavi recalls. "I was really excited when we did the fitting, because I thought I would get to wear a beautiful, gorgeous gown. [But] the color was really unflattering, and it didn't fit well on me."