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NBC’s The Playboy Club star Amber Heard talks bisexual lifestyle, guns, weight issues

By April MacIntyre Aug 10, 2011, 21:45 GMT

02/22/2011 - Amber Heard - "Drive Angry" Los Angeles Screening - Arrivals - Arclight Hollywood - Hollywood, CA, USA © Tina Gill / PR Photos

Amber Heard, who plays Bunny Maureen in the controversial NBC series The Playboy Club, which premieres Monday, September 19, sat down with Playboy to discuss the new show.

Amber Heard is Playboy’s September 20Q subject (issue hits newsstands Friday, August 12).

In the interview, Amber discusses her sexuality and sets the record straight about coming out last December:

“First of all, to say I came out implies that I was once in. Let me be straight about that—no pun intended [laughs]—I never came out from anywhere. I’ve always lived my life the way I’ve wanted and have been honest with myself and everyone around me. It didn’t really affect anything in my career. I don’t think the producers and directors I’ve worked with care one way or another…I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.’”  

“What I like about The Playboy Club is that it’s about women who were being independent and earning as much as their fathers. It was their chance to live their own life, to do whatever they wanted on their own terms.”

Heard began her career as a model and later moved to LA to pursue acting. She’s appeared in movies, including "Zombieland" and "Pineapple Express" and will appear in the upcoming films "The Rum Diary" and "Drive Angry."

The actress sat down with Playboy to discuss filming nude scenes, her bad driving habits and Hollywood’s pressure to be thin.

Following are selected quotes from the interview:

On watching her weight:

“Like most girls, I constantly have to watch my weight, because if I didn’t, my curves would get ahead of me. I naturally have some curves, like most women—unfortunately just not like most women, in Hollywood. I’m considered curvy only in Hollywood. It’s a weird town…Every pound for a woman in the real world is seven pounds for an actress. I don’t want to play into the perception that all women should look like 14-year-old boys. I don’t want to add to that pressure for young girls. But in Hollywood there is a constant pressure to look a certain way.”

On feeling over-the-hill in Hollywood:

“Hollywood actresses age in dog years. I’m 25 to the rest of the world, but I’m about 48 in actress years. I’m just around the corner from my midlife crisis. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Hollywood can be a draining industry.”

On appearing naked in several movies:

“When I came to Hollywood, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any connections. I did what a lot of people have to do in the real world and just worked from the bottom up. And that meant taking a lot of roles as the girl at the party who loses her shirt. But now I’m doing things I find artistically and emotionally fulfilling. I’m not opposed to nude scenes if they’re appropriate. I’m not against them morally, but I personally no longer find movie nudity to be worth my while. That may change in the future. I’m keeping an open mind, as always, because that’s what you have to do.”

On whether or not she used drugs while filming The Rum Diary:

“Not at all. Trying to film a movie on a diet is hard enough; I can’t image how it would be on drugs. I stayed true to his [Hunter S. Thompson’s] spirit in other ways. I kept his book in the pocket of my cast chair the entire time we were filming. That made me feel connected to the bigger picture, of our goal to do justice to a wonderful piece of literature and a legend.”

On dropping out of her Catholic high school at the age of 16:

“For as long as I can remember I’ve been the kind of person who goes against the grain and questions authority, and that doesn’t make for an ideal religious follower. I always felt like an outcast at school. I had good friends but none I truly related to. I lost my best friend in a car accident when I was 16, and as you can imagine, it was incredibly tough. But that wasn’t the reason I left school. I’d already been on this path toward questioning religion and questioning my place within it. I had always been a reader and a skeptic, so when I was old enough to break away from organized religion, it just came naturally.”

On coming out last December:

“First of all, to say I came out implies that I was once in. Let me be straight about that—no pun intended [laughs]—I never came out from anywhere. I’ve always lived my life the way I’ve wanted and have been honest with myself and everyone around me. It didn’t really affect anything in my career. I don’t think the producers and directors I’ve worked with care one way or another…I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.’”  

On her bad driving record:

“It’s pitiful…When I was preparing for Drive Angry the stunt coordinator took me out to the parking lot to show me how to spin out and fishtail and do all the things you’re not supposed to know how to do. After two seconds of being a passenger in my car, he realized it was an exercise in futility—because I had that sh*t down.”

On shooting guns with her father as a child:

“My dad used to take me and my younger sister, Whitney, to the firing range, and he’d stand behind us as we’d shoot. We were tiny girls—only about 10 years old at the time—so when we’d pull the trigger the recoil would send us flying backward. But he’s stand behind us and make sure we were safe. I’ve been around responsible gun ownership my whole life.”