Alexandra Holden

By Samantha Bornemann

WHO IS SHE?
A blonde, sweet-faced native of Minnesota, 24-year-old Alexandra Holden has been popping up on TV and silver screens in a steady, teasing rhythm for years.

WHAT HAS SHE DONE?
What hasn't she done? Her film credits include Dancer, Texas Pop. 81, In & Out, Sugar & Spice and Drop Dead Gorgeous. She was the anorexic reigning pageant princess in that deliciously tasteless film: You may remember her lip-synched performance of "Don't Cry Out Loud" while delivering an interpretive dance from her wheelchair. On TV, Alex played Ross' coed honey and Bruce Willis' daughter on Friends, the soccer player who lured Eli from his girlfriend on Once and Again and the aspiring actress who sought Richard Fish's help last spring on Ally McBeal. Last weekend, she crossed enemy lines with a star-studded cast in the WWII miniseries Uprising.

WHY DO WE CARE?
She's an angelic beauty from the wholesome Midwest...with an S&M-tinged text on her nightstand. Need we say more?

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PLAYBOY: You've played high school students of all types: Sugar & Spice was about cheerleaders; you played an athlete on Once and Again. Are any of these close to what you were like in school?

HOLDEN: I guess that, like in Sugar & Spice, I obviously had times in high school when I felt like I didn't fit in. And the sporty Alex? I kinda got into that junior and senior year—when I started playing tennis. My parents are really into tennis. I was home recently and Wimbledon was on all the time...and if they didn't see it, they taped it. [Laughs]

PLAYBOY: Any good stories about playing Bruce Willis' daughter on Friends?

HOLDEN: Oh, that was cool! You know, I had no idea that I was gonna have a dad on the show or who it was gonna be, so I was totally surprised—that was a good surprise.

PLAYBOY: This summer you filmed the NBC miniseries Uprising, which also features your Friends boyfriend David Schwimmer. Was it like old times working with him again?

HOLDEN: That was weird, 'cause a lot of my little scenes are with him, but it was so different than Friends. He's yelling at me with a Polish accent....

PLAYBOY: Tell us about the movie.

HOLDEN: It's about the Warsaw ghetto uprising in World War II. It's a really good story and it's based on actual people. My character's a young Jewish girl who looks very Aryan, so she's able to sneak across to the Polish side and try to pass notes and stuff like that. We had a historian there to tell us what it was like at the time. We would do our little "classes"—it was kinda like school, but in a really good way. [Laughs] We'd start out in the morning and we would go practice shooting guns and stuff, and then we'd have a little Hebrew lesson—kind of learn some prayers, you know—and then we'd go to the set and rehearse.

PLAYBOY: Soon you'll be back on the big screen in Wishcraft, starring Meat Loaf. Was it fun working with the "bat out of hell"?

HOLDEN: The movie's kind of a high school love story, with murder. Classmates are kind of dropping dead left and right of us. Meat Loaf plays the detective guy who really thinks he's sharp and is gonna crack the case, you know? He's gonna figure these kids out. He was cool. He was a super-nice guy. I didn't have any scenes with him, so I just saw him here and there on the set.

PLAYBOY: You seem to have a habit of doing projects with rock stars without actually being in scenes with them—the same happened when you shot the Aerosmith video for "Hole in My Soul."

HOLDEN: Yeah, I know. But I did get to meet Steven Tyler later—and he said he liked the video!

PLAYBOY: We've seen your characters woo all types of men on the big and small screens. What do you look for in a guy?

HOLDEN: Somebody who's funny and likes to have fun. I don't want somebody who's serious, but I don't want a slacker, either. Somebody who's creative.

PLAYBOY: Is it a good thing to date somebody who has the same line of work as you?

HOLDEN: Yeah, it's great to date somebody like that. But everything is so situational—I feel like my whole life is situational. So if I'm here doing this thing at this moment and then some other guy is there doing that, too, then that's great...but that situation is gonna change—it always changes. So you just gotta keep that in mind, you know?

So maybe it's better to not have a relationship with that person. Or maybe it's fine. But just know that it's gonna change! It's really funny, I think, when people are like, "Oh, the one, I've found the one I love, it's so so great!" And then six months later it's on the cover of every magazine that you've broken up and it's over! You know, of course it's over. [Laughs]

I think it's better—or easier for me right now—to just always keep that in mind: You might as well just hang out and have a good time and not worry about it so much.

PLAYBOY: So what constitutes a good time for you?

HOLDEN: I've been playing tennis; I like to hang out with my friends. I like to paint, but I'm not very good at it. I like to read and write about stuff, too.

PLAYBOY: What book do you have beside the bed right now?

HOLDEN: Right now I'm reading Venus in Furs by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch. It's about men and women and sexual power. This guy dreams that he's having a conversation with Venus—and she's dressed in furs—and he's telling her that women are cruel and they break men's hearts, and she's saying, "Oh no, men are cruel, and so on."

PLAYBOY: Where do you fall on that—do you think that women are cruel to men?

HOLDEN: I think everybody's cruel and everybody's really great, too, you know? It depends. I think everyone's really mean and hurts people, especially in relationships, but they're always on the flip side of it eventually.

PLAYBOY: Okay, one last question. In your second episode of Ally McBeal, the firm attempted to prevent the release of naked photos taken of your character. Are there any similar pictures of you floating around that we should know about?

HOLDEN: No.... [Laughs] I don't think so!

Photo: Getty