It’s a new day for Chloe
Chloe O’Brian, the cranky tech wizard on Fox’s “24,” has a new look this season.
She’s sporting a dark, sleek hairdo and – can it be? – a skirt.
And that fitted black shirt? It’s Armani.
This is the Chloe who in previous seasons wore dowdy sweaters and looked as though she had been up all night installing new satellite programs?
As Carlo Rota, who plays Chloe’s ex-husband, Morris, puts it: “She’s hot!”
Indeed, Chloe is a much foxier tech genius this season. And the actress who plays her, Mary Lynn Rajskub, is enough of a veteran on the show to know that picking out comfy clothes at the start of filming is critical.
“I started out Season 3 with a flip hairdo and a pinstriped vest, and by a couple months in, I wanted to kill myself,” she says. “So I’m just looking for more natural, easy things.”
But the makeover isn’t just about clothes. Chloe, who’s a supervisor now at the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), is growing up.
“It was more about what happened in her life and in the past (seasons),” Rajskub says. “I think she’s become a little bit more serious, and I think she’s been forced out of her tunnel vision a little bit.”
Executive producer Howard Gordon says it would have been unnatural if Chloe hadn’t evolved.
“She’s definitely trending toward normal,” says Gordon, adding that, within the context of the show, some six years have passed since Chloe joined CTU.
“This is the challenge of the show – if people are just the same people over six, seven years, it gets tiresome,” he says.
“She’s growing up. It’s been six years, for her just to be that same character would be monotonous. It would start grating on you, and on her. … What was charming once upon a time would be a lot less charming now.”
Still, there’s plenty of snark left in Chloe – although Morris is more often “24’s” go-to cranky nerd this season.
“If anything, this year I missed having those idiosyncratic characters – in year two it was Sara Gilbert,” Gordon says. “I miss those fun characters. Morris is that.”
In any case, Chloe’s quirks and her unstinting loyalty to Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) have made her one of the show’s most popular characters. Fingers across America are crossed in hopes that she won’t be killed off soon – which Gordon says is unlikely.
“We don’t intend to do any more killing of our characters,” he says. “Frankly, we don’t have that many left that we know.”
But don’t expect the Season 6 makeover to mean that Chloe’s going to have a sunny attitude from now on. Her snippy side is still providing comic relief on the Monday-night thriller.
“You can dress her up,” says Rajskub, “but please, that’s still going to be there.”
The birthday bunch
Director Franco Zeffirelli is 84. Sportscaster Joe Garagiola is 81. Actor Joe Don Baker is 71. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek (The Doors) is 68. Country singer Moe Bandy is 63. Actress Maud Adams is 62. Actor Cliff DeYoung is 62. Actor Michael Ironside is 57. Singer Michael McDonald is 55. Actress Joanna Kerns is 54. Actor-talk show host Arsenio Hall is 52. Singer Chynna Phillips (Wilson Phillips) is 39. Actress Christina Ricci is 27.