Shannen Doherty on Mari-Kari, 'Annoying' Optimists and Schoolgirl Violence

If you are a fan of little girls committing big, gory acts of violence, then you should check out Shannen Doherty's latest project, the animated web series Mari-Kari premiering tomorrow on FEARnet. The anime-inspired project splits Doherty -- who just this year, returned to the 90210 zip code and competed as a celebrity contestant on Dancing with the Stars -- into identical twins Mari and Kari. The latter is a ghost who goes to great lengths to protect her bubbly, optimistic sister Mari from bullies at school. And as Doherty explained to Movieline last week, tapping into her "saccharine sweet" side is enough to give the actress a major headache.

So I just watched the first two episodes of Mari-Kari --

And?

There was a lot more schoolgirl violence than I expected, but I really liked it. I did not recognize your voice as Mari at all, but we'll get to that later. How did you first get involved with the project?

[Creator Jody Schaeffer] just came to me and asked me if I would be interested, and after reading it I said, "Yeah." I think that the whole idea of a Web show idea is really interesting and a cool way to present material and try different things. Series like this really make you appreciate what you can do with the Web.

Had you been a fan of anime before this?

[Laughs] Not really, no. I never really watched a lot of anime and was not really familiar with it. I knew what they were going for and they showed me comic books and some pretty weird stuff and i was like, "That looks cool. You guys are in charge of that though. Have fun. I'll do the voices." They did a great job.

The series features two young sisters, one of whom wreaks some surprisingly graphic violence on her peers. There was one sequence in particular -- where Kari takes a chainsaw to one of her enemies as pop music plays in the background -- that had a very Quentin Tarantino-like quality to it.

Yeah! There are parts of our show that are reminiscent of Lucy Liu's character in Kill Bill. That whole sequence and the anime adds a little bit of that flavor for sure.

The series centers on a pair of twins who have completely different personalities and outlooks on life. Mari is endlessly optimistic and energetic. Kari is darker, cynical and driven by revenge. Did either character resonate with you in particular?

To be honest, I can't really identify with either character, which I think was good because then I did not feel any particular affection for either. I think that is what made it the most fun for me -- to be so emotionally detached from two characters like that is something I have never done before. You know, it's hard to like Kari when she chops off kids' heads and rips out their intestines, but I think there is something really funny about watching it, too.

I showed the tapes to my parents recently, and my dad was laughing so hard but my mom was going between laughing and being absolutely horrified. She said, "This isn't going to be for kids is it? What kind of message is this sending them?" I was like, "Well, it's not sending them a very good one, clearly, but what messages are horror movies sending out? Not great ones. Kari is our Freddy Krueger in a way.

But Kari is trying to protect her sister.

If we are searching really hard, we can say that Kari's heart is in the right place because these kids are so mean to her sister and she is just looking out for her sister. But

murder is never the answer.

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