Anybody feel like saying "Candyman" five times before reading this article? You won't be around to surf away if you do.

I first noticed Virginia Madsen when she stole the show in Clive Barker's horror tale "Candyman" -- that's twice -- a film that had depth because of Madsen's superb performance. Two years later, I caught another of her movies, "Blue Tiger," the story of a mother who was willing to take on the Japanese mob after her child got caught in the crossfire of a gun battle. I've been a fan ever since. The fact that she is Michael Madsen's sister just adds to her impressive package.

When an ABC Family representative said that I could interview Madsen about "Brave New Girl," a film based on the book by Britney Spears and her mother, Lynne Spears, I jumped at the chance even though I was a bit skeptical about any story penned by the music superstar. Imagine my surprise when I found the movie to be a lot of fun. Of course, I am a former rock drummer from the sixties who is a sucker for good music. The ABC Family entry has plenty of that to enjoy.

Lindsey Haun stars in "Brave New Girl" as Holly Lovell, a young singer from a small Texas town who thinks she has won a ticket to the bigs after she is accepted to a posh East Coast music and arts academy. What she doesn't know is that her mother, Wanda (Madsen), sacrificed the last of their money to make sure her talented daughter could make the trip even thought the academy folks tend to favor classical music, not Texas rock and roll. Haun is quite amazing. The daughter of Air Supply guitarist Jimmy Haun is the real deal. She is a terrific singer, one who helps the rest of the young performing cast put Spears' story in "Fame" mode when the classes begin at the Haverty Conservatory of Music and Dance.

"Brave New Girl" will debut on ABC Family Sunday, April 25 at 8pm. The film's closing music number that merges classic with rock is worth the price of admission on its own. Madsen fans can't go wrong. She always comes to the table with her "A" game. Enjoy our interview. I sure did!

The Virginia Madsen Interview

My favorite film of yours, and this probably will surprise you, is "Blue Tiger."

Oh really. I didn't know anybody ever saw that.

If somebody ever killed one of my kids, I'd do the same as your character did.

I would too. It was a long time ago. That was even before I had my son. I think that was 1992 because I got pregnant right after that and Jack was born in 1994.

How do you keep your complexion so healthy looking?

I have good genes. My father is Danish and my mother is Irish and Native American. They both have good skin.

Do you still get recognized for your work in "Candyman?"

I'm very proud of that one.

I wish that you could have introduced the girl who was giving your daughter so much 'tude in "Brave New Girl" to Candyman. Had any of the actors in the Spears' film seen the horror flick?

All the kids had a movie night. They rented "Candyman." They were all really scared of it. I don't think they looked at me the same after that.

Did they let you watch it with them?

No. I didn't really want to do that anyway. I had my son with me. He's not quite old enough to see that. He was mad too because he wanted to see it. I couldn't believe that when he was in the second grade that a couple of kids in his class had seen the movie. I was horrified. I think it's a whole different thing when it's your mom. I think it could be a particularly harmful experience for him.

I spend a lot of time at my son's school and I really wanted to do a movie that the kids could see. The good thing about being my age and not having to be the ingenue anymore is that I get to be a mom. I get to have kids in my movies. I can't tell you how happy that makes me because I love working with young people. Now the kids in my son's school can actually see one of the movies that I've been in. That was a big motivation for me doing this ABC Family film.

You do nice work as a mom in "Brave New Girl." I do have one question about the plot. Your daughter, Holly, didn't know that Haverty required a strong background in classical music and the Italian language, yet she was longing to attend the school. That seemed odd to me. What about you?

I think it added to the fact that she is a naive girl from the other side of the tracks. It was just a dream that she had. She had no way of ever visiting a school like that. It was just some kind of dream that she had from a picture she saw. She needed to come into the school completely green so that we could see the transformation and what a sharp girl she really was.

Lindsey Haun, who played Holly, has a nice voice. She has major star potential.

Oh yes. I just loved her so much.

When you took this movie, did you know that she had such strong roots in rock and roll or that her dad was a rock guitarist for Air Supply?

I didn't have any idea. I saw her when she was like 10-years-old in "The Barbara Mandrell Story," which is pretty bizarre since it was on in Canada the first week we were there ... so strange. I knew her face. I kind of remembered her, but I didn't know anything about her family.

Her mom was there with us and she'd just talk about her dad the way I would talk about my dad. So it was never mentioned. It was just my dad this, my dad that ... just like any other girl would be. I think one time she said something about him being a musician, but since I didn't know any of this, it wasn't something that affected her negatively. It was just normal because it was her dad.

When my son was really little, he assumed everyone was on TV because his uncle is on TV, my best friend is on TV, friends I know are in movies and his grandmother is a writer. One day he was looking at this commercial and he was positive that his nanny was in it. I said, "No, honey. That's not her." And he said, "Yes it is." I said again, "No, honey. That's not her. She's not on TV." And he goes, "why?" I told him that she's not an actress. He was so confused that he didn't want to talk about it. His father and I raised him in this environment. It's not like it is anything special to him.

That's a good thing.

Maybe it was similar with Lindsey. We never talked about that.

I liked the scene when Holly got on her mom's case because she lied to her about her financial situation.

Bobby Roth, our director, had a one week rehearsal for us, which is very unusual for a TV movie. It kind of took me by surprise. I was really glad to have it. TV movies don't usually have time to change anything or add anything. You just kind of show up and do it.

In "Brave New Girl," we were able to at least try to solve some problems. Our focus was to add as much dimension and as much realism to the mother-daughter relationship as possible. If you really bought and believed in us as mother and daughter, you would follow the film and get more involved in it on an emotional level.

You and Haun worked nicely together.

It was really great because her mom was there. She's got a great mom and she really has her feet on the ground. Lindsey is just an absolutely terrific girl, which I think makes her a terrific actress. We had great chemistry. We worked well together. She likes to work hard. She's not into all kinds of mind tripping or emotional hijinks to get into character. I just find it so refreshing to work with a young person who is that professional and that focused on doing a good job ... really responsible. She was not out partying. She was always on time. She was always wide awake in the morning. Every single day she was so excited to be there, never complained about anything.

She reminds me visually of a cross between Kelly Ripa and Kirsten Dunst.

She really looked like Kirsten Dunst in the first and last sequence. She reminded me a little bit of Joanne Woodward, a really young Joanne Woodward. She's got that kind of a face. What is much more important than her flawless look is that she's just a really good girl.

She's also a good singer. Did you both know that it was a Britney Spears project?

Yes.

There will be a lot of people who will not even watch this or turn against it because of that.

But that is not our audience. Our audience is all the girls who made Britney a huge star. Those are the girls who bought the book. I didn't read the book at first. I read the script just to see what I would think of the script and I really liked it. I wanted to make a movie that kids could watch. I really wanted to know who my daughter was going to be. It was very important to me what that personality was going to be like because I didn't really want to go there and have to babysit someone. I just wanted to go and do my job. I wanted to be able to get close to her in real life so our relationship would be believable. Everything I had heard about her was great. From the moment she walked in the door, I knew this was going to work.

And it does work. The music side of the film was solid. The kids who were really performing have talent just like the cast of "Fame" did. The final production number with the opera being converted into rock is terrific.

I was so proud of them. They are all real performers.

It was good casting.

You wouldn't believe how these girls were constantly rehearsing. Constantly going here, going there. Rehearsing the dancing, rehearsing ... I mean Lindsey never stopped from the moment she got there.

Being a former musician, I can be a harsh critic. Some of the songs are really good. I'm not talking about Nora Jones in the background or Britney's tune. Some of the songs I've never heard in my life were really good. The final song was exceptional.

I hope Britney doesn't get bummed out that Lindsey is a better singer. It is not Lindsey saying it, it's me. Lindsey would never say that. She's an actress first. It's just a bonus that she can dance and sing.

When are you and brother Michael ever going to pool your money, your talents and everything else to do a feature film together?

We did have a script a long time ago that our mother wrote. Nobody was interested because it had to do with the Vietnam war. After Oliver Stone came out with his film, there were a couple of more that were interested in it. Now we're too old to play the parts. Michael and I would love to work together. The unfortunate thing is that we haven't really found anything that we like. For many many years people didn't know we were related or they thought we were husband and wife because they all thought that we look so different. They were always trying to cast us opposite of each other, constantly. We were always getting offers to do these steamy movies.

Shakespeare has something to say about that.

I know. We definitely don't want to be doing that.

We did a film together called "The Florentine" with Chris Penn, Jeremy Davies, Tom Sizemore, Burt Young, Luke Perry and Mary Stuart Masterson. We played friends in one of the old dead steel towns in Pennsylvania. It was such a good movie. Michael and I played brother and sister. We only had one good scene together, where we sat in a bar talking about our dad. It was so beautiful. It was a low budget independent film. We had a ball ... so much fun.

I keep waiting for you to get what I call a Sarandon-type role.

I got "Sideways, which is directed by Alexander Payne. It means I have a big movie coming out finally in the theaters.

That's wonderful. You deserve it. Maybe it will do for you what "Bull Durham" did for Sarandon.

Now all I have to do is find the excellent Tim Robbins-like husband.

I believe I've taken too much of your valuable time tonight. I appreciate your kindness and candor.

Well thank you so much for doing this. I hope you'll be interviewing Lindsey some day.

Me too. Have a great week.

You too. Good night.

End of the Virginia Madsen Interview

Visit the "Brave New Girl" site at ABC Family for more information about the movie and to watch a video preview. Please visit Spears' Foundation site to see how you can help the singer make the lives of some of the children who live on this planet better. They are the leaders of tomorrow.