90210 star's vital Hollywood role after leaving Beverly Hills
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Entertainment
Lucy Devine
Featured Image Credit: Mark Sennet/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Entertainment
When Gabrielle Carteris joined 90210, she became one of the show's central characters, starring for five seasons before returning to the series in later episodes. In total, her time on the show spanned over a decade.
Famously, Carteris lied about her age during the audition process. Although she was 29 years old at the time the show started, she told the crew she was 21 and auditioned to play the part of a 16-year-old.
While she was an integral part of the show, she also moved into a vital role after the series ended in 2000.
Over on the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) website, a bio about Carteris explains how she became a household name on the show.
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However, she went on to do some incredible work elsewhere, too.
For five years between 2016 and 2021, she was president of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors in the US.
That meant she was in the post when Harvey Weinstein's crimes were first brought to light, steering the union through the MeToo era.
Carteris reacted to the horrifying revelations by forming a commission to examine safety and harassment in the TV and film industry.
SAG-AFTRA established a Code of Conduct on Sexual Harassment, outlining rights and expectations for members, while also encouraging people to call out harassment when they see it.
Carteris has undertaken more work elsewhere to push for equality in the industry.
In 2017, she was appointed commissioner to the Hollywood Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality. She is also a founding ambassador of ReFrame, an initiative of Women In Film and Sundance Institute to push for gender equality in the media industry.
In 2021, she became the first American president of the International Federation of Actors (FIA), and was reelected last year.
It's now been 26 years since 90210 - which focused on the lives of a group of teenagers at West Beverly Hills High School - ended.
Earlier this year, Carteris revealed how she once suffered a disfiguring injury while filming one particular scene of a movie called Past Tense she took on a few years after the final episode of 90210.
In the scene, a home invader was supposed to pick Carteris up by the neck and drag her down a flight of steps.
She explained to the Still Here Hollywood podcast that a few days after filming the scene, she started suffering from physical symptoms.
"I was actually in my dressing room talking to my husband on the phone. I was like looking at the mirror, I was getting ready for a scene. I said, 'Oh, it's so weird. Part of my face isn't moving'," she recalled.
"I was in a lot of pain, and then suddenly I was on set, and my face totally became — I mean, I looked like the Joker. It was so disfiguring, and it was a form of palsy. Then my body started to convulse, and they brought a set doctor in."
The doctor advised her to fly home for medical treatment, with Carteris adding: "I remember being in the airport. I was so really deformed, like, I couldn't talk.
"I just felt so embarrassed because people were staring at me, not just from knowing me, but then also because my body was out of control. It was a very humbling time."