Kiwi web star back in new internet project

Reuters

SHE'S BACK: Kiwi Jessica Rose, who hit YouTube stardom as Lonelygirl15, is back on the internet in a 40-episode mystery series.

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New Zealand actress Jessica Lee Rose, two years ago hailed as the biggest star on the internet for her role as Lonelygirl15, has returned in a new project.

The former Mt Maunganui student became a star posing as a 16-year-old American teenager known as Bree, or Lonelygirl15, appearing in videos, mostly on YouTube, which cast her as an self-possessed and literate home-schooled student pouring her thoughts into a digital video camera.

Her Lonelygirl15 attracted millions of fans and made her one of YouTube's most-watched performers, despite the videos being exposed as scripted, and Bree outed as a fake teenager, played by Rose.

Rose, 21, has returned to the internet in a 40-episode mystery/drama Sorority Forever, for MySpace and Warner Bros.

"I have no reservations about being a web star, if that is what I am, and I can make a living from it to pay my rent and feed my dog, who is the love of my life," Rose said.

"I didn't leave the web with the intention of not coming back and thinking it was stupid or anything. I did think it was a great launching pad.

"I never used to be (into the internet) but now that I am so prominent on the web I have become a lot better at using the internet and go on a lot more than I used to."

In Sorority Forever, she plays the lead female role who finds out all the secrets along with the audience.

"Her mother and sister are adamant about her joining the sorority so she joins and hates every minute but soon starts to realise that there is something weird going on and you follow her experiences trying to solve the mystery," said Rose.

"Compared to Bree she is more jaded and she is a very girlish tomboy. She dresses punk cute."

Over the course of the series, some of the characters talk into the camera and they all have MySpace pages where the characters interact with viewers and talk about themselves.

Rose said she also had two other internet projects in the works, mini-series Blood Cell and HBO web series Hooking Up.

Though she made less money than in TV or film, Rose said internet stardom had benefits compared to Hollywood: "It is not crazy. It is not like I have bodyguards.

"Sometimes people come up and say they recognise me but can't quite put their finger on it and where from," she said.

- NZPA