"Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders I did because no one really knows who I am. I never appear as I am in real life. I'm always different in looks, sound or character. I like to convince each audience that I'm the character I'm playing.
"Various people said that if I wanted to get plum roles, I'd have to make myself better-known and get a higher popularity rating.
"I wasn't prepared to do a series, which shows only one facet. Someone suggested that a successful TV movie could be the ticket to really good stuff.
"In England I'd been doing Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Nora in A Doll's House. Cheerleaders appealed to an audience that had never seen me before.
"I don't feel particularly bad about having done it, though I'd never do it again. I learned from it. It was a T&A show, but I was the only one who showed no leg and hardly any bosom."
She reportedly shows somewhat more in Amadeus.
According to Newsweek, Constanze "rips open her bodice and spreads her legs like a lubricious Fragonard painting."
"Constanze is not wanton," Miss Seymour said. "The play is based on fact. She feels that Mozart deserves to be paid, but Antonio Salieri tells her
she'll have to go to bed with him.
"She comes back later that night, undresses and says, 'Let's do it.'
"He's astounded. He can't believe she'd demean herself in such a manner, and he tells her to get lost.
"She's not evil, just practical. She's a gutsy woman.
"I wear a 1790 gown that laces up the front. I undo laces. There's just a suggestion that you can see anything. I'm told that in some rows some can and some can't.
"I've
never done anything nude. I'm not about to compete with Bo Derek in that
line. She has no worries. I'd feel strange, unless it was the only way
to play a scene.
"I avoid exploitative skin material, but if a film had a wonderful director and the part called for jumping out of a bed I'd been sharing with a lover, it would feel odd not to do it in the way that would be normal.
"Women are much sexier when they're partially clothed."
Miss Seymour is more accustomed to shedding her British accent than her duds.
Since she came to the United States 41/2 years ago, at the suggestion of a "good mate" - British actress Jenny Agutter ("We went to school together") - her roles have been "mainly American."
"I'm probably the only English actress," she opines; "who does mostly
American parts. I can slip into an American accent as easily as if I were born here.
"In 'East of Eden' I devised a particular accent for Cathy.
"She's a chameleon - in some ways like Alice in Wonderland.
"Part of the time she's soft-spoken, almost Bostonian. The rest of the time she speaks standard American, which is what all actresses try to learn.
"In Amadeus we're supposed to be speaking German, but the play is in English and by an English playwright, so we use English accents.
"I play a rather common girl, so mine is almost a cockney accent. Not pure cockney, but an accent that makes sense to the American ear.
"I've never had a dialect coach, but we're trained to do accents in England. If I need a specific regional accent, I pick up the phone, dial direct inquiry in that area and ask a few questions. Eventually I identify myself as an actress. The operators are always very nice."
She did her first American accent, she recalls, as a 13-year-old. "They hired a number of us for an American spaghetti commercial."
"I avoid exploitative skin material, but if a film had a wonderful director and the part called for jumping out of a bed I'd been sharing with a lover, it would feel odd not to do it in the way that would be normal.
"Women are much sexier when they're partially clothed."
Miss Seymour is more accustomed to shedding her British accent than her duds.
Since she came to the United States 41/2 years ago, at the suggestion of a "good mate" - British actress Jenny Agutter ("We went to school together") - her roles have been "mainly American."
"I'm probably the only English actress," she opines; "who does mostly
American parts. I can slip into an American accent as easily as if I were born here.
"In 'East of Eden' I devised a particular accent for Cathy.
"She's a chameleon - in some ways like Alice in Wonderland.
"Part of the time she's soft-spoken, almost Bostonian. The rest of the time she speaks standard American, which is what all actresses try to learn.
"In Amadeus we're supposed to be speaking German, but the play is in English and by an English playwright, so we use English accents.
"I play a rather common girl, so mine is almost a cockney accent. Not pure cockney, but an accent that makes sense to the American ear.
"I've never had a dialect coach, but we're trained to do accents in England. If I need a specific regional accent, I pick up the phone, dial direct inquiry in that area and ask a few questions. Eventually I identify myself as an actress. The operators are always very nice."
She did her first American accent, she recalls, as a 13-year-old. "They hired a number of us for an American spaghetti commercial."
While appearing in the chorus of Oh, What a Lovely War, she was picked to recite a single line of dialogue: "He should be digging trenches." She had considerably more to say later in stage, screen and TV roles.
Her nom-de-show biz stems from her ballet days.
"When I was 17 I was told that my real name was too long and too foreign-sounding.
"I was never Joyce, my nickname was Frankie, but I decided to keep the same initial. I tried different combinations - Joya Johns was one - but finally settled on Jane. Then I needed something to go with it. Seymour was easy to spell and easy to remember.
"I did learn fairly soon that it was the name of one of Henry VIII's wives, but it wasn't like choosing Anne Boleyn. Jane Seymour was the least known. Two years later they started making all those TV things about Henry, and Jane became well-known.
"I've never tried to hide the fact that it's not my real name. My real name is in the Amadeus programs. I'm proud of my family and my name."
What next?
"I'm committed to Amadeus until July 4 - I get my independence on Independence Day. August is rather far ahead, but some ideas are in the pipeline. What I hope for is a good role, a good director and a good leading man - in any order."