The Cosmically Cool Lacey Chabert Blasts Off in Lost in Space

Lacey Chabert wishes people would stop telling her how young she looks on her TV show, Party of Five. After all, she is 15. And in real life, she has been kissed and dissed. She studies for finals, fights with her mom and hates her hair. Translation: Lacey's a bona fide teenager, and even though she can look and sound a lot younger, she is not a little girl.
"People always go, 'You look so much older in person,'" admits the petite performer. "But that's because my character, Claudia, doesn't get to wear makeup or dress cool, and I really like fashion and makeup and boys. I'm a typical teenager."
OK, a typical teenager who happens to be on one of the coolest shows on TV. And like her glam co-stars Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt, who recently hit it big in movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer respectively, Lacey also made the jump to the silver screen.
Lacey currently can be seen playing Penny Robinson in the sci-fi flick Lost in Space. "It's based on this campy '60's TV show, so before we started shooting, I would get up at 5:30 in the morning to watch reruns," Lacey says in her cotton candy voice. "The story is that Earth is falling apart, and my family must go and try to inhabit another planet, encountering tons of terrific adventures along the way."
Actually, making the galactic movie was an adventure for the Mississippi-born Lacey for two reasons. One is that she has always wanted to go to London, and that's where the film was shot. The other is that she had to act around aliens that were computer-generated into the movie after the scenes were shot. "Penny finds this lizard-monkey," Lacey explains. "I had to act this thing was running up my back, but the thing wasn't even there! It was a challenge."
But Lacey enjoys a challenge and has the variety-pack resume to prove it. After made-for-TV movies, a gig on Broadway as the young Cossette in Les Miserables, and starring on All My Children as Erica Kane's daughter, Lacey is making the transition to her first feature film without breaking a sweat.
As for the future of Party? "I'm sure the show's going to stick around for a while," she confirms. "But I liked making this movie better because in television, we produce an episode every seven days, which translates to about four or five scenes a day. It's a lot of work. And, I have to confess," she says with a giggle, "I have a crush on Matt LeBlanc." LeBlanc, whom you know as Joey on Friends, plays Lost in Space's Major Don West. (Penny has a crush on Don, so that wasn't a stretch.) "He's so cute. But if I could choose, I'd pick Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh he is just the most beautiful actor out there. I'm in love with him!"
See? Lacey really is a normal teenage girl.