PASADENA, Calif. — A lot of teenagers go through a rebellious period. Few do it as publicly as "7th Heaven" star Jessica Biel.
For four seasons, Biel played Mary, a minister's daughter on the WB series "7th Heaven" — as family friendly a show as exists on network television. But last season, apparently chaffing under the goody-goody image her character created for her, Biel began making noise about how she wanted out of the show.
Not only that, but she posed nearly nude in the semi-pornographic magazine Gear in what appeared to be part of her campaign to be released from the show. But now, at the ripe old age of 18, Biel is contrite and unabashedly repentant about her behavior.
"That was such a big mistake. I made a horrible, horrible choice," Biel said of her layout in Gear. "Those were not the people to work with and not the right thing for myself."
And now that she's no longer a full-time cast member on "7th Heaven" — she left to attend Tufts University in Massachusetts and appears only occasionally — Biel seems completely sincere in her desire to remain as much a part of the show as she possibly can.
"A hundred percent I want to be a part of the show," she said. "I give '7th Heaven' — the writers and everybody — all the credit. They gave me the chance. They did everything, and I totally appreciate that. If I hadn't been on '7th Heaven,' I wouldn't have been doing anything. I don't know what would have happened. But it gave me the chance to do what I like to do.
"I definitely miss it. I definitely love coming back."
Biel is scheduled to appear in at least eight episodes this season and may do more. Her character appeared in the show's 100th episode, which aired earlier this week; Mary feelings for her former boyfriend, Robbie (Adam LaVorgna, who is Biel's real-life boyfriend) resurface in a Valentine's Day episode scheduled for Monday, Feb. 12; and Mary will be coming home for a visit in the episode scheduled for Monday, Feb. 19. Biel filmed several shows before she started college and has flown back to Los Angeles a couple of times to do the scenes in which Mary is talking to her family by phone.
"It really depends on my college schedule," Biel said. "Pretty much all the time '7th Heaven' is working, I'm in school. Except, of course, for my Christmas and spring breaks. So I'll do an episode during my spring break.
"If I could do more episodes without missing any school this year, I would do whatever I can with that."
Like Biel, Mary Camden has gone through some tough times in the past couple of years on "7th Heaven." She got arrested; she started running with the wrong crowd. She stole money from her siblings — and, eventually, she was shipped off to her grandparents house in Buffalo to work on turning her life around. Which, of course, explains Biel's absence from the series.
And there are certain parallels between the actress and the character she plays.
"I think our writer, (creator/executive producer) Brenda Hampton, is very perceptive with what's going on in everyone's life," Biel said. And she had nothing but praise for the storyline.
"I think Mary came to this point in her life when she didn't know what to do," Biel said. "And then she had to rise up from that and find a balance. To get rid of all her debts and start going to class with her grandmother. And choosing a path in life. I'm pretty sure that's where Mary is going, and that's sort of where I was going in my life. I was just a crazy kid, and I didn't know what I was doing, pretty much."
Not only did Biel leave her real family behind when she went off to college, she left her TV family behind as well. And that fact struck her on the set of "7th Heaven" as the cast was taping the annual opening-credits shot of the family around the dinner table.
"It was awful. It was so bad," she said. "I was there when they shot the dinner-table scene. We shot one with me in, and then they said, 'Jessie, get up.' And then I got up and no one else got up. And everyone looked really confused, and it was just bad. I actually called my mother crying.
"It was a traumatic thing for me. It was such a big part of my life and to see that actually happening, it's mind-boggling. But after the shock of it, it's OK. And I'm not totally gone. If I was totally gone, it would be just heartbreaking for me. So I'm so glad that I can come back and forth."
There aren't many people decades older than Biel who will own up to their mistakes as willingly. And fewer still who have to both make mistakes and repent of them so publicly.
"For the last four years, I've definitely grown up with everyone having an eye on me — checking your moves out, checking what you're doing. But I would never give it up. I would never go back on it," Biel said. "I know I've made some mistakes. I understand that. I'm OK with that. It's made me who I am today. It's made me a completely different person than I would be if I hadn't gone through it all. I don't regret it, and I would never go back."
But she wants people to know that she's not really like that girl who posed for Gear.
"I don't want that image. I don't want to be some bad girl," Biel said. "Things got misconstrued, and I don't know what happened. But I don't want that. I just want to be me, and I don't know what that is yet."
Just like most 18-year-olds.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com