Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer] was where I grew up. For me, Darla was like going to graduate school for acting. I learned so much with Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt. They encouraged us to make creative choices with our characters.
I got cast in [Punisher: War Zone] and showed up in Montreal two days before the film started, and they said, "We need you to do a New York accent." And I was, like, "What?! Why didn't you tell me this, oh, I don't know, two weeks ago, when you cast me?".
When I first auditioned for Dexter... Well, I was sent the script, and I read it and loved it, and I knew right away that it was going to be a hit because it's the type of programming that I like to watch. It's that very morally ambiguous thing where you find yourself rooting for someone who's really an awful person, but... is he doing good? You're constantly calling into question your own moral code. I love that as an audience member.
I actually started, this year, doing some voiceovers. I did some radio spots, and some games.
You really have to work hard and apply yourself and by applying yourself and working hard and being diligent, you can achieve success.
Um, and I'm also very proud of my work on George of the Jungle 2.
I loved everything about that movie [Jawbreaker]. The fashion, the friendship amongst all of us girls... it was great. We had a blast filming it, and it was really wonderful. It was a very special time.
[John Larroquette] is one of the smartest men I've ever met. He's very cerebral and book-smart. He would say things and I'd have to go look them up, thinking, "That can't be true!" And they'd be true.
Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer] wasn't Darla in the beginning, by the way. Darla was just Vampire Girl #1. But I just started adding a little bit of glee and joy into everything she did and just relied on the fact that the prosthetic does the work. And then I didn't have to be scary. The prosthetic was scary enough. I just had to smile and show off Darla's really great dental work.
I think Sarah Michelle Gellar has done some brilliant work as Buffy.
[John Larroquette] is very generous as the star of a show. He always made sure that if we had a joke that didn't work or something, he'd fight for the other actors.
I love the fans of genre. Genre fans are the best fans. They're loyal, they're dedicated, and they're passionate about the projects. They get it on a cerebral level. Being a part of that culture and that world... It's very gratifying and very fulfilling.
[Payne] was a really great experience, and both John [ Larroquette] and JoBeth [Williams] over the years, it's been great reconnecting with them and working with them on other projects as well.
I've been an actor for 30 years, so I pretty much know how to do the basics of a fight without hurting anybody.
Oh, well, in Los Angeles everybody is an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or a director, or an agent, or... So everybody understands the hours.
It's a moment that I will be asked about for the rest of my life as an actor, and I carry that moment with pride, that Rita [in Dexter] had such an impact and that it was such a gut-wrenching moment for audience members.
I think [John Larroquette] did a great job. I really do. And he's so wonderful and generous to work with.
I originally read for the roles of Debra and Rita [in Dexter], because they didn't know what direction they were going in, and I worked so hard on Deb, because I just wanted to swear. I wanted to say all those nasty words. That was it: "I want to swear on television!".
I would love to re-visit Darla. I miss her. I really do.
The hardest thing to do as an actor is to be simplistic, and to just be.
I love doing sitcoms and I love performing in front of a live audience, so [Payne] was a really fun experience.
I only knew basic western trail riding. Nothing fancy.
The fans are just as passionate about the projects as we are about making them.
I remember Gale Gordon was in the pilot [of Hi Honey, I'm Home], and it was one of my very first professional gigs without having an adult take me to the job.
I went in for an audition [for As Good As It Gets], but the audition was with James L. Brooks. I was the first girl in that morning, and there was a whole waiting room of girls waiting to read for it. So I did my audition, and he asked me to step outside. So I stepped outside, and when he asked me to come back in, he looked at me, and he said, "Well, I'm very excited to work with you on set." And I was, like, "What?" I thought it was a Hollywood blow-off.
The meaning of life... I think the meaning of life is, I think it's love.
I worked so hard on that role [of Debra in Dexter]. And I barely worked on Rita. But I read for casting - both parts - and they said, "That's great, we're going to bring you in for producers." So I read for some producers - both parts - and they said, "That's great, we're going to bring you in to meet the creator." And I went in, and as soon as I walked in the room, he looked at me and he said, "Oh my god, you're our Rita!" And I said, "No! I'm Deb! I'm a total Deb!" "No, you're Rita!".
I trained 8 hours a day 7 seven days a week and I had 2 weeks off in a year.
I had to do some emergency cram sessions with the dialogue coach on set [of the Punisher: War Zone]. But it was fun, because every actor on that movie had to do an accent, so we were all talking the whole time in our accents.
[Filming Payne] that was also the first time I worked with JoBeth Williams, which was also a case of not being the last time!
But I never worked with a northern horse before. They are very different from western horses.
I was 18 years old when I did the pilot [of Hi Honey, I'm Home], so I was a freshman at NYU, and it was one of my first professional auditions in New York City. And I somehow booked the job. I have no idea how.
When I first started I was always known as The Girl on the Sitcom with the Funny Voice.
It was fun to play that surreal high school life [in Jawbreaker]. I was a huge fan of the movie Heathers. But I think at the time - you know, when the movie was released, it was a very limited release, and it didn't do very well at the box office. And I love the fact that it has found legs and that the audience has kept growing and growing over the years.
I remember reading an interview that Anthony Hopkins had given about how he developed Hannibal Lecter. He said he just looked in the mirror and, I forget exactly what it was, but he looked in the mirror and realized that when he smiled, it looked creepy.
Playing Amanda [in Defiance] was a wonderful opportunity for me. She was strong, dynamic, a complete badass, not defined her relationship with a man. She could hold her own. I really loved her.
I was sad the show [Payne] only lasted one season. It was a big undertaking. It'd be fun to revisit, but it'll probably never happen.
I really take pride in the relationship that I have with my husband.
You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.
I was sent the script [of Havenhurst ], and I was out of town at the time, so I did a site meeting with Andrew [Erin]. It was so bizarre. I was staying in a hotel at the time, and the night before the meeting with Andrew, I learned there was a ghost in the hotel.
There were a couple of years where I was skating and acting at the same time.
So it's nice to know that Rita had that impact, and it was nice to end a character on a high note like that. But, again, in the moment... I always say, nobody was more devastated than me [from Rita's death in Dexter]!
We shot [Hi Honey, I'm Home] on location in Orlando, Florida, so I was there by myself. And I remember I was late one day, and Gale Gordon pulled me aside, and he said, "Honey, when it says you have to be here at 10 a.m., you need to be here at 9:30." And ever since, I've always been a half-hour early to my call time!
I read the script [Havenhurst] and I went to bed, but I woke up because somebody had knocked on my door. Or at least it seemed like somebody knocked on my door at, like, 4 in the morning.
I had the prosthetics on, and I went to my trailer, I looked in the mirror, and I smiled. And I was, like, "This is the character - everything she does is with a smile and a bit of glee and joy." And that's how I created Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer]. Prior to that, I was, like, "I have no idea how to play this 400-year-old vampire from hell!".
[Betty in Two Evil Eyes]was my very first on-camera role. With Harvey Keitel.
During the rehearsal process I got thrown off the horse.
The great thing about working on a genre show is that you can basically have a season finale where every character is left destroyed, and then hit the reset button and come back for the next season.
I just don't think [Payne] was the right time to do it, maybe. It was timing, not so much that it was executed wrong.
As an actor, it made me realize a really important lesson. I didn't have to put any spin on the ball as Rita [in Dexter]. All I had to do was speak. And there was such simplicity in that as an actor. With Debra, I was trying to put a square peg into a round hole, and it just didn't work, but in my mind, because I had to work so hard on it, I was, like, "Oh, this is acting!" But that's not acting.
That movie [Jawbreaker] was so much fun to shoot. We were all in our mid-20s at the time, playing high school students. Which was the point. It was the point of the film to hire older actors to play high school students. But we had a blast.
It was a really wonderful experience [at Hi Honey, I'm Home show]. I loved Nick At Nite at the time, and I was obsessed with watching it, so just to meet some of the more experienced stars of the older shows was a real treat and a thrill for me.
It's funny, I get really nervous when I audition for voiceovers.
I didn't really know who [Dario Argento] was at the time. I know him now, obviously. But I went in to be an extra on the movie [Two Evil Eyes], and he saw me sitting out waiting to meet the casting director, and he pulled my mother and I into a separate conference room.
I didn't tell anybody [had got a role at As Good As It Gets], because I was just going, "Well, that was the strangest audition..." And I just thought, "There's no way he gave me the job on the spot when there was a room full of other girls waiting to audition for it." But then I didn't hear anything for a couple of days, so I finally called my agents, and they're, like, "Oh, yeah, congratulations! We know Jim [L.Brooks] told you in the room that you got it."
It's very exciting to have fan response and fan reaction.
I really didn't know who Dario [Argento] was. I didn't know who Harvey Keitel was. It was a wonderful experience, though.
I still have people coming up to me, and it was, what, six or seven years ago when that finale aired? And they tell me who they were watching with, what their emotional reaction was, and how they were devastated for weeks about [Rita's death in Dexter].
Cause at the end of the day, honestly, at the end of the day when you're in your death bed and that's it, I think it's the relationships you've had and the people that you've touched and the people that have touched you that matter.
I remember they did all the makeup tests on me for Darla... Sorry, for "the vampire." I was the test monkey for the vampire look, so I went through numerous variations of the prosthetics and camera tests before I actually got the job.
I was sad when the show [Defiance] got canceled. It was heartbreaking for all of us involved. It was definitely a project that everyone involved poured their heart and soul into. But we had three good years, which is, you know, three more years than most shows get.
I'd always thought that acting was, like, you had to work really hard, you had to change the way you walked, you talked, and all of that. But that's not acting. That's shmacting.
I have so many people come up to me, 20-some years later, and saying, "I loved you in Jawbreaker!".
[Dario Argento] speaks very broken English - he's Italian, so I'm going to do a very bad Italian impersonation - but he asked me my name, and I told him, and he goes, "Walk across the room." He looked at me, and he said, "Do you want to be in my movie [Two Evil Eyes]?" I was, like, "Yeah! Yeah, I do!"He goes, "Okay! You play Betty!" And I was, like, "Oh, I'm playing an extra named Betty! Great!" So we walked out, thinking that I was playing an extra named Betty, no lines, just background.
No one ever asks me about Breeze O'Rourke! I did the pilot for[Payne] right after Jawbreaker, or at least right around the same time, and it was an Americanized version of Fawlty Towers. That was the first time I worked with John Larroquette, and it was definitely not the last time.
I've had a career where I've bounced around a lot between different genres, and I feel very lucky and very blessed that that's happened to me.
[Dario Argento] would yell at you in Italian, and I'd have no idea what he was saying. I'd just go, "Okay!". But it was a really great experience [filming Two Evil Eyes ].
I think for me it was a natural transition to move full time into acting rather than figure skating.
I'd been doing comedy up that point and hadn't really done a lot of drama, and then all of a sudden he casts me as a 400-year-old vampire from hell. It was, like, "What?!"
I loved playing Darla.
And I'm not very coordinated, either. Only on ice skates, not in real life.
That's a hard question, because I started skating when I was three, so I don't really remember life before it, and I don't know what it is like not to work hard at something.
Working with Dario [Argento] was a lot of fun. He's a larger-than-life character, and with an Italian accent.
I love doing action films that do challenge me physically. I feel it's my job to keep my stamina up and be as physically fit as possible, so that I can just jump in and do it. It takes its toll sometimes and it's hard work, but I love that.
I loved working on that show [Defiance]. I mean, that show was brutal. We worked long, brutal hours in really brutal weather.
When they took me to do the camera test for the vampire make up, after they put the prosthetic on, I went though the entire process, I went back to my trailer and I looked in the mirror and I smiled.
I love being challenged physically, as an actress.
It's really interesting - I wanted to become an actress when I was young because I wanted to do romantic comedy. And I did a lot of comedies very early on, but then my career took kind of a left turn with Joss Whedon, and I discovered that doing genre work is actually more interesting as an actor, because the given circumstances are more extreme. And it really is creatively more challenging.
I always say that No Ordinary Family was the show that should've been.
Having just read the script [Havenhurst] and then add having seen a ghost, I went to Andrew [Erin], and I was, like, "Okay, I have to do this movie. I just have to! I don't know why, but I just have to do it." And I ended up getting the role.
That was one of the reasons I took the role [of Mayor Amanda Rosewater in Defiance] - to be a part of something groundbreaking interested me.
[Two Evil Eyes] was shot in Pittsburgh, and that's where I was born and raised, so it was really nice to be a part of Pittsburgh film culture.
[Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt] pushed me out of my comfort zone [in Buffy The Vampire Slayer ].
If you're offered something, you're not really sure exactly what is that they saw in you that they think is the character so it's a little scary, I feel.
[ Angel series] really taught me that acting is not just about being emotionally challenged. It's about being physically challenged. And I enjoyed both aspects of that.
I'm fortunate that I've been an athlete, my whole life, and I work out like a crazy person.
