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'Criminal Intent' scripts are very good. Like others involved in 'Law & Order' stuff, I've come to appreciate the lack of 'soap,' if you will. The story dominates. You don't spend a lot of time with the psychological underpinnings of the police.

'Law and Order' is completely story-driven and completely characterless, really. If you do that format for five years and you're an actor, you're bound to get bored. It wears on you. And it was really wearing on me.

I'm not much of a plotter. I start off with an inciting incident, and in classic crime fiction what happens is that all the action flows from that incident. It's very comfy when it all ties up and feels like a complete universe, but my stuff doesn't always work that way.

I was kind of excited about going to jail the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.

When you do not have the dialogue to explain things, you will use everything to show and to tell the story. I think that this is what makes you believe that it is impeccable.

And while I might not always agree with the viewpoint I have to portray, because I play a district attorney, as an actress I can always tell myself that my character is trying to take the moral high ground.

Honestly, I'm not a massive fan of courtroom dramas.

I'm just an entertainer. In a way crime stories are boring. A crime's been committed and at the end you know it will be solved. So you've got to make the story interesting besides it just being a plot. And that's why character matters, why you've got to make the characters interesting.

Well, honestly, I'm not a massive fan of courtroom dramas.