Sometimes the hardest part I think for actors on '24' is some of the jargon and getting the ideas and the thoughts and the information out quickly enough and succinctly enough and clearly enough.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The really cool challenge of '24' was learning on camera how to be a dramatic actress. The biggest difficulty was the industry side of things. I was very lucky that I had Joel Surnow, one of the creators of '24,' in my corner. Early on, the Fox executives couldn't believe that I was on the show.
After 30 years in the theater, I'm used to having a great amount of control over what I do. But with '24', you place your character's life in the writers' hands, and you have no idea what's going to happen until you're sent the next pages.
Basically, as soon as I saw that there was a role available on '24,' I jumped at it, and then when I sat down and talked to them, it seemed to get more interesting and more fun.
When you're an actor, actually, you shouldn't come up with too many ideas.
Actors know, with me they aren't going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.
The least amount of info actors get, the better. Actors are always like, 'What is my motivation for this?' You didn't write it. Just say the lines.
I hadn't even watched '24' before, and the audition was kind of far away. When I got the material, there wasn't a character yet, so it almost seemed like an assistant to Jack Bauer saying, 'Yes, sir. No, sir.'
It is hard sometimes to see how other actors are working when you are working with them.
Actors don't need a lot of talk beyond the first few sentences. They may say they don't draw on their own life, but all actors do.
The hardest thing as an actor is that you work really hard constantly for these roles, and you invest so much in it. And when they don't come to fruition and nobody sees them, there's a part of you that dies a little bit. It's like, 'Ah! But I worked so hard!' But that's the business.