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I'm very nervous, and I imagine that's astonishing because, like, most of the people that come on this show—it's literally the only time in their life they've ever been on camera. I imagine they'd be surprised by you, who at least seemingly know what you're doing. You're so comfortable in front of the camera. But that's the thing, right? Whether this is true for you or not, for me, acting and what we do there is safer because, on some level, it's me, but it's not my specifics. I can live in feelings that are very real for me without having to reveal any kind of details that might terrify me. I always equated it to religion. I'm not a religious person; I don't believe in much spiritually in that sense. But I've always been jealous or envious of people who have that because there's this idea that someone's watching, there's a path, there's safety and support, and there's a road you're meant to be on. As long as you're a good person, you're following that road. I live in entropy, though—just chaos. Every decision I make could make or break me, and that's paralyzing in some ways. But when I think about scripts, that's a path. No matter what I do in a scene, it doesn't change what's going to happen 10 pages later. There's more freedom in that.

Those things that embarrassed us or got us into trouble when we were younger—however different they were—are sort of forbidden in real life. If you need to get up and drive a bus every morning or work 9 to 5, you can't be an emotional wreck; you'll never survive. But those qualities that actors are sometimes born with, which might have been problems or disadvantages when we were younger, suddenly become the things that can make us really good at this.

I don't have a lot of self-confidence. When I look at how you approach work and changes and how you feel about the work, I honestly don't know how I could do it that way. It would be too scary. I think fear is an inhibitor in my work. I genuinely don't understand how people approach the world with confidence. Every single one of my decisions is framed by fear in some capacity. A lot of people talk about not letting fear rule your life, but I don't know any other way to live. My identity is rooted in fear and anxiety. I've come a long way—I used to have anxiety attacks all the time and held myself back a lot—but I'm light years ahead of where I started.

We talked about bullying and what that experience can do to you, particularly because it happens at a foundational age when you're developing a sense of self. If someone tells you at that age that you are unworthy, ugly, or not wanted, it defines you for the rest of your life—for better and for worse.

I'm a "show your work" person. Even if the result is good and can stand on its own, part of me thinks, "It's not earned. It's not good unless you can prove you did the work." Talent is a weird thing because it can be innate. You can just be a charismatic, talented person and never study, do homework, or have a process, and still be a fantastic actor. That's hard for me to grasp. I have composition notebooks filled with work—notes from acting school, for different roles I've had in theater, film, TV, and even auditions. I need to show my work. There's something unsettling to me about getting something without proving you earned it.

I do love talking about art, process, and how we create characters. I find it endlessly fascinating. But at a certain point, I realized I don’t have to write everything down to do my work well. I can just keep it in my head. That was a shift for me.

Ambition and drive—I would never describe myself as ambitious or even driven. I'm committed, maybe. I love this stuff; I'm obsessed with it. But the things required to be successful at a high level in this business? I don’t know if I'm capable of them.

My brother does sound editing and post-production, and we talk a lot about what gets you jobs. I think a lot of it is: are you a fun hang? I don't think I'm a very fun hang. I'm just not. Unless you play board games or knit, I'm not really a fun hang, at least not in that way.

There's a certain part of this business that requires a little bit of—not selling out—but a little superficiality and playing the game. If you're purely driven by hard work and putting out good work, it's not enough. It isn't enough. And that's okay, right? But enough for what? Enough to be a headliner, enough to be the lead of a show or something like that? That would be a dream, an ambition of mine, and it's been harder to make happen than I thought it would be. I thought, "You prove yourself here, and here, and here, and it should lead to something," but it doesn't work that way.

I would push back and argue that people who are purely career-focused or do everything as part of a strategic plan have a hollowness to their work that eventually catches up with them. I think that's true across the board.

In any kind of work, I don't think there's a bigger sign of mediocrity than being overbearing—like a helicopter parent. If you don't trust your kid and you're watching their every move, defending them constantly, then you're not putting faith in that child to figure things out. Let them fail, let them experience. I think the same applies to our work. These people with their ideas—my prerequisite is: "Look, I'm capable. Tell me if something is dumb or not cool. You're not going to hurt my feelings." It's got to be a two-way street. You can't be so ego-driven in art that it's always "my idea versus yours."

In storytelling, even good actors can get caught up in the fun dramatics of it and miss specifics and details. The fun thing about you is you don't miss them. You don't get caught up in the juicy parts of a scene and forget the specific human things that need to happen.

For an actor, we're a little bulletproof because experience is experience. Having a baby is having a baby, whether it's written by Shakespeare or a junior writer at the CW. If it's written terribly, it doesn't change the fact that I get to have an authentic experience. In some ways, bad writing doesn't scare me because I know how to sit in the experience and let the words float on top. The words are not that important to me. Most of my acting process has nothing to do with what I say. It's about the iceberg beneath the surface—the stuff I don't get to say. I can make that as complex as I want, and frankly, it should be. If you're writing too much, you're taking away my job. With female characters, men often write lines like, "I know you feel this way," or vocalizing the emotions of the male characters because the men are too hesitant to express it. A lot of the time, I have to come in and say, "Can we write this from her perspective? Can I speak from how I feel instead of just telling the audience how he feels?" That's a big part of the fight.

I think fear is a great driver. Perpetually trying to find things that scare you and diving into them fully is such a great recipe for success.

The bad experiences I've had on set never come from the crew. It's always other actors.

I'm proud of my intelligence, but I don't feel cared for or written for. Here and there, though—Eric Olsen. I loved Eric Olsen. There's a part of me that really loves him because he gave me that episode. He wrote Karrin the way he did in the third season. I really love him. He will always sit in my heart. He took big swings—huge swings. I didn't even see it at first, but reading it on the page, that black box episode for Vincent's character? He took risks and pushed for it. When it came time for Karen's episode, he listened to me. I sat down with the writer, and we really worked on things. This was a backstory that had been building for years, and they let me be a part of that. The director and I did rehearsals beforehand. In his crime noir show, he took the crew upstate for a week to film a family drama in the snow. He gave me a dream—let me be the lead, have that moment. I'm getting emotional. It felt like my hard work and dedication actually meant something. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, not the reliable, quiet one. I don't get rewarded very often for hard work, but that time, I did. He saw that I was consistently trying to do my best with the role, and he honored it. That's the best way to honor it. I don't want an award. I want great material and responsibility to the story. That's what I want. So, yeah, I'll always be really, really grateful to him.

The kind of work that I do isn't flashy, so it doesn’t pay off in tangible ways very often. I’ve cultivated a sense that if I feel good about it, that’s all that matters. I love external validation, but I can’t rely on it. I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t watch anything I do because that starts to put it on an external level. I want to leave at the end of the night and think, “Do I feel like I found something? Did I have a moment that was real, where I connected in some way?” If that’s true, then I’m happy, and that’s all I need.

When something like that happens—where another person vouches for me and says something nice—I get emotional. That stuff feels really good. It’s validation for the little girl who loved this forever and was usually either ignored or shunned for it.

You talked about acting saving you, and when I was wildly unpopular as a kid, I stopped talking for a while. I would talk at home, but there was a time at school when I didn’t open my mouth because everything I said seemed to elicit an insult or backlash. But I always loved acting, singing, and dancing. I don’t know why, but in seventh grade, I went out for the play. That was the only time I talked at school—when I was delivering my lines in the show. When I finally started coming out of my shell, it was with the kids I’d done the plays with, and they became my lifelong best friends.

There’s a part of me that is childlike and wants to be 12 forever, but that part was so slapped down at that time. Anytime I get a little recognition, it heals that 12-year-old me who desperately needed it.

I don’t identify as a desirable person. I always assume that when people meet me, I’m a disappointment—that the hair, makeup, lighting, styling, and acting are all an illusion. My brain knows I’m taking this experience and blowing it out of proportion. I know people aren’t disappointed to meet me and that not everyone finds me annoying. But knowing isn’t the same as believing or feeling it.

We present the opposite of our fears, right? If my deepest fear is that I’m undesirable, unwanted, or unlikable, then every action I take is to contrast that—to ensure I’m not annoying, that you like me. I’ve been dismissed as a “people pleaser,” but it’s deeper than that. It’s a survival tactic.

What’s helped me later in life is knowing it has absolutely nothing to do with me. It’s easy to personalize things and think, “It’s because of this or that about me.” Maybe some of that is why I was targeted, but I bet most of those kids don’t even remember half of what they said to me. It wasn’t important to them—they were just trying to impress their friends.

There’s a big difference between fighting for yourself and fighting for a cause or standing up for someone else. It’s way easier to stand up for others. It gives you something back—it’s not just survival; it’s defense, it’s being a hero.

If you’ve made a mistake, move on and be better. Learn from it, and remember that what we say and do has consequences for others.

I remember having dinner once, and conversations about spouses came up. I noticed that people feel comfortable complaining about their spouses or discussing problems. My husband and I have problems and arguments like any couple, but my instinct is always to think the best of him. I want him to think the best of me, even when we hurt each other or do the wrong thing. I always want him to know I assume he’s being the best version of himself in every moment.

You’ve said several times that you want to bring your best self to me. I always assume you do. That’s where I’m comfortable. Sometimes it allows people to take advantage of me, but I think my husband is amazing. Many of the best things in my life are because of him. He pushes me beyond my boundaries. I’m risk-averse, comfortable settling into routines, and don’t push hard into new things. I wouldn’t be a parent without him. There are places I wouldn’t have visited and future plans we have that I’d never have considered without him. He makes me brave in a lot of ways.

What makes a good podcast guest? Authenticity and honesty.

We think actors should be chameleons, changing every time. But every other art form allows for a style. Painters or directors can have a style and explore themes that matter to them in their work. Actors should be afforded the same exploration. For me, it’s Deborah seeing through Karen’s eyes and experiencing the world through her perspective. It doesn’t mean I change completely to be Karen or that Karen is completely me. It’s about what I see as an artist when I look at the world through her experiences.

At industry parties, I always end up in the kitchen doing dishes with the caterers. At a Netflix party, I went to use the bathroom, and somehow, I ended up doing dishes because I was nervous and didn’t know how to be there. My brain needed something to do.

This art form has been important to me for a long time because of how I came into it and how much I had to prove I deserved to do it. When it went poorly, it shattered me because it was the only thing I had going for me—my identity, my value. When that fell apart, so did I.

The main narrative I heard about parenting, especially as a mother, was about martyrdom—never sleeping, giving up your identity. It all sounded terrible, and I wondered why anyone would do it unless they felt called to it. But I’ve been so grateful to be proven wrong. It’s the best. My son is my favorite person in the world. I genuinely choose him over pretty much anything now. When I used to skip industry events because I was nervous or didn’t want to go, it felt like chickening out. But now, I just want to spend time with him. Nobody can question that.

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