It's not like I have a master plan or anything.

The interesting thing about Bettie Page that I discovered was to leave the mystery. She always retained a little mystery. Let there be some unknowns.

The first people that have the information are the hair and makeup ladies and the wardrobe people, because they often have to plan out the clothes: the things that are gonna get bloody, and the different kinds of gunshot wounds they're gonna have to do. They often have more of a preparation, more time, than we do. You can definitely feel on set the actors trying to get that information, and they're of sworn to secrecy.

With the television thing you have this lull of time where you're not with the character. And when you get those first pages, you're like, "Who is she again? Huh? Where did we leave off?" Then you show up at the read-through and all of the sudden the voice is there, and you realize that the character is still stewing in you all that time, even in the downtime.

I focused on where she was from of course, her voice and her history, her relationship with God - her religion. This was probably the strongest relationship she has had, really. She never seemed to maintain close relationships with husbands.

I think that's the best way to see things, especially this kind of play where there's no pyrotechnics, it's literally just people talking.

The process with the play, obviously, it belongs to you by the time you're stepping on stage in front of that audience for the first time. You can change it by just a look or things you're not even conscious of, but it's such a full immersion.