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

I'm pretty low-maintenance, but I like my time to myself, and once you have a child, you have to fight for it. I remember the first long bath I took [after Ptolemy's birth] was such a moment. Because a lot of the time you're in the shower, and if that baby cries, you've got to turn off the water and go!

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.

You can kind of ask around for details. You might get a little information here and there, even from the other actors, or "One person heard that..." I feel like the writers are always leaving their options open.

It's fun to play a character when you can't concern yourself with how sympathetic they are.

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.

I think it's sort of disrespectful to the partner you're having sex with to talk about it.