I know so many amazing actors who don't get work... and then there are a bunch of real duds that work all the time. The industry is just not fair in that way.

I also love horror movies; I like me a big Peter Berg action movie. I'm a movie lover in general.

I say it was like this accidental research that I did for eight years. I had no idea I was researching the role of my career. But yeah, and there was this one casting director named Allison Jones, and for five years she would call me in every year for a different TV show and she just really was a big supporter of mine.

Finally, I was called for "The Office" and I was really lucky, because a lot of the shows that I went out for I would work my way up from, like, an audition with the casting director to the director to the producers to the studio, I'd go through seven auditions, and then they'd give the role to a famous actress.

I'm a believer in the parent first, friend second philosophy, and trying to find that balance.

I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I didn't necessarily need or want to be famous or a celebrity actor. But I wanted to be somewhere where there would be no ceiling on what I could accomplish, and I felt like if I stayed in St. Louis I might have a really great regional theater career or something, but that I wasn't going to be able to get much further than that. And it felt like New York and L.A. were the two places where you could end up being a TV star or you could end up doing regional theater, which would have been fine as well.

I've been really lucky. I didn't have any morning sickness and I've been off work for most of my pregnancy, so I've been able to do things like work out with a trainer and do prenatal yoga and all these things that have kept my body very agile and pain-free.