I went in for an audition [for As Good As It Gets], but the audition was with James L. Brooks. I was the first girl in that morning, and there was a whole waiting room of girls waiting to read for it. So I did my audition, and he asked me to step outside. So I stepped outside, and when he asked me to come back in, he looked at me, and he said, "Well, I'm very excited to work with you on set." And I was, like, "What?" I thought it was a Hollywood blow-off.

When I first auditioned for Dexter... Well, I was sent the script, and I read it and loved it, and I knew right away that it was going to be a hit because it's the type of programming that I like to watch. It's that very morally ambiguous thing where you find yourself rooting for someone who's really an awful person, but... is he doing good? You're constantly calling into question your own moral code. I love that as an audience member.

When they took me to do the camera test for the vampire make up, after they put the prosthetic on, I went though the entire process, I went back to my trailer and I looked in the mirror and I smiled.

The fans are just as passionate about the projects as we are about making them.

[John Larroquette] is one of the smartest men I've ever met. He's very cerebral and book-smart. He would say things and I'd have to go look them up, thinking, "That can't be true!" And they'd be true.

I just don't think [Payne] was the right time to do it, maybe. It was timing, not so much that it was executed wrong.

As an actor, it made me realize a really important lesson. I didn't have to put any spin on the ball as Rita [in Dexter]. All I had to do was speak. And there was such simplicity in that as an actor. With Debra, I was trying to put a square peg into a round hole, and it just didn't work, but in my mind, because I had to work so hard on it, I was, like, "Oh, this is acting!" But that's not acting.