I was sent the script [of Havenhurst ], and I was out of town at the time, so I did a site meeting with Andrew [Erin]. It was so bizarre. I was staying in a hotel at the time, and the night before the meeting with Andrew, I learned there was a ghost in the hotel.
Julie BenzIt's really interesting - I wanted to become an actress when I was young because I wanted to do romantic comedy. And I did a lot of comedies very early on, but then my career took kind of a left turn with Joss Whedon, and I discovered that doing genre work is actually more interesting as an actor, because the given circumstances are more extreme. And it really is creatively more challenging.
Julie BenzI didn't tell anybody [had got a role at As Good As It Gets], because I was just going, "Well, that was the strangest audition..." And I just thought, "There's no way he gave me the job on the spot when there was a room full of other girls waiting to audition for it." But then I didn't hear anything for a couple of days, so I finally called my agents, and they're, like, "Oh, yeah, congratulations! We know Jim [L.Brooks] told you in the room that you got it."
Julie BenzThe great thing about working on a genre show is that you can basically have a season finale where every character is left destroyed, and then hit the reset button and come back for the next season.
Julie Benz