That was one of the reasons I took the role [of Mayor Amanda Rosewater in Defiance] - to be a part of something groundbreaking interested me.

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.

I love doing sitcoms and I love performing in front of a live audience, so [Payne] was a really fun experience.

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.

[Payne] was a really great experience, and both John [ Larroquette] and JoBeth [Williams] over the years, it's been great reconnecting with them and working with them on other projects as well.

It's a moment that I will be asked about for the rest of my life as an actor, and I carry that moment with pride, that Rita [in Dexter] had such an impact and that it was such a gut-wrenching moment for audience members.

I read the script [Havenhurst] and I went to bed, but I woke up because somebody had knocked on my door. Or at least it seemed like somebody knocked on my door at, like, 4 in the morning.