Working with Dario [Argento] was a lot of fun. He's a larger-than-life character, and with an Italian accent.

I trained 8 hours a day 7 seven days a week and I had 2 weeks off in a year.

Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer] was where I grew up. For me, Darla was like going to graduate school for acting. I learned so much with Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt. They encouraged us to make creative choices with our characters.

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.

Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer] wasn't Darla in the beginning, by the way. Darla was just Vampire Girl #1. But I just started adding a little bit of glee and joy into everything she did and just relied on the fact that the prosthetic does the work. And then I didn't have to be scary. The prosthetic was scary enough. I just had to smile and show off Darla's really great dental work.

There were a couple of years where I was skating and acting at the same time.

I'd always thought that acting was, like, you had to work really hard, you had to change the way you walked, you talked, and all of that. But that's not acting. That's shmacting.