So, it was really important that I go do the necessary research. In doing the research, I spent time with a lot of medics and women down at Fort Bliss. I went through an intensive medical course there, with other medics. And then, I really sat down with all of the women that had been deployed, or were getting ready to deploy again. The common thread for them was family, and what a struggle it was for them to come home and face their children and flip a switch.

I will say that is a quality I love about great directors, which is the ability to give you one word that can inspire you. I appreciate a director with a very good vocabulary. There are so many directors that I have worked with that can give you one word.

I found out a few months after we started [True Detective] that I was pregnant.

I knew that this was something that was going to be an intense experience, just from the way I typically approach my work. I did not take the fact that I was going to portray a soldier lightly. It was so very important to me that I came across as believable and honest and truthful. I wanted to be able to convey the psychology behind the choice of leaving home for an extended period of time, knowing that you may never come back while still being a devoted parent.

It was the first time I worked with Matthew McConaughey [in the True Detective].They're fun guys [with Woody Harrelson]. They don't take life at all too seriously, but yet they take their work very seriously. And both of them are just so committed to character and the story.

For me, something that's been always really important to me, that's also really served me well in hindsight, is doing different things, trying to cross different genres, and dipping my toes into comedy and drama and action here and there. Fortunately, as I've been working, the industry has also changed where you're able to dip your toes into different mediums, where it's not just independent film and studio film, but now you've got TV, and you're able to do all these different things. For me, it's just a matter of continually pushing myself and challenging myself.

"OK, well everyone makes a mistake, right?" But then when you think it probably happened again that's when you think: "Shame on you once and shame on me twice, or however that saying goes." But everyone's been down that road. It's not about the little things anymore, but the major things that tell you if you don't move on at that point then I'm a fool.