I think in the inception and creation of the characters, improv was the most important part for me, because I wanted to feel at home in those characters. I wanted to feel like I could commit to them. And so much of improv is saying yes and committing, so I think that's where the improv came in. Even if I'm saying yes to the X across the room from me, or the tennis ball on a stick, I have to stay alive.

The whole press thing and who you are in the media, or what you have to project yourself to be, it feels very much like another person. People say to me, "Oh, your life must be changing," and I'm like, "Uh, I guess?" For me, it's such a gradual change, and I don't see it from the outside like everybody else does. It's weird, I see my face on a bus or online or somebody has my picture as their picture on Twitter and it's all a bit weird and I feel very disconnected from it and very much, "I guess that's me." It's very surreal.

The most bizarre demographics come up to me. Men in their 50s come up to me and are like, "Alison is my favorite. I hated her at first, and now I love her." I don't know what that says about people's psychology.

There's something really unique about Orphan Black is that it has a lot of female leads, so it's about a lot of women's stories, but it's not women’s stories in terms of trying to find a guy or keep a guy; it's about entirely other things.

I'm attracted to stories that excite my imagination, stories that, as I'm reading the script, I feel it, I can see it, I can hear the characters. I'm attracted to characters that are real, that tap into something inside me that I haven't explored yet.

I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.

I started out as a dancer as a kid; I've been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.