You don't realize how much a part of your character is part of yourself until you are no longer playing that character.
If you're offered something, you're not really sure exactly what is that they saw in you that they think is the character so it's a little scary, I feel.
So it's nice to know that Rita had that impact, and it was nice to end a character on a high note like that. But, again, in the moment... I always say, nobody was more devastated than me [from Rita's death in Dexter]!
Working with Dario [Argento] was a lot of fun. He's a larger-than-life character, and with an Italian accent.
I had the prosthetics on, and I went to my trailer, I looked in the mirror, and I smiled. And I was, like, "This is the character - everything she does is with a smile and a bit of glee and joy." And that's how I created Darla [from Buffy The Vampire Slayer]. Prior to that, I was, like, "I have no idea how to play this 400-year-old vampire from hell!".
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.
The 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.
