Right. Well, I play Sally,
the second in command to john lithgow's character, Dick.
And basically, I am
a very, very masculine alien
who has been put in a female body
to find out why women do what they do.
And it's kind of this great sort of thing to play
because she's a very strong,
very masculine
sort of warrior
who also has to deal with
all sorts of things, like femininity
and men and all those things.
For us, it's just acting the scenes as well as we can,
and the incredible writing. Incredible.
My favorite-- I love the table read
because it is a chance for us to really--
there's just such an amazing amount of energy,
and you get to play those words
for the very first time.
And then...
and then I think...
probably the show itself,
performing it for the audience.
We get to really see what works, what doesn't.
Bonnie and Terry and the other writers jump in,
and if a joke that's been working all week,
because they thought it was funny, isn't getting a laugh,
they come in and give you a last-second joke.
The audience loves that.
So that, to me, is a really fun aspect of it.
I have a favorite episode
which was actually my least favorite episode initially,
which is an episode
where I bond with a little boy.
He's a toddler, about three years old.
And I...
it was a very difficult episode
because we initially cast these--
you have to cast twins because of hours and stuff,
and we cast these twins who were just unresponsive.
And I thought, "this is never going to work."
So much of this is relying on
the chemistry of me and this toddler.
You can't ask a toddler--
you can't direct a toddler, really.
And they then got this pair of twins
who were about 3 1/2 years old
who were unbelievable.
They were funny. They had comic timing.
They adored me. The whole episode came to life.
And it was such a great experience for me.
This show, I think, is universal
because it is simply about the human experience,
and obviously everyone can relate to that.
There are very few jokes
that are specifically American--
you know, Clinton, or Monica Lewinsky,
or Kathie lee Gifford,
or all of those things that are such great fodder for American shows
that I think people in Europe
sort of go, "well, who cares?"
But we don't really touch on that.
We touch on dating, and, you know, camping,
and hiking, and going to the dentist,
which everyone can, you know, understand
and respond to.
There isn't one.
Sally's perfect mate-- I think she's...
I don't know yet. I don't know.
They keep exploring all these different men for her.
I think it's great because there are so many different aspects she responds to.
I know for a fact that I found
Sally gets more and more interesting
the less clichéd man she likes.
You know how in television there's always
that sort of tendency to hook--
you know, you get two very darling people together
because they're so good-looking.
And they tried that for the first season.
The first few episodes you see me
very interested in men because they're good-looking
or attractive or whatever.
And then she met Don, played by Wayne knight,
and here is this guy who would not be considered, I think,
a heartthrob by America,
but he's so compelling and so charismatic.
And she responds to the fact that he is a cop
with a gun and a badge.
And I actually said to the executive producers,
"that's where we need to go with her."
She wouldn't be interested in someone, you know,
attract-- Ross and Rachel,
or, you know, just generally a good-Looking guy, Fabio or whatever.
She would be interested in someone who is
far more, you know--
either brute strength,
or has sort of this--
she falls in love with
Mary Albright-- played by Jane curtin-- her father.
He's in his 70s, but he understands war and bombers
and talks to her about the Nazis.
And she falls in love with him,
and I think that that's just great.
If you watch, like, "Monty python"
or you watch "absolutely fabulous"
or you watch those European shows
that are so broad and physically broad,
they're all based absolutely in truth.
People aren't just going out there and going, "bleah!"
They're very, very truthful.
I think if you watch this show--
I mean, like any show,
we've hit notes that aren't real, you know,
because to go out on a limb like this, you do make mistakes
or you fail or go too far.
I've watched shows and gone, "I can't believe I did that."
But for the most part, because it is tempered in truth
and it's--
each character is
so incredibly multidimensional and thought out
that, you know, you can throw a tomato
at the supermarket checkout woman
without looking like "that would never happen"
because we have been established so well
that I think the audience will buy
almost anything.
My favorite part is her-- is playing--
I mean, there are so many aspects to it.
The cast is the best cast all- around that I've ever worked with.
There isn't one weak link, and that's really rare.
And there isn't one jerk, which is also really rare.
I think the most fulfilling,
creatively, for me
is playing this woman
who is so complicated
and, again, so multidimensional
and so strong and so weak,
and so beautiful yet so ugly,
and so dorky yet so elegant.
I mean, she's just everything,
everything you could ever want as an actress to play.
And the possibilities with her are limitless,
and the writers know that,
so they keep pushing the envelope with her.
It's so fun. I can't wait to get the script every week.
Well, she...
she's done so many outrageous things.
She's done things, like she has pretended
to be pregnant to a group of pregnant women
because she wanted to belong to their club.
She has...
kicked down numerous doors. Roll clip.
- Hello, brad. - Sally!
I've come to check your phone.
And she has...
beaten up men for not calling her back.
She has beaten up a car salesman
for giving her the wrong price.
She has done
just about anything and everything.
I mean, she has--
you know, the list is endless.
Just, you know-- she's stolen things
she shouldn't have stolen.
She's been rude to people
that no one should be rude to.
You know, she's had an affair with a 70-year-old man
because she's really attracted to his knowledge of war.
When we made the first few episodes
before it had ever hit the air,
everybody said-- john would say,
"wait till the guys get a load of you
in that little dress up to here."
I thought, "oh, god." And what's amazing to me
is the response that I get
and the fervent, you know--
the foaming-at-the-mouth response is from women.
They are so into her,
and that is so cool.
I've had grandmothers come up to me at airports.
I've had six-year-old girls say, "you're my hero."
I mean, it's really cool.
So women really respond to it, and that's far more important than--
you guys have your Pamela andersons or whatever.
You can have those. I like to have the women go,
"that's a cool character."