Life has only gotten more complicated for Mary as she tries to balance the demands of her job with her ever-stressful and emotionally draining family life. After the dust settles over the FBI ordeal and her traumatic kidnapping, Mary still has her hands full with a barrage of newly relocated witnesses. To help with her caseload, Mary relies on the support of her loyal, minutiae-obsessed partner, Marshall Mann, and her often ineffectual but well-meaning boss Stan McQueen.

Question> What about your role continues to challenge you?

Mary>  Well, a number of things.  I mean one of the weird things about TV and one of the things that some actors don’t like but I kind of dig is that you never know where you’re headed, I mean you never know what the writer might think of next.  So, unlike a film or a play where you know the entire story and you know where you have to end up, with In Plain Sight and with “Mary Shannon” I never really know what he’s cooking up.  For example, my relationship with “Rafael” and my intimacy issues and all the push and pull of that; this season is completely different than it was last season.  Then, there’s more development with me and with the mystery of where is my father and what happened to him.  I mean there’s just so many kinds of question marks with “Mary Shannon” that that’s always a challenge, just sort of trying to figure that out.

 But I’m trying to think of what else in the role is challenging.  I mean trying to make her vulnerable, trying to balance the vulnerability because I don’t want it ever to be two dimensional and I don’t want her to seem, I mean even though she has sort of bad ass qualities and she’s a tomboy and all that, she doesn’t really take a lot of garbage, you have to sort of see how she ended up that way and why she ended up that way and where she’s weak and where she’s frail and where she’s girly.  So, trying to make her three dimensional and complex, that’s always challenging.

Question> There’s great chemistry between you and “Rafael”.  How do the two of you continue to maintain such great chemistry between each other?  

Mary>  We really enjoy each other.  I’m crazy about him.  I’m really just crazy about him.  He’s a great guy.  I mean no one that pretty should be that nice as well and funny and smart.  God went to town when he made him.  He’s just fantastic.  I get along well with his wife and my husband gets along well with both of them.  Actually, his wife is guest starring in this episode now that we’re shooting right now and my husband is directing it. 

 Sometimes I call my husband and I’m in bed with Cristian.  So, it’s all very odd.  It’s a really odd relationship.  But his lovely wife, Angelica, who’s a beautiful actress, is guest starring on this episode and my husband, Michael Morris, who directs many, many Brothers and Sisters and the producer of that show, is directing this episode of In Plain Sight.  So, it’s all in the family with us.

Question> Why do you think people continue to tune in to see the show?  What is it about the program that continues to draw the viewer in?

Mary>  Well, I don’t know.  I mean I hope it’s the same thing that draws me in.  Every week I get the script and I’m excited to read it.  It’s great writing.  David Maples is a great writer and he writes interesting stories.  Every week, you sort of meet a new witness and I always think there’s an interesting story there, but you also have this ongoing storyline of “Mary Shannon’s” family and her personal life.  I don’t know, I think both things are sort of appealing. 

 It’s also a nice combination of really dramatic and action-y and sort of some mystery elements and then it’s really funny.  I mean David is a funny writer.  I mean I remember when I read the pilot; part of the thing that attracted me was I laughed out loud three or four times, and I never do that reading a script, even when I know the scene is funny.  I rarely sort of chuckle out loud when I’m sitting reading a script alone, and I always do with David’s writing.  I don’t know, hopefully, it’s just a fun show to watch.  I hope we keep doing it.

Question> Mary  obviously has issues with her family relations.  Are we going to see sort of a change in dynamic with that?

Mary>  Yes, quite a bit.  I mean actually in the beginning of the season - honestly, I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say or not, so I’ll just say everything.  In the beginning of the season, my mother - I forget which episode, but very near the beginning of the season she hits sort of a new low in her drinking, which is extraordinary to watch and you think it’s going to be funny and it’s not at all funny.  And then, she decides to try to stop drinking and she goes to rehab.

 “Mary Shannon’s” never known her mother without alcohol involved, so it changes the entire family dynamic, and my sister goes back to school and she decides to try to turn over a new leaf.  Because it’s television, I don’t know how long these things will last or if they’ll make it or not, but the dynamic completely changes, and then the mystery of “Mary’s” father is still floating and looming and you get some more clues as to what happened to him.

Question> What’s your favorite scene you’ve filmed this season, if you can tell us about it?

Mary>  The other night where Fred Weller was playing drunken chess on his computer screen because in the episode I tell “Rafael” what I do for a living and it gets Fred Weller, “Marshall Mann” gets so angry about it and I think not just because someone knows what we do, but maybe even more because I’ve been intimate and shared this secret with another man.  And so it’s like involving another man as closely as he’s involved maybe and I think that’s definitely a big part of it.

 In the last scene of the episode I come back into the office and he’s sitting there playing chess with an 11-year-old Pakistani girl online and he’s just loaded.  He’s really drunk and she’s beating him and it’s sort of a very sweet scene between my character and Fred Weller’s character.  I think that might be one of the favorites.  And then, there’s some good fun shoot-out stuff with season two and I always love doing that.  I like all the action stuff.

Question> Can you kind of run us through a typical day on the set?

Mary>  Oh, my goodness gracious.  I get there super early.  I mean a typical day for me is door-to-door somewhere around 15 hours or 15 to 20 hours usually.  Hair and makeup is first and I spend an hour or so in hair and makeup and we all get ready for the work of the day and then we rehearse the first scene.  Then, they light the first scene and we shoot it.  We start shooting and we never leave the set and we just work all day.  That’s it.  That’s our day.  We sort of rehearse and act all day long, move the camera and move the lights and do it again and again and again.  We’ve been at it for seven months now.  We have about two weeks left and we’re a tired group.  If you came now, we’re almost punch drunk; we’re crazy.

Question> One other quick question, I know you worked on the movie Full Frontal.  What was it like to work with David Duchovny?

Mary>  Oh, I loved working with David Duchovny and I had a pretty crazy scene with David Duchovny.  It was like a full body massage and there were dildos involved and it was insane.  It was an insane scene, but he has a great sense of humor and my kind of sense of humor.  I’ve always been a big fan of his work and he’s a terrific guy too.  So, I loved it.

Question>  “Mary” is such an independent, career-driven woman and “Raf” is just very traditional.  He’s a very traditional male.  Do you actually think that “Mary” is good for “Raf” in the long run in terms of marriage and family?

Mary>  I think they are a mismatch.  My guess is that they’re sort of mismatched.  I mean he would probably ideally not want her to continue with this work and she’s never going to give this work up.  So yes, that’s sort of a train wreck waiting to happen I imagine, but bless his heart, he’s so kind and keeps hoping she’ll change and she never changes.

Question> Is there a particular assignment that you would like to see “Mary” get?

Mary>  Oh, wow.  Geez, Louise, I’ve never thought of that.  Who would I like to protect?  I don’t know.  Golly.  I don’t know.  I’m trying to think of like some gorgeous man that I should-- I’m trying to think of a clever answer.  I don’t know.  I have no idea.  I’m out of cleverness.  My kids are down for an hour nap, so I don’t know where my brain is.

Question> I think one of the better portrayed on screen mother/daughters is in you and Lesley Ann Warren.  I’m a big fan of her over the years.  What was it like initially meeting her and then as an actress, working alongside her now for a couple of years?

Mary>  Initially meeting her was fantastic.  So like, I was a big, big fan.  It was daunting, but thrilling because I just love her work.  We both worked with Steven Soderbergh.  So, I remember our first conversation was about our mutual love of Steven Soderbergh.  And so, I think once we had that out of the way, we knew we were going to work similarly because Steven works in a very specific way and not every actor would dig it.  I mean a lot of actors obviously dig it a lot, but it’s just very specific and we were sort of having a lovefest gush session about how he works and how he is.

 And so, I think from that moment on, we sort of knew we were going to work in a similar enough style that we could get along great and we have.  We’re both really lucky actually.  I’m crazy about her husband.  She loves my husband.  It’s all very comfortable.  She lives down the street from me in LA.  She comes over at Christmastime and spoils my girls.  She’s great.  She’s the best.

Question> How did your theater experience train you for working in both television and film so effortlessly?

Mary>     In high school, I sang a lot and I sort of classically trained.  And so I sang at Trinity a lot.  So, I did more musical theater than any other kind and a lot of voice and stuff and music classes and stuff.  I don’t know.  It just continued my love of it.  I think more than anything, I just thought, “Well, that’s where I had the most fun is in the arts building.”  When I graduated, I thought, “I guess your goal in life is if you can make a living at something you actually enjoy that’s probably the most ideal thing.”  So, I moved to New York and started studying acting a little more seriously and just continued doing off, off, off, off Broadway plays and working my way.

 Probably just being in the arts building and having it be a small enough college that I could actually find my way to the stage and find professors who cared and all that.  Trinity was actually lovely for that because it’s not a school that’s famous, famous, famous for performing arts, it was actually a nice place to sort of get a chance-- if you really wanted to do it, there was room for you to do it, which was nice.

Question> What’s been the most rewarding part about doing the show and getting to play somebody like “Mary”? 

Mary>  Golly.  I mean I love the way David writes.  It just feels like a really, really comfortable fit for me and I like that she’s kind of grouchy.  I mean I love the character so much.  There’s one episode, and I reference this often because it just struck me when I read it as so unusual for a woman to say something like on TV, she sees a little baby and out of the blue, and pertinent of nothing else, she doesn’t sort of continue the thought, she goes, “What’s with babies?  I don’t get them.”  You never hear women say stuff like that on TV.  I just think David has a really fresh approach to, I guess, writing this woman because it’s certainly not representative of any other woman.  She’s a complex part and I like that she’s allowed to be sort of grouchy and a little bit angry, angular.  I don’t know.  It’s a comfortable fit for me.  I’m not proud of that, but it is. 

Question> It does seem like that as a viewer, it just fits you really well.

Mary>  Yes, and I get to work with great people and I like the stories and I think it’s also an interesting backdrop for a show.  We’ve never seen witness protection and certainly the only thing I knew about witness protection before this was what I knew from Goodfellas, which isn’t a lot.  I mean it’s a crazy world to think that people just up and leave.  They do leave like food on the stove and walk out of their house and never call and never talk to their families again and never turn back.  So, it’s a very dramatic world.  It’s like high stakes and pretty emotional. 

Question> In playing “Mary,” have you learned anything new about yourself over the course of doing this show, portraying her either personally or just in sort of the technical of working on a show like this?

Mary>  I’ve learned a lot.  On that side of it, I’ve learned an enormous amount.  I mean I’ve worked a lot over the years and I’ve done even a lot of TV, but I’ve never been in every scene almost.  I have two kids under the age of four, so that and 15 to 20 hour days of work everyday, I certainly have learned a lot.  I’ve learned a lot about stamina and rest and balance and forgiveness in terms of my own guilt about where I’m falling short in my life.  Certainly, I’ve learned more than I ever thought I could learn about that stuff.

 I guess I learn from the character too.  I mean I have some similarities to “Mary Shannon” and so as I investigate things like codependence or what her abandonment issues are and her father leaving, and my father didn’t leave, but I mean just in terms of any kind of loss, how that affects how readily available you are for intimacy and stuff.  I mean I definitely learn about myself through some of the storylines she’s dealing with. 

Question> How much would you like to see your character’s relationship with your mother and sister evolve?  Is there a certain way that you’d like to see it go?

Mary>  I don’t know.  I mean I think about that a lot actually because this year, my mother is sober.  My sister is still drinking, but my mother has gone to rehab and it’s sort of 12-steppy.  That’s interesting because there are all kinds of different tensions, but I liked it the other way too because there was a lot to play with that. 

 I can’t imagine that she doesn’t slip at some point.  I think just in terms of being realistic and knowing “Jinx” at all, I can’t imagine that she doesn’t return to the dark side soon.  But, we’ll see.  I could be wrong.  David Maples surprises me all the time. 

Question> How do you see the show as compared to other police dramas?

Mary>  I don’t know.  I mean I think our show is pretty special for a number of reasons.  One, I just think witness protection is pretty interesting and you don’t see it in many other police dramas.  I mean it’s definitely a singular backdrop.  But also tonally, I think our show is unusual.  I mean it’s not strictly a drama.  It’s also really funny and finding the balance is sometimes tricky for us.  We have to really think about like when the scene changes.  Sometimes it changes within the scene and sometimes it changes scene-to-scene, but I don’t know.  It’s an odd tone, our show.  And so, I think it’s different for that. 

 Also, a lot of cop shows are just procedurals.  I mean we’re not CSI.  We’re not what’s the Katherine Morrison show.  There are procedural shows where every week you have a mystery and then by the end of the hour; all the Dick Wolf shows, in the end of the hour, the mystery is solved and next week you have another mystery.  Ours has that, but we also have the ongoing story of my life and my relationships and my work relationships, my boyfriend relationship, my family relationship.  So, I think our show is pretty special for doing all that within the hour and hopefully doing it well.  I mean that challenge is making sure we do all of it well.