The Verge: Deborah Ann Woll

So you guys have actually shot the season finale already, haven't you?

We'll finish it in the next week or so.

What do you feel like Jessica gets to do this year that she hasn't before?

Oh, I've been very lucky with the writing and what they've allowed me to do with this role. Each season, I feel like I start and end in a different place, and that's what you want as an actor. You like those arcs and those changes and the feeling that the events that happen to you as a character fundamentally change who you are in some way. This season, there's a lot of growth and a cool arc that happens. There's even a cool moment -- I think it's in episode eight -- where I found myself reacting the way that Jessica from the second season might have responded, a bit more impulsively. Then, within the scene, I felt myself going, "No, I'm past that. I can respond to this in a different way." It became kind of a cool moment, and we ended up keeping it; here was Jessica right in the middle of a transition.

I think my favorite moment in the premiere was when Jessica was freaking out about a dead body but as soon as she heard that Sookie might be getting engaged, she immediately became a giddy teenager about it.

If there was a buzzword for Jessica, it would probably be "impulsive." It's very moment-to-moment living for her, and it's fun to play that. It's fun to go, "Oh my gosh, I killed somebody," and then jump straight into, "But oh my gosh, you're gonna get married!" It's a nice playground.

Are you going to Comic-Con again this year for the show?

I am going to Comic-Con, definitely.

I heard the cast was unprepared for how big the True Blood panel would be last year. Do you feel like you guys kind of shoot it in a bubble?

It's funny, I guess when I thought of these TV shows of old, I always imagined them filming on these maximum-security sets and nobody could get in and it's very highly guarded, but we go into work and it's just like anybody else's office building. We have a card, we show up, we get let in and we shoot right in the middle of Hollywood -- it really doesn't feel like we're really that hidden at all! I guess because it's such a short season and we do films on the off-season and we don't shoot it at the same time as it's airing, we don't hear any of the hype while we're shooting it. The hype comes after it's done. If people get really excited about a scene, we go, "Oh great, I shot that six months ago!" We do feel very removed from it all.

I've heard that you might be in talks for the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, The Master, to play the daughter of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character.

There's nothing official. I will say that I have talked with him, and he's very nice. I don't think we or he is anywhere near making a decision -- I think he's still working on the script, so he's got that job to do. There's really nothing official there, it's just some interest that he and I both have.

But you're definitely in the upcoming remake of the horror film Mother's Day. What can you tell me about it?

I think it has a lot of unique qualities to it that you wouldn't normally find in that kind of home invasion drama. I do like that women are playing both the villain and heroine -- I think that's an unusual thing to see in this genre. I also like that nobody dies with their top off. [Laughs] That's a positive.

[Photo Credit: Michael Caulfield/Wire Image]

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