Now, I love all your comic moments on the show, but that scene recently where you broke down with Holly was actually kind of a dramatic powerhouse. Was it fun for you to do something that was less wink-wink than Arlene often can be?
I cannot tell you how thrilled I was with that. Alex Woo, who wrote that episode...each of our writers pretty much writes two episodes per season, and the first episode Alex wrote, we were on set and doing the scene where I'm in the doctor's office and I find out I'm pregnant. Alex said to me, "You know what, I have to apologize to you." And I said, "What?" And he said, "I haven't given you enough in this episode. I need to write something better for you, and I promise that I will." Then that episode you're referring to came up, and he was good for his word.
I was so thrilled because I think it was high time for us to see another side of that character, and I think that's what this whole season has been about: delving deeper into all the series regulars and getting involved in all their personal lives. It was very nice to be included in that, and it was fun to play that scene with Lauren Bowles, who's new on the show. To play with a woman of equal age to me, it was great to have that kind of energy between two women that we haven't seen on the show.
True Blood is the sort of show where the cast is so big that even someone like Anna Paquin or Stephen Moyer might not get more than 10 minutes of screentime in any given week. Is it still satisfying for you to be a regular, but have just a handful of moments per episode?
You know, it's a great show and I'm so grateful to be involved in it. I always wish that I could be there more, just because I like to be at work and I like working there, so it can be frustrating when you don't have that much to do. It can also be really creatively challenging in a good way, because you might have only half a page to create the whole world that you need to create. Luckily, we do have really good writers and actors, and if you trust both of those things, it's gonna happen.
So where do things go with Arlene heading into the end of the season? I remember at some point in shooting you went to go do an arc on The Good Wife, and fans were a little freaked out that it meant something bad might befall Arlene.
I can't tell you much about what happens, but actually, it was quite flattering the reaction people had when they saw that I was doing The Good Wife. I realized how many people out there really like the character and what Arlene contributes to the show. I think I look so different from Arlene in real life that I don't really experience the fans on a daily basis like some of my other colleagues do, so I was kind of taken aback by how upset people were about that! It was really nice. I only did a few episodes of The Good Wife and I don't know if they're going to bring me back, but the story got a little out of hand and it made it seem like I'm becoming a series regular on the show, and I'm not. On True Blood, there will be a resolution to the conflict that Arlene is going through right now, but it's certainly not over. That's about all I can say! [Laughs]
Let's talk about the hair color you have in the show, because I'm sure that's why fans don't always recognize you when you're not shooting. I feel like it should be named "Arlene," although it probably has a real name.
That's a wig that I'm wearing on the show, and it is really extraordinary how hair color and style changes you look. I've had this very varied career full of every color and style of hair in the rainbow. That's what's fun about being a character actor, is you get to transform from one character to the next, but I haven't played a role that's this transformative. For it to be the biggest TV show I've ever done is funny to me. This is the one that hit, the one where I'm basically in disguise.
When we did the pilot, I was doing a movie at the same time, and I was already established in that movie as a blonde, so that's why we chose to go the wig route. Of course, once you make that decision you're kind of stuck with it, especially on our show, where there's so little time elapsed. Each episode picks up where the last one left off, and I don't think the audience realizes that the whole timeline since the pilot has only been about five weeks. There really hasn't been any time to change anybody's look so I was kind of married to the wig, but I kind of like it because it makes me feel married to the character when I come on and put on the wig and the fake nails and the tan and the bustling and the drag queen makeup. Suddenly I'm not myself anymore, and that's really fun.
But isn't your hair red currently?
Yeah, we started thinking that it would be fun to use my real hair, so I thought, "Let me see what it would be like to be a redhead in real life." So I dyed my hair and I do have red hair in real life now. Definitely, the visibility factor has gone up 100%. [Laughs] I've gone from nobody knowing I'm on the show to getting people who recognize me. Today on the subway in New York, this woman was staring at me but she couldn't really tell if it was really me, and she came over and said, "You are such a dead ringer for Arlene on True Blood." And I said, "That's good to know, because I am!" So even though I have red hair in my life, people are still a little hesitant.
Whereas your husband looks exactly like his Lost character. There's not much he can do!
It is funny. I'm walking around in disguise, and he's just completely exposed. I mean, yesterday he was walking down the street and these cops pulled over and put the light on, and they went, "Ben! Ben Linus! Come over here, Ben!" And they made him come over, and they were fans! It was hilarious. People from cars shout out all the time, "Ben! Ben!" It's just night and day from my experience walking around, and I think I probably have a better deal because I'm not being watched every moment like he is.
Tell me about meeting Alan Ball. I remember you were in Towelhead, is that where the association began?
Uh-huh. Alan and I are both from Georgia, and he cast me in Towelhead and we just hit it off. We were both on the set and I asked him what he was doing next, and he said, "Believe it or not, but I'm doing this vampire pilot for HBO." I was like, "What?" I mean, that was the last thing I expected him to say, and then he said, "I think I might have something in there for you." So then my agents got ahold of the script and read it, and I didn't know what he was talking about. It's not like you read the description of Arlene and "Carrie Preston" is who jumps to mind. I know that if I hadn't worked with him on Towelhead, I wouldn't have even auditioned for that.
Now, tell me about What's Wrong with Virginia. Who do you play in that?
It's Lance's first film, and it's really funny and dark. It's kind of what you would expect from him -- it has lots of religious undertones. It's basically a mother/son story, where Jennifer Connelly is the mother and she's been having a longtime affair with Ed Harris's character, who's Mormon and married and has all these sexual hangups. It's all very tortured, and I play the next door neighbor, Betty, who's pretty middle class, Southern, a little trashy. Oddly, she ends up being this sort of support system for the kid, and he does get some good advice from her that he's not able to get from his mother. I dyed my hair dark for that, I'm a brunette in that one. The many hairstyles of Carrie Preston! [Laughs]
How was Lance as a director?
Lance did a beautiful job. I think he's incredibly bright and he kept a cool head on set. It's a low-budget film by Hollywood standards, and he was able to stay on track. He didn't even work with a monitor -- he worked with the actors and trusted the DP. It was kind of a nice experience, and it was fun to play a Southern character who's different than Arlene. I tend to play every color in the Southern rainbow, and the challenge is to make each character different so I'm not doing any generic "Southern acting."
Finally, Carrie, I was looking at your IMDb profile: Did you really play three different characters on Law and Order: Criminal Intent?
[Laughs] I did! I played two killers and a victim, and they're all vastly different. One killer was suffering from postpartum depression and she ends up blowing her kids up in a car, and then I played this really rich, ambitious woman who talks her sister-in-law into killing each other's husbands, kind of like Strangers on a Train, only the sister won't do it and I end up having to kill both the husbands. [Laughs] Then I played this woman who's been bamboozled by this guy who infects her with an animal virus. That was my victim.
And I imagine they all had completely different hairstyles.
Absolutely. In one of them I was a brunette again, in one I was a mousy blonde, and then in the other one I was a super blonde with highlights. Law and Order does that, you know. Like, I have a friend who's done something like twelve different roles in the entire Law and Order franchise.
Wow.
There's a lot of actors in New York who've done that! Like they'll play a lawyer, then a victim, then a lawyer, then a doctor. But there are rules. You have to let at least a year and a half go by before you can do any of the others.
And now I know. Thanks, Carrie. By the way, if you ever put out Carrie Preston's guide to hairstyles, I will totally buy it.
[Laughs] Thank you so much. I will work on that.