I gotta tell you, I like to play the cards. I don't have any time anymore like I used to. When I was unemployed sometimes I would be at the casino in the middle of the day. One of my favorite moments on the The Mentalist was when we did an episode we shot at a casino in Los Angeles. The [assistant director] came up to me and said, "Wait till you see the people in there. Total degenerate gamblers. It's terrifying." And I went to sit and play some hands at lunch and I knew like five people [laughs]. It's fun. You have to be completely engaged. But it's an incredibly chauvinist game. I played in it and didn't think about the implications at the time.

[about shaving her head for "Empire records"] I was a child model and my mom would never let me do anything I wanted like cut my hair or get my ears pierced or any of those phases. I was 21 and for the first time I did something I was dying to do. I had always wanted to do something aberrant like that. I loved having it for a while, but by the end everyone saying "Excuse me, sir" was kind of annoying. I wasn't thinking about it in terms of some sort of feminist stance. I thought that if you were going to do it, the opportunity of doing it on film was also pretty cool.

You know, I think my attitude would have stopped me a little bit. I always had a stance like, you know, fuck Maxim. You know, I was supposed to be on the cover and my publicist set up the shoot behind my back and I was like, "There is no fucking way I am wearing my underpants on the cover of a magazine; they can go fuck themselves." Sexuality in that way and women using it has been around for forever, but it seems now with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, it seems that now in order to be successful you need to look like you want to have sex with every guy. I don't get it.

I was always brought up to say please and thank you and always tell the truth, and people were saying, "Oh my God, what's going to happen with your character next year [on Prison Break (2005)]?' and I wasn't allowed to say, so I felt really guilty because I was lying to all these people, including my neighbors. You know, the character had its run, and I was really happy to be part of a show that was so successful and that people loved so much, but there was really nothing else for her to do.