Mary Lynn Rajskub

Mary Lynn Rajskub: Being so plain on the show forced me to want to be more glam.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on art and acting): I have to paint at least two times a week, and there's not enough time in the day to do everything.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on what makes her happy): Well, I started by doing comedy, and my comedy was sort of based on how comfortable I was with myself. I would be on stage, alone, and the jokes where people would laugh were coming out of my genuine uncomfortableness with myself. So, what makes me happy is that I feel like was able to express something unique to me that other people can relate to. It makes me happy to be able to do that. It's fun to take something that you're sort of scared of and turn it into something actually very powerful.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on doing stand-up comedy): To really be on stage and not know what you're going to say, and to be able to say something that makes people laugh, or do something that's sort of abstract or off the beaten path and have people connect to it by just putting your ideas together, that really makes me happy.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on co-star Louis Lombardi's final scene on 24): It really affected people because this character was so innocent. It was sad to film and it was sad to watch. Especially being in that room and not being able to do anything.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on 24): You know, people had hang-ups about this year, but I think it's exceeded our high expectations. So you wouldn't think it could go longer, because of the limitations of the concept, but I don't know. It could happen. Why not? It's worked so far.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on doing more action scenes in 24): I would love for that to happen again. I didn't think that I would like it, shooting a gun. But I have to say, I was pretty into it. It's kind of bad a**. I think she's gonna become a gangster, and insist on carrying a sawed-off shot gun. It seems cumbersome but...

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on her move from comedy to drama): I see it as the same thing. And though I don't really play it for comedy, I think that Chloe is a very funny character - she takes herself so seriously. And that's what I love - the fact that you can find these little weird comedic things on a show like 24.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on differences between her and her 24 character, Chloe O'Brian): No, I just found out about Google. I was like, 'Wow, this Google thing is kind of cool. You put anything in there and it looks for it.' And I don't know how to turn my TV on. That's sad, right?

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on working on 24): It's a pretty dreamy job. As an actor, I think you're always looking for a character like Chloe where there's so much that can be done.

Mary Lynn Rajskub: I hadn't even watched 24 before, and the audition was kind of far away. When I got the material, there wasn't a character yet, so it almost seemed like an assistant to Jack Bauer saying, `Yes, sir. No, sir.' I told my agents that I didn't want to go on the audition. But as that was happening I called my mom, who has been watching the show from the beginning, and my mom said, 'It's the coolest show. You have to go.'

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on her 24 character, Chloe O'Brian): She is really just like an exaggerated aspect of myself. The more I get to do this character, the more I realize that she's not just annoying. It's that her strength is not interacting with people socially. She just doesn't have time because she has so much going on in her brain.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on how she came to be in the Girls Guitar Club): The Girls Guitar Club was our band. It's an act that I no longer do. I did it with my friend. We were both doing stand-up comedy and she taught me how to play guitar. And this one night we decided to go to this open mic night, and we played. We did a song and I was so nervous to play it that we kept on talking and describing the different chords, and people thought it was really funny. It turned into this sort of club for girls who shouldn't be afraid to just 'play it'. So, we taught each other how to do it.

Mary Lynn Rajskub (on working with Harrison Ford in the movie, Firewall: Certainly with him and Richard Loncraine, he filmed such a lot of the shots with the camera so close to me, these extreme close-ups. The camera is right in your face. I mean, I thought I was comfortable in front of the camera when filming, and I was comfortable with all of the technical stuff and talking about the shot. And they did a lot of that. Harrison Ford was definitely very active in discussing everything about the shots, and dialogue-ing. But I was just... I was like not even knowing what they were talking about. That was intimidating.