Bullz-Eye: Well, I was able to watch the first two episodes…

Lorenzo Lamas: Oh, yeah…? How did you like it? What did you think about it?

BE: It was great. I liked the first season, but I never actually saw the second season. But this looks like it’s right on par with what the show’s been like before.

LL: From what I gather, the guy they cast for this “Schmo” is a lot different than the first guy. And what I’m gathering is that…the first guy was just a really great, friendly, open, more innocent kind of guy. Like, a real Joe Schmo, y’know? [Laughs.] Whereas I found Chase to be a very analytical, intelligent, not quite as naïve guy.

BE: Yeah, he seemed like a sweetheart, but he also seemed like a guy who really wanted to win, too.

LL: Yeah, really competitive. Absolutely.

BE: So how did you find your way into this? Did they approach you, or was there a casting call and you heard about it?

LL: You know, John Stevens and I had done something last year together – a pilot for an action show, a hybrid that was part reality, part scripted – so we met on that project, and then when Sharon Levy talked to John about doing this version of “Joe Schmo,” John says, “Well, what do you think of Lorenzo Lamas?” So he kind of brought it up to Sharon, and then Sharon asked, “Does Lorenzo do comedy?” Because the whole idea is this 10-day-long improv where everyone’s in character and they have to really stay in character. So John called me and said, “I’ve got something that’s kind of out of left field, but…would you be interested in doing this show?” And then he kind of formulated a pitch to me. And I had just finished doing “The Eric Andre Show,” and I loved it. That was improv, too. I did one episode, then they brought me back and did another episode. I’d just finished doing it, so I said, “You know, John, I think this might be meant to be…” Because prior to that, I’d also done a couple of episodes of the Nickelodeon show “Big Time Rush.” I played Doc Hollywood, who’s a bigger-than-life character, almost slapstick comedy. And I’ve been enjoying that. I’ve been enjoying the change, wrapping my mind around just…not doing action, y’know?

BE: Did they give you advance warning as to how much, uh, disrobing would be required of you on “The Joe Schmo Show”?

LL: You mean how revealing the part would be? [Laughs.] Yeah, that was John Moore. When I told John Stevens that I’d love to be a part of the show, then I went in to talk to J-Mo – John Holland Moore – about the nuts and bolts of how we were going to do this, and one of the first questions that John asked me was, “How comfortable are you wearing a Speedo on television?” I was, like, “Well, I’ve gotta know you better, J-Mo…” So I figured it’s either gonna be a show that’ll resonate with the public, or it’s gonna be a show that’ll basically shun me from the public.

BE: Either way, you can probably count on headlines along the lines of, “Another side of Lorenzo Lamas.”

LL: You know, you kind of have to just go for it. Listen, they say that being an actor, a real actor, is being fearless. And you kind of have to go to the wall with your character, beyond what you may feel are your own personal limitations. I don’t thrive on public exposure. It’s not in my nature to do that. But for this character…it was perfect for this hyper-diva character I was playing.

BE: Okay, I’ve got some flashbacks for you, if you’re up for it.

LL: Sure!

BE: First of all, I’m curious if IMDb is accurate on your supposed first onscreen appearance: did you indeed play an Indian boy in the movie “100 Rifles”?

LL: [Laughs.] I was an extra on one day of shooting in that movie, yes. My dad put me in that. I showed up on location one day to hang out with him in his trailer, and I was driving him crazy. I mean, I was 10 years old, just following him around the set. All of a sudden, he says [In a perfect Fernandos Lamas impression.] “Lorenzo, we have to find something for you to do.” And he took my hand, and he dragged me to the wardrobe trailer, and he asked the wardrobe assistant, he says, “Can you give my kid a wig and some clothes? He’s going to be an Indian boy for the rest of the day.” [Laughs.] So that was my debut, if you will.

BE: Did you always know that you wanted to follow in his footsteps, or did it just kind of happen?

LL: No, I actually didn’t. I didn’t even entertain the thought of being in acting until after high school, after I’d gone to a year of college and things just weren’t clicking academically for me. It was a scary moment. I’m sitting in my van in a parking lot at Santa Monica City College, thinking, “This police-science course is really difficult. What the hell am I gonna do with myself?” And it just struck me at that point, thinking that maybe there was a way for me to learn how to act and to follow in my dad’s footsteps. Also, y’know, in high school, I…I wasn’t thin. I wasn’t athletic-looking. I was overweight. I had a pretty heavy insecurity complex. So I never thought of myself as being able to live up to my father and fill his shoes. There was no fricking way I would ever assume that I could do that. So I kind of put that aside. But by the time I got to college, I’d shot up a little bit, put on some muscle, and I had a little bit more confidence in myself. I was swimming for the college team, and I said, “Well, if you’re gonna try something, idiot, you might as well try it now before it’s too fricking late, and you’re gonna be pumping gas and parking cars for the rest of your life.”

So I did. I drove to my dad’s house, and I said, “I think I wanna leave college and be an actor.” And there was a long pause…and he said, “No fucking way, asshole.” [Laughs.] He said, “You’re going to be an attorney or a business major or…” I said, “I’m not feeling that, Dad.” And he looked at me again, and he said, “Okay, then. Well, before you make a fool out of me, you’re going to do a scene with Esther (Williams),” my stepmother. And I did an improv scene with her that day, and he picked up the phone and called Tony Barr, who was an executive at CBS at that time, and…Tony was running a school in Burbank called the Film Actors Workshop. And I started going there at night, working during the day as a trainer at Jack LaLanne’s, which was a health spa back in the day. And I did their course, and after their course, my teacher, Laura Rose, said, “Go out there and start auditioning.” And that was 1976. And the first real television that I got was for a sitcom pilot, ironically, for James Komack, who wrote “Chico and the Man” and “Welcome Back, Kotter.” I auditioned for this part, and I got it, and it was “Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis?” I was a character that they added in. My name was Lucky, and I was a box boy at a grocery store. And that was it. So here we are now, 30 years later, and I’m back doing comedy. [Laughs.] It’s just weird, y’know?

BE: One of your first major TV gigs, “California Fever,” actually puts you within two degrees of “Downton Abbey”: Elizabeth McGovern was a guest star in one of the episodes.

LL: Absolutely! I think her character actually had a storyline with Jimmy McNichol rather than mine. But then after that show, which was in 1979, I didn’t really see much of her. She started to do a couple of movies, and then I didn’t see much of her. But she was always a really good actress, I certainly remember that.

BE: You were in “Grease,” which is not a bad film to have on your resume.

LL: Are you kidding? It’s like having “The Sound of Music” on there. [Laughs.] It’s an incredible thing for something like that to happen. Now, I was a very small part of that movie. I basically was a glorified extra, if you will. I mean, I didn’t even have a line in that picture! But to think of how exciting it must’ve been for Jeff Conaway or Dinah Manoff or Didi Conn, these – at the time – kids, some of whom who’d performed on stage in “Grease,” playing other characters in some cases, and then for it to become a Paramount picture in national release with John Travolta…wow, it must’ve just been so exciting for them. I mean, it was exciting to me, but I’d only been acting for eight or nine months.

I just happened to get in on the end of casting for the T-Birds. They had cast all the parts, and I walked into Allan Carr’s office, with Allan and Randal Kleiser, and they just started asking me what I was into. I told them, “Well, I’m a physical trainer, and I pump gas.” [Laughs.] “But I really want to be an actor!” And they said, “Oh, okay, well, we don’t have anything for you at this time, but we’re really happy to have met you, and we wish you all the best, and we know that, with your parents, you’re bound to do good things.” I mean, it was just a very polite…

BE: Kiss-off?

LL: [Laughs.] Yeah, basically. A very polite way to say, “You’re not going to be in our movie.” And it wasn’t long after that…I think they had gone into rehearsals about two weeks prior to me getting another phone call, my agent saying, “You’re going in to replace Steven Ford as the hunky football player.” And I said, “Really?” So that was that. I had no experience, either in dancing or even acting, pretty much, except for going to that school. So to have a part in a movie that was that iconic was pretty amazing.

BE: Within a few years of that, though, you were on “Falcon Crest.”

LL: Well, a little bit after that. We filmed “Grease” in 1977, it was released in ’78, and then “California Fever” was ’79. From there, I did a couple of small-budget movies. One was for Rudy Durand with Brooke Shields called “Tilt.” And I did a movie for Kieth Merrill, who won a Best Documentary Oscar for “Greatest American Cowboy,” called “Take Down.” It was a movie about high school wrestling for Buena Vista, which was basically Disney. It was my first real leading role, and it was kind of a “Rocky”-esque story about a kid in high school who has an alcoholic father, and he faces all the odds, he’s failing at school, and he becomes the star wrestler on the high school team and graduates. You know, actually, it’s less “Rocky” and more like “All the Right Moves.” Basically, I was just kind of bouncing around, getting a part here, a part there, a break here, a break there. But nothing really happened until 1982, when I got “Falcon Crest.” I did a couple of pilots for Lorimar and…oh, actually, one series did go. It was called “Secrets of Midland Heights,” with Robert Hogan, Bibi Besch, and Linda Hamilton. That was Lorimar, and it went nine episodes. But after that, nothing until “Falcon Crest.”

BE: Was it a long audition process to get “Falcon Crest”?

LL: Fairly long, yeah. They had a lot of characters to cast and a lot of actors who wanted to be in it. [Laughs.] I think I read two times for the writers, and then one more time for the producer and the director, and then they liked the audition, so I went to test for the network executives, which was another audition.

BE: So given your parentage, was Jane Wyman a family friend?

LL: Jane Wyman was a family friend. I’d never met her, but she knew my father because he did her show, “The Jane Wyman Show.” It was a 90-minute variety show. My mom was pregnant with me at the time, and after the first act, the stage phone rang, and it was the hospital where my mother had to be taken because of an emergency. I was being born, and it wasn’t a normal birth situation. My mother was having difficulties with me. And they called Dad, and Dad left Jane…on live television! During the commercial break, he took off! So when I first met Jane, she kind of laughed about it and made a joke, like, “I hope you don’t leave me without a second act like your father did.” [Laughs.]

But we became very, very close. She was like my grandmother. She really was. She played my grandmother on TV, and I really respected her and listened to her a lot like you would a real grandmother. That show was like my graduate school. There were some wonderful actors on that show – Robert Foxworth and David Selby and Susan Sullivan – and then we had a great guest cast. Cesar Romero came in, Cliff Robertson…and, gosh, I mean, Robert Taylor! All these great iconic actors…and here I was, this twentysomething young idiot, just hoping not to bump into furniture, make my mark, and not look like a fool. I learned so much on that show.

BE: When the show had run its course, did you have a desire to leave television and move into film, or did you immediately go looking for another series?

LL: No, y’know, I was on that show for nine seasons, and it was a scripted drama, and…I grew up watching Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and Sean Connery and all these great action characters, and after nine seasons of being on a soap opera, I really wanted to try to do action. And I told my agent that I really wanted to go and try to break into the action genre, which was starting to really take off, and he said, “Well, let’s see what we can get going here.” He reached out to a Canadian company called Cinepix, who were doing low-budget action movies in Montreal, and they sent my agent a script called “Snake Eater.” And the first thing I said was, “They’ve got to change the title. Because no one’s gonna know what ‘Snake Eater’ is, and even if they do, it’s not gonna be attractive.” [Laughs.] But I wanted to do the part, because it was a really good role. He was a loner, the kind of part I wanted to play. A hero, a stand-up guy, a cop that was an ex-Marine, so he had a back story. So I agreed to sign on to do that, and I did three of those, pretty much back to back. And during the late ’80s and early ’90s, that really broke open my acting opportunities. Because, y’know, the industry knew I could act because I’d done drama for so long, but they didn’t really know I could do action.

So that kind of helped to open that door, and then Stephen Cannell asked me to play Reno in “Renegade,” and that’s when I was really able to bring it full circle and use my acting chops along with my karate chops, if you will. [Laughs.] And that was a very successful genre for me. I did five seasons of “Renegade,” and in between seasons of “Renegade,” I would do action movies that would go to video. But that marketplace was just booming back then. I mean, direct-to-video was a huge market, and I had a very strong foreign name because of “Renegade” and because of “Falcon Crest,” so it was very easy to get financing just based on the fact that I was doing the picture. So I did a lot of those.>

But then around 2001, I finished my last action show for television, one called “The Immortal,” and there was nowhere left for me to go, because one-hour syndicated television was drying up and the foreign companies that financed the straight-to-video movies were not buying any American talent or doing American scripts anymore. They were producing their own shows and their own movies in their country. So I was really just kind of stuck, not knowing where I was going to get the next paycheck. So I raised my kids. [Shrugs.] I raised my daughters, who are pretty much teenagers now, and…I was glad to have had the time to really be a dad, to really do that the right way. And to do a little stage, a little theater. And that pretty much kept me busy until a couple of years ago, when I started to do a little comedy. I did “Big Time Rush” for Nickelodeon, I did an animated show called “Phineas and Ferb,” where I played the character Meap, and a little more comedy here and there, including episodes of “Reno 911!” and “NTSF: SD: SUV.” And then John Stevens called me and said, “Would you like to come on board and really push the limits of your comedic abilities?” [Laughs.]

>I really, really enjoy the process of comedy. I’m even taking a stand-up comedy class and getting some experience onstage doing stand-up. I had a cabaret show I was doing up until about a year or so ago, and I think that gave me the confidence. Also, doing the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful,” which is shot pretty much live. I mean, it’s obviously tape-delay, but they shoot it like a live television show. There’s very little rehearsal, and you don’t get another take, so you have to come on camera ready to go. And I think that experience really helped solidify my confidence and my acting. So now I can walk around in a blue Speedo and be okay with it. [Laughs.]

BE: Okay, just a few more things to wrap up. First of all, I can’t not ask you about “Body Rock.”

LL: I wanted to do that movie so bad…and my manager did not want me to do that movie. [Laughs.] And I fought and I fought, and he finally said, “Okay, dammit, if you want to do it that bad, then go ahead and do the movie. At least I got a friend of ours in it: Ray Sharkey.” I said, “Oh, cool!” Because my manager at the time was handling me and Ray and Ken Wahl. To this day, I look at that movie and I go, “Why didn’t it work?” You know, it was the perfect time for that movie, it had a great soundtrack… I think what it was was that it was at the tail end of a string of movies like “Beat Street” that were basically…the hip-hop culture at that time was really still almost underground, and we had a very strong urban audience. The movie opened for New World to respectable numbers, but we didn’t have that second weekend, y’know? I think the numbers weren’t that big for what the studio was expecting. But I liked the movie.

BE: You got a small hit single out of it, too.

LL: Yeah!

BE: Which is no doubt on YouTube, although I should’ve checked that before we chatted.

LL: I don’t think so. I don’t think it is! [Laughs. ]

BE: Well, if it is, you can count on it being posted with the interview.

LL: I was pissed that it didn’t make the studio soundtrack, actually. Because I was under contract to Scotti Brothers Records, so I couldn’t do the studio album. My single couldn’t be included on the studio album. Which is too bad, because that studio album for “Body Rock” did really well. But, hey, listen, you chalk it up to experience, and you walk away from stuff that you do without understanding why it didn’t perform well, but you look back on it, and…well, it’s like a movie, actually. There’s a storyline, and one thing leads into something else because you’ve met this people on this thing. Which is why I’m here doing comedy and feeling very comfortable about it.

BE: You’re in the promo for Michelle Beadle’s new series, “The Crossover.” How did that come about?

LL: They just wanted the craziest bunch of reality-show dropouts that they could think of. [Laughs.] So it’s me, Gary Busey, Jose Canseco, Kara Todd, Dennis Rodman… And when I got that, I asked, “Well, who else is doing the commercial?” And they said, “We can’t tell you.” So I didn’t know who I was going to be doing the commercial with until I got to the set that day. Oh, it was crazy, man. Because I knew Jose from before, so we were friends. Gary Busey and I have worked on probably a dozen movies together that went straight to video, so I knew Gary. Anyway, we just had fun.

BE: Lastly, is there any project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

LL: I’ve got to say “Body Rock.” And probably “Take Down,” the wrestling picture I did. I think the problem with “Take Down” was that Buena Vista didn’t really know how to market a PG-rated picture. It was the first PG-rated film that Disney ever distributed under their banner. Of course, then they later formed Touchstone. It would’ve been great if it’d been under Touchstone. But I think its timing was off, and that was a disappointment, because I was really hoping that that movie was gonna kick off a motion picture career for me. It got a major theatrical release, it was a decent movie with a great story and a great cast, including Edward Herrmann and Kathleen Lloyd. But, y’know, you never know. You never do know. And that’s what makes this show, “The Joe Schmo Show,” both exciting and scary for me. Because people who know me don’t know me as a comedy actor. So I’m hoping that they dig it. But I just don’t know. I guess I’ll find out on Wednesday morning, right? [Laughs.]

Bullz-Eye: So the second season of “Boss” is coming to a close…

Kathleen Robertson: Yep!

BE: Your character, Kitty O’Neill, had a decidedly different dynamic in Season 2 than she did in Season 1. How much forewarning did you have about how Kitty’s storyline was going to play out during this season? Did you know from the get-go, or was it only doled out to you on an episode-by-episode basis?

KR: I knew from the get-go. I sat down with the writers at the very beginning of the season, and they sort of explained to me what the storyline was for her. With the exception of the finale. They were very secretive about the finale, and I didn’t know what was going to happen until the week before we shot it and I read the script. Have you seen the finale?

BE: I have not yet.

KR: [Tries and fails to disguise her giddiness.] It’s so good. It’s so good. They kept saying to me all through the year, “Just be patient. Just be patient and wait for (episode)10.” I said, “What does that mean, though? Like, am I gonna get killed? What are you…what happens in 10?” “Just be patient.” And then they’d say, “10 is your episode, and you’re gonna be really happy with it.” So I was. And I am really happy with 10. It’s amazing.

BE: 10 may be “your episode,” but it’s arguable that you’ve had a lot of episodes. Kitty’s evolved throughout the season, at least in a certain sense. At the same time, though, she also ends up making it pretty clear that she doesn’t really know who she is unless she has someone to serve.

KR: Yeah, that’s true.

BE: Did you see that as being a part of her character from the very beginning, or was that something you discovered as time went on?

KR: Well, with Season 1… [Hesitates.] Farhad (Safinia) said to me at the beginning of the series, “For Season 1, Kitty almost has a reverse arc.” She kind of starts here… [Holds hand up and then begins lowering it.] …and ends here. And it’s kind of like that in Season 2 as well, because from the moment we meet her in this season, she’s pregnant, she’s sort of deciding if she even wants to be in politics anymore…she’s deciding who she is. So the journey for her over Season 2 was a much more internal one, and it was much more a case of asking, “Who am I without my identity?” And for her, the identity isn’t just working for Kane. It’s being in this whole world that she’s sacrificed everything for. So she sort of flirts with the idea of trying to be an alternate Kitty throughout the season, and by the end… [Smiles knowingly.] When you see the finale, I think she ends up where she belongs.

BE: In regards to the “alternate Kitty,” for instance, we see her trying to make something out of her relationship with Sam, but from what we know of her, we don’t even really know for sure that she can have a proper romantic relationship.

KR: Absolutely. Like, the abortion in Episode 3, that was an interesting moment for her, because…well, to me, it seemed to represent a lot more than just what it was on the surface. There was the idea of what that life would be like, the choice of a woman considering trying to be something that she’s not. But Kitty…she’ll never be that. She’s a political animal, and that’s the only way she feels alive. I think that we all sort of have those components and parts of personality, the parts of us that are damaged and the parts of us that don’t work right, and we try to fix them, but sometimes those things are just who we are. And I think that, for her, by the end of the season, she kind of comes around to the realization of, like, “I’m probably not going to change. And that’s okay.” And…I kind of love that about her. [Laughs.]

For me, it’s much more interesting to get into the intricacies of who she is and why she is the way she is than to sort of…like, the midsection of Season 2 was definitely challenging, because it was that thing of, “Would she really ever fall for this guy?” Absolutely not. But she’s going to try, just because he seems like…he sort of represented truth. It’s, like, “This guy’s pursuing the truth, this guy’s the real deal, what you see is what you get.” And then she slowly realizes that that actually wasn’t even the case with him. Yeah, there were definitely moments during this season where I was thinking, “She would never do this, this is absolutely not her.” And they would say, “Well, yeah, exactly! That’s the point!”

BE: Kitty would also seem to be a challenging character to play, given that a great deal of her reactions tend to involve looks rather than lines.

KR: Absolutely. And I love that. I’m always the actor that loves to cut lines. I would much rather try to convey what I’m thinking and feeling without any dialogue. That’s, for me, the most fun. Yeah, I get to do that a lot, and it’s really nice. And our show affords that. A lot of television…I mean, I watch a lot of television, and I think that you can do that as an actor, but if the show doesn’t sort of unfold in a way that lets you do that, it’s missed. Do you know what I mean? Like, if the camera’s always moving and never letting you have your moment, then the audience won’t be able to pick up on those nuances. And I like that about our show: you can really have that. A lot of times, the camera just stays on the person that has no dialogue. I mean, if you remember, in Season 1, even with Kelsey (Grammer’s) very first scene in the whole series, when he was finding out his diagnosis, the camera never went off of his face, and he didn’t have a single line. So the show does that a lot, and I love that. Like, I’m talking to you and blabbing away, but what you’re registering is kind of more interesting than me just blabbing away. So I love that, and…I’m rambling. [Laughs.] But you know what I mean.

BE: Some critics have accused the series of offering gratuitous nudity. Not that I have a problem with that, per se, but do you view it as being only what’s necessary to achieve the dramatic effect, or do you sometimes go, “Wow, really”?

KR: I…I don’t know. [Hesitates.] Do you feel like they accuse a lot of cable shows of having too much nudity, or is it specific to this show? Because to me…and maybe I’m wrong…I don’t think that there’s more nudity or sex on this show than there would be on another show on HBO or Showtime.

BE: Well, I think at least part of it may come from the fact that the show is ostensibly a political drama first and foremost, so it’s, like, “Is it really furthering the storyline that much more to have all of this in here?”

KR: I think that the component of sex in “Boss” comes from the fact that I know the writers have always felt, and Farhad said from the very beginning, that you can’t truthfully make a show about politics and not have sex be a very big part of it.

BE: Well, I understand the sex/power aspect, of course.

KR: And look at some of the stuff that went on sexually in politics – in reality, I mean – during our first season. It was kind of insane. So…this isn’t the NBC version of what this world would be like. It’s the cable version of what this world would be like and who these people really would be. You know, people have asked me, “Do you feel comfortable playing a character that really goes there and really has so many extreme scenes?” And for me, it’s, like, if that’s all it was, then that would not be interesting to me and not something that I would be interested in being a part of. But all you need to do is watch an episode of our show to realize that it’s…it’s a really fucking good show. [Laughs.]

It’s really amazing writing, and these characters are really fascinating, every single one of them. So I just don’t really think about that component of it, because it’s part of who she is. It’s a huge part of her identity, and I think that to not be willing to go there would be doing the character a disservice and doing the material a disservice. I knew going into this show, when I read the first episode and I knew Gus Van Sant was producing it and I knew it was part of the character, so it was a decision: “Either I’m gonna go for this and really play this role or I’m not going to do it. But I’m not going to do it half-assed. Either I’m gonna do it or I’m not gonna do it.” So I made that choice to do it, and…I’ve done it. [Laughs.]

BE: Before I ask you about a few other things you’ve done over the years, I believe I’m supposed to casually bring up the new Starz Play application for Cox subscribers.

KR: [Laughs.] Yes! Let’s talk Starz Play!

BE: Have you yourself had a chance to play around with the app?

KR: Yeah! It’s amazing. You can do it on your iPad or your iPhone, and it’s, um, I guess it’s similar to… [Lowers voice.] I’m probably not supposed to say this, but it’s kind of like HBO Go, right?

BE: I don’t think that would be inappropriate to say. I mean, it is the Starz equivalent to HBO Go, so I think that’s a fair point of comparison.

KR: Well, it’s great, I know that. And this show…I mean, don’t you feel that, like all great cable shows, if you haven’t seen them, it’s fun to be able to go all the way back and start from the very beginning? We’ve done 18 shows so far, and you really have to go back and start from the beginning to fully understand and appreciate it and get the most out of it. That’s always the challenge with cable shows, especially with Starz, which is a network that not everyone gets. It’s the challenge of getting the shows out there and getting people to see them. We’ve had some endorsements recently which have helped us, like Oprah. Did you hear that?

BE: I didn’t.

KR: Oh, yeah, Oprah’s been Tweeting about it and saying that “Boss” is one of her favorite shows. And Anderson Cooper did a big thing about how he was missing “Breaking Bad,” but that “Boss” has replaced “Breaking Bad” for him. So things like that really help a show like this. We need to raise awareness and get the eyeballs on us, and I think the Starz Play app will really help with that.

BE: Hopefully it’ll do the same for “Magic City” as well.

KR: Yeah! Absolutely.

BE: Okay, time to hit on a few other things you’ve done in your career, and I’ll start by saying that I would’ve absolutely been fine if we’d bypassed “Boss” altogether and you’d just told me 30 minutes worth of anecdotes about working with Joe Flaherty on “Maniac Mansion.”

KR: [Gasps excitedly.] Oh, my gosh! I love Joe. He’s such a good friend of mine. He’s amazing.

BE: So when you started working with him, were you aware that he was Joe Flaherty?

KR: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I knew. I knew all of the “SCTV” people. I grew up in northern Ontario, and so growing up in Canada, comedy is a big deal, and “SCTV” is an even bigger deal. I mean, you grow up watching reruns of it. It was reruns of “SCTV” on all the time. [Laughs.] And “Kids in the Hall” and all that great comedic stuff. So, yeah, when I got “Maniac Mansion,” it was all the “SCTV” people. It was Joe, but it was also Eugene Levy, who was the producer of that show, and we had all the writers and all the people from “SCTV,” the hair and makeup people and everything. So it was a huge deal. And my dad was so excited, because, y’know, “SCTV” is God there. And Joe was amazing. And it was a such a cool first job for me, because we did 66 episodes, and it was very similar to “SCTV,” in that every week we would do a show, but then we would do parodies. So they would come to me and be, like, “Okay, this week you’re going to play Juliette Lewis from ‘Cape Fear,’ and we’re gonna build your ears out a little bit and we’re going to get you a retainer and the wig.” And they would teach me how to do those. Like, “This is what you need to watch for. Watch the way they hold their body and the way they say things.” And it was just the most amazing training for me as a young actor to have those comic geniuses around me, saying, “Do this and do that and…just watch the way she sits. Pick up one little trait and just keep hitting that trait.” So it was amazing. A great, great experience. And George Lucas produced it, which was bizarre, too. It was a bizarre experience. But it was great. And so fun.

BE: Do you have a preference between comedy and drama? You’ve certainly shown aptitude for both.

KR: It’s funny. I did a series a few years ago that I produced called “The Business,” which aired on IFC.

BE: I have Season 1 on DVD. And wish they’d release Season 2.

KR: I know. So do I! I loved doing that. The guy who created that always says to me, “It’s so weird to me that you do all this drama. You’re a comedian! What’s with all this dramatic shit?” [Laughs.] So, yeah, I’ve definitely done both comedy and drama, but I tend to get more dramatic offers. That tends to be what people send me. But I love doing comedy. I’m actually going to do a movie in a couple of weeks that’s a comedy, which’ll be kind of fun to do, to mix it up a bit. After playing Kitty, I need a few laughs!

BE: What’s it like being on the other side of the camera? As you say, you produced “The Business,” and you’ve written a script or two here and there.

KR: It’s great.

BE: What made you decide to go that route? Was it just to try and spice things up?

KR: I think it’s just a natural progression. I’ve been doing this for so long, and…I really love to write. And I really love just the ability to be creative without having to sort of wait for someone to give me permission to be creative. Being an actor is all about waiting for that phone call, for someone to say, “Do you want to come and do this?” Writing, for me, is the most creatively fulfilling thing that I do, just because it’s mine. And I don’t have to listen to anyone else. I love that. And I’m hoping that’s something that I can continue to do. I really, really love it. I’ve written a couple of pilot scripts. I sold the first pilot script, and the second one that I wrote, I’m out with it right now, trying to sell that. So we’ll see!

BE: Similar to the comedy-versus-drama question, do you have a preference between working in film and on television? Although the dividing line is getting smaller all the time, I suppose.

KR: I definitely have a preference as far as what kind of television. Cable television? Absolutely. Network television? Not so much. I mean, there isn’t a single show that I personally watch on network right now. Do you? What do you watch on network?

BE: Honestly, I tend to watch mostly sitcoms, and when I watch hour-longs, they tend to be sci-fi. I’m really enjoying “Revolution” at the moment.

KR: Okay, I haven’t seen that yet. I’ll have to catch up on that.

BE: C’mon. You even starred on (“Girls Club”) with Giancarlo Esposito, too. You’re slacking off.

KR: [Laughs.] I love him. I just saw him during the Emmy weekend, and he’s just the sweetest guy. Have you ever interviewed him?

BE: I have. He’s great.

KR: He’s so sweet! I just love him. He’s such a great guy. He was so happy for me and “Boss,” and I was so happy for him and everything he’s doing. God, he’s so good on “Breaking Bad”! He’s amazing. I think as an actor, if you get the opportunity to be on a great cable show and to pursue that character over the course of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 hours…there’s nothing that touches that. Doing a movie is great, but you only have two hours to sort of figure out and explore who that character is. With a great role on television, it’s just so fun to see all those little details and all those little colors of who that person is. You don’t get that in film. So I love doing “Boss.” Doing a role like this on a show like this…it’s amazing.

BE: The writers obviously have the final say, but how much input have you had on “Boss” as far as developing your character? In other words, what have you brought to Kitty that wasn’t there before you arrived?

KR: Well, in Season 1, no, not at all. Because Season 1 was basically…you know, when we started Season 1, they already had the entire season mapped out, so there wasn’t really any room for anything to change. Season 2 was a little different, just in that we had a little bit more input and there was a little bit more discussion upfront about, “Would this happen? Would that happen? Does this feel false to you?” Because at a certain point with television, it does very much become a case where these characters are ours, and it’s our interpretation of who that person is. So the directors come in and out, and…television is very interesting that way. It’s very different from film, because with film it’s all very much about the director, and the director will give you notes and focus. But in television, sometimes the directors will say, “Well, you tell me: would she do this? Would she sit there?” And you’re, like, “Well, no, she wouldn’t sit there, because she knows the door’s there and they’d see her, so she’d never do that.” “Oh, okay, let’s move it, then. Let’s have it here instead.” So it does become much more…you’re navigating that character through the world.

BE: Time to ask the obligatory Clare-on-“90210” question, and it’s a two-parter: do you have a favorite Clare storyline, and do you have a most-ludicrous storyline that still stands out?

KR: [Laughs.] Oh, Clare. It’s so funny, but, honestly, I don’t know if I have a bad memory or if I’ve just kind of blocked it out, but people ask me questions about “90210,” and I genuinely can’t…I mean, it’s just so long ago! I think I had…didn’t I have a ridiculous “I Dream of Jeannie” Halloween costume once? That’s probably the most ludicrous moment I can think of. That was weird, because that was my first American job, and it was the first thing I did when I moved here. It was right after “Maniac Mansion.” And when I auditioned for the show, I had never seen the show. That’s the truth. I called my sisters, and I called my best friend back in Hamilton, and I said, “I’m auditioning for ‘90210.’” And I knew of it, of course, because it was a huge, massive phenomenon. So I said, “I’m going to go audition, so can you tell me…I have the sides here, and I need to know who these characters are. Like, who’s Brandon? Who’s he played by?” “Oh, that’s Jason Priestley.” “Okay, so this scene is with Jason Priestley. I know who that is. What about this Donna? Who’s that?” I mean, genuinely, I had no idea. And my sisters, of course, and my best friend were freaking out. And then when I got the job, it was originally just for five episodes. So it wasn’t even really much of an audition. It was just kind of…I went in, read, and it was, like, the next day, “Oh, you got the part, it’s five episodes.” And then it turned into 99. [Laughs.] Which I love. I love that it’s one short of a hundred. I got out just in time!

BE: How did you enjoy getting to play the villainess in “Tin Man”?

KR: Oh, I loved that show! That was great. So much fun. Zooey (Deschanel) was a blast to work with, and it was a great role. Again, it was a really challenging, strong, complicated, fucked-up woman. [Laughs.] It was great, though. Those costumes were something else. My body was trashed every day. I mean, the bruises and the cuts from the armor and the weight of it… The guy who won the Academy Award for “Moulin Rouge,” he did all the costumes, so he was, uh, intense. So you wore those costumes! So, yeah, it was great. A great role and a lot of fun.

BE: Do you have any Robert Halmi stories? Or possibly an impression? It seems like everyone’s got one of those, too.

KR: He was just really, really sweet. Do you mean bad stories?

BE: No, quite the opposite. Everyone seems to love the guy.

KR: Yeah, he’s just a teddy bear. So sweet. And that movie…it’s so weird, because that’s the only science-fiction show I’ve ever done. I mean, I guess it’s technically considered sci-fi. But it’s the only one I’ve ever done, and it is just a whole other world! [Laughs.] The fans from the sci-fi world? They are loyal. I joined Twitter fairly recently – I’m trying to get better at it – but someone Tweeted me a photo of this event they were at, and there were all these girls dressed up as Azkadellia from “Tin Man.” Just really amazing costumes, with the wig and…just amazing. I was just blown away. I mean, that was a few years ago, but here are these girls dressed up like Azkadellia. I’m telling you, it’s pretty intense. I can’t imagine if you were on…like, I just did a movie with Michael Shanks, who was on “Stargate,” and the stories he told me about the fans and how intense they are…it’s amazing. [Pounds fist on table.] We need those fans on “Boss”! Where’s our crazy people dressing up like Mayor Kane and Kitty? [Laughs.] We need those Halloween costumes!

BE: Excluding “Boss” for the moment, since it’s current, do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

KR: Hmmm. [Long pause.] I’ve done a lot of indie movies that I felt…like, I did a movie I was very proud of with Mark Ruffalo called “XX/XY” which I thought was…it was work I was really proud of, and 50 people saw it, I think. So a lot of little movies like that. A lot of Sundance movies. I’m trying to think of others. But independent movies in general…I think that’s why everyone’s doing television now. The independent film world has changed so much since its heyday in the ‘90s. That’s all I did after I left “90210.” That’s all I wanted to do when I was able to do it. Nowadays…I don’t know if it’s possible to just have a career and make a living doing indie films. It’s just changed so much. I mean, a million-dollar movie back then happened all the time. Now, it’s, like, a million-dollar movie would be made for $200 thousand, and the actors would be making a hundred dollars a day, and it would maybe get into a couple of festivals. It’s changed a lot. Now you’ve got independent movies starring Jennifer Aniston, with people like that showing up at Sundance promoting these two million dollar movies. It’s just…I mean, everybody says this now, but that’s why Gus Van Sant is one of the producers of our show, that’s why Todd Haynes is doing television: because it’s really the way to continue that spirit of what independent film is without having to compromise creatively.

BE: To bring it full circle and close on “Boss,” can you tease anything at all about what happens with Kitty and her storyline in the season finale? Or is it giving too much away to say anything at all?

KR: I can just reiterate that they spent all year telling me, “Wait for 10.” And when they sent me 10 and I read it and came to the set, our show runner looked at me and was, like, “Yeah…?” And I gave her the thumbs-up and said, “Yeah.”

BE: Worth the wait?

KR: Totally worth the wait. Getting that script and reading it, I was, like, “This is one of the best pieces of material I’ve ever been handed to do.” So I was thrilled with where Kitty ended up in Episode 10. I was very happy…in a sick, twisted way. [Laughs.] And then Francis Guinan, who plays Gov. Cullen, he came into the trailer and looked at me and was basically, like, “Oh, you poor thing. You and Kane are just a match made in heaven, aren’t you?” Which made me happy…and shows exactly how warped I am. But that’s what I love about her!