Shiri Appleby

Growing up on set, the director is the person that, as a child, you admire and gives you validation.

I think from here on it's up to me to prove that I'm growing up and that I have other things to say, but in terms of the show it definitely gave me all of the opportunities I've had so far.

I find that people are constantly coming up to me now. There's been a definite surge of people recognizing me and I'm not sure if it has to do with the DVDs or not, but I've sort of assumed that it does because the show has been off the air for three years now.

Right now, my focus is really acting and directing. But I see the creativity and the work that goes into building a network, and it's fascinating to me. If those doors open for me... I think just learning as much as I can at this point is really what it's about.

It feels nice after a long career as an actor to find your own voice and support that.

I'm the field producer whose job it is to manipulate the contestants to get them to do what we really want them to do to get the footage to make the show.

As an actor, you don't really have a say or a voice in what the conversation of the show is going to be. So, as an actor, I'm just trying to make sense of why the character is making these choices, and somehow, in that way, you can sympathize or root, at least not detest, what this person is doing. That's, at least, my job in telling that story.

Back in the day when I was on The WB, I may have only had one or two female directors throughout the entire run of a series.

I'm not going to do the story any service if my acting isn't strong.

They ask questions like 'do you believe in aliens' and those types of things. They were really interested in aliens, and that was really something that the Japanese have an interest in, and they are also very big fans of romances.

There are a lot of different sides to me. I don't know if I'm always peaches-and-cream.

The people were just so lovely and accommodating and had really interesting questions and it was just interesting to see how the show is actually received in so many different countries.