Julie Ann Emery. Photo: Nogen Beck.

Julie Ann Emery. Photo: Nogen Beck.

GALO: I know that in a recent interview, you said that you saw Betsy as a good person, one who kind of justifies her actions to achieve the American Dream. Can you elaborate on that?

JAE: I think that we find ourselves in an interesting place in the last decade, but let’s [talk about] the last five years. We live in a country where you are always achieving your dream. So once you get your family into the middle class, then you’re supposed to be forever rich and in the middle class. That’s the same with the upper middle class, you have to be rich. And then it isn’t enough to be a millionaire, you have to be a billionaire — the finish line continually moves. We go into massive amounts of credit card debt in this country for the appearance of that, so that we can pretend that we live in a giant shiny house [and have this] perfect life [with] perfect photos up on Facebook, [making it] seem like we are [continuously] achieving. And I like to think of Betsy as being a typical American, one who is just willing to go into a lot of credit card debt for it.

She is determined to raise her family’s status and to do what is best for her family — to force them into the next level, and the next one, and next one. I always see how we ground her to sort of bring back to her family. Everyone knows a mom would do anything for her kids, right? I mean, people become parents and they don’t know what they would do for them. I think Betsy is the same. She just doesn’t have the same stops in her that other people do. She doesn’t know when it has gone too far.

GALO: Do you feel like people like Betsy are necessary in the world? Those people who can get stuff done no matter the cost?

JAE: I think that people like Betsy exist in politics. I don’t like to think they are necessary, [however]. I think it depends on what happens to our politics, we now require people like Betsy. I think with Betsy, I spent a lot of time working on who she idolizes or emulates, like who does she want Craig to emulate or who is she putting on the line politically on a national level. I think that we’ve let our politics get to the point where we require someone like her in order to be successful, and I wish we would move away from that as a country.

But it is fact. When we were shooting this season, which was when Governor McDonnell and his wife in Virginia were getting indicted, I spent a ton of time reading [up on everything] I could possibly find [out] about them and I went back to a lot of interviews. Not that they were like her, but there was just some justification on their end that they were like, “you don’t understand, we have to do this. This is what is required, we just got caught.” I think that is probably true to a large extent in our politics. I wish it wasn’t. But I think it is.

GALO: Now, going back to your Tennessee roots, I’m excited to talk to you about the Johnny Knoxville project that you’re in for ABC.

JAE: Yeah, ABC just passed on that, sadly. We shot the pilot in March.

GALO: Oh no, really? That’s quite disappointing. I’m sorry to hear that.

JAE: Yeah, they passed. We didn’t get picked up for a series. I was so sad about it, and I know Johnny hopes that someone would get it. It was so glorious to play a wild Southern woman. I mean, he grew up not 90 miles from me. It was wonderful to shoot that and be surrounded by Southerners.

GALO: Where did you shoot the pilot?

JAE: We shot it in L.A., but I was surrounded all day by people who understand that Southern humor, which is different than normal. It was just wonderful and Johnny was amazing. He’s really smart and it was a great experience. I am heartbroken [that] it is not going forward.

GALO: Yeah, that’s definitely a bummer for both cast and crew and television fans. Well, perhaps if a network doesn’t sign up for it, they could broach the topic of releasing it online. You know, I actually lived in the area of Knoxville that his parents are from and wanted to see how you guys would depict it because it is such an old part of town now.

JAE: The problem is that Knoxville doesn’t look like what it did. Knoxville now doesn’t look like it did then. The pilot was set in the late 1970s or 1980s. Johnny pulled a lot of stuff from his dad’s tire shop, we used a lot of pictures of his siblings in the house growing up, and it was really a great experience. It was nice. There was a picture that was a map of Tennessee of tourist attractions from the late ’70s, so it wasn’t Dollywood, it was Silver Dollar City. It was really fun. We are all sad that it isn’t moving forward.

Now, I did shoot a couple episodes of Masters of Sex.

GALO: That was my next question, actually. It says you will be playing “Jo,” “a woman who seeks help dealing with a unique relationship.” Can you tell us anything about that role?

JAE: Well, I don’t want to spoil it for anybody. I can tell you that she is definitely in a unique relationship. I spent some time working with actors that I’ve idolized for a long time. It was a really wonderful shoot. Adam Arkin directed one of my episodes and he is so wonderful and is such a great director, which is something I didn’t realize. I mean, I knew he was a good director, but he really surprised me. He was a really brilliant addition to what we are doing, but I can’t spoil anything, so I won’t say any more than that.

There’s a reveal with my character in the first episode, so I don’t want to spoil that.

GALO: Now did you watch this show prior to joining? Are you a fan?

JAE: Yes, I have watched the show prior to joining, but I am behind. I don’t have Showtime, so I usually buy [the episodes] on iTunes after the seasons come out. I guess I shouldn’t say that since I just was working with Showtime. So I was behind when we started shooting — I had to do a little catch-up before we started shooting and where the last season ended. But the season jumps a ton and is set in the 1960s, and they are really serious about it. I was in all ’60s undergarments the whole time, like girdles; they are really hardcore about the period aspect of the show.

GALO: Well, if you buy from iTunes, they still get a profit, so you shouldn’t feel bad about it. I feel like Showtime should be able to hook you up with their service, though, since this is the second show of theirs that you have been on, previously you did Dexter.

JAE: I shouldn’t say this since I work for network television, but we buy everything, like 12 seasons of stuff, and we watch [it] that way. Or we buy things the next day or whatever, but it doesn’t have to do with not having Showtime on my cable package, we are just very nomadic. It became difficult for us to keep our cable package going. But yeah, I loved being in Dexter. Fiona [Camp] was cuckoo. My character in that was so deliciously cuckoo and you didn’t realize she was crazy until the end of it. She was delicious. I really loved her.

GALO: Is that a fun role to play — being a little unhinged?

JAE: It is challenging. It is a very emotional role because before you know she is bananas, you think she is mourning the whole time. So, I mean, every scene turns into something emotional. It was draining that way, but really fun. It was also really fun to just try that head thing and to think she was in mourning and that they were completely in love. Sort of explore what a character can talk herself into. It makes a character who can speak their own reality.

Oddly, that was really good preparation for Betsy Kettleman, right? I mean, Betsy believes more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known or seen that she speaks her own word. They are standing over a pile of money and she is like, “there is no money.” So I like that headcase of a character that doesn’t think what I do.

GALO: Now is there another big, current series that you’d love to join?

JAE: It will never happen in a million years because I am an American, but Game of Thrones. The books were crack for me. I couldn’t get the next one soon enough, and I would stay up till three or four o’clock in the morning reading them. They were crack for me. I’m a huge fan of the show, but it will never happen because I am American. It will never, ever, ever happen, but I would die to be in that show.

GALO: Maybe you could work on an accent?

JAE: I have done a lot of British stuff. I’m working on a workshop for a play where my character is British, so I’ve done a lot of dialect work, but it will never happen. I think Peter Dinklage was their limit on Americans.

GALO: Well, maybe you could offer to get killed off? [Laughs] They seem quite keen on killing off characters lately — that season finale was something.

JAE: There you go. I am a giant fan of that show. I just love it.

GALO: Are there any projects that you have in the works that I may not know about, stuff you are excited about working on?

JAE: Well, Masters of Sex is finished up, and I have something else that I’ve been working on that I don’t want to divulge just yet. I’ve been in a lot of secret things lately. Like with Better Call Saul, I wasn’t even allowed to tell anyone I was cast. I couldn’t tell my family. They were like “OK, you can tell you husband,” and I was like, “obviously, I’m telling him.” I wasn’t allowed to tell my friends. I was going back and forth to Albuquerque for work and we shot the entire series, and I couldn’t tell anyone until they announced my character in November.

That was one of the hardest things ever because I was such a huge Breaking Bad fan. People would be like, “oh, Fargo was so great! Are you doing anything now?” — almost with a sorry tone in their voice — and I was like, “I’m doing something amazing now, I just can’t tell you!” So I’m lining up a lot of things that I can’t talk too much about lately.

GALO: Is that something you run into a lot — that secrecy?

JAE: I think it is happening more and more now because of the Internet. One little whisper of half of a spoiler just takes off like wildfire and people on news channels quote Twitter now. I think that the world we live in now is very immediate and so a lot of [information] reaches [people] really quickly. So I think it is probably going to happen more and more, but it feels so silly when you are in the middle of it. I have to say that I can’t talk about it and people are like “no, really tell me!” And I’m like, “I can’t legally tell you.”

It feels silly at the time, but I do fully understand it. Especially in the Breaking Bad world, there are so many twists that come out of nowhere. I understand them being secretive about it and not wanting for stuff to get out. That’s the fun of watching it; I would never want to mess up someone’s experience of watching [the twists]. I’m a total fangirl myself. I don’t want stuff ruined for me.

GALO: Our culture is definitely spoiler centric.

JAE: Yes. I think this is something we will see more and more of. It is tough, but I think it will still be there. But I will say that the thing I can’t talk about is really cool.

GALO: Well, I would assume that when you join the Breaking Bad universe, all you want to do is brag.

JAE: Oh my gosh, you want to yell it from the highest mountain. I mean, every actor I know wanted to be on the spin-off. You want to share it with people and say this amazing thing happened, but you can’t. That was a really hard thing. But on the flip side of that, really watching fans discover the episodes with each new one, there is no substitute for that.

GALO: Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with me, and good luck on whatever it is you’re working on. I can’t wait to find out more about it as time goes on!

JAE: Thank you!

Catch Julie Ann Emery on Showtime’s Masters of Sex this Sunday at 10 PM ET/PT. Still can’t get enough? You can follow her on Twitter @julieannemery to stay in the know about her current and future endeavors.