GALO: Roland Emmerich directed this film, and he is known for helming big-budget films like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. I imagine the scale of this film was massive, especially considering its presidential subject matter and status as a summer blockbuster. Have you always wanted to work on a large-scale film like this?

JG: Everybody does. As an actor, and somebody involved in entertainment, that’s playing on the biggest scale. It’s like going to the biggest playground in the world; it’s like going to Disney World! It’s so exciting and, of course, intimidating. But it is so thrilling to get to play on that level.

GALO: Now, you said that you got in on some of the action in the film. Did you find it to be demanding or challenging to take on a role that required physical action?

JG: Well, I’m not gun-wielding or anything in the movie [laughs]. With most of my career being on television, I usually get to play quirky characters and comedic roles. But with this movie, what was great was to be pushed on the emotional side of being a woman and a person dealing with the explosions and the terror and all these insane things happening around you. I’ve never really been on that side of things as an actor, so, although it wasn’t big stunts or anything, it was a great and fun challenge for me to do something different.

GALO: Do you have any good set stories from the movie?

JG: I don’t know if I can give you one particular story, but what’s great about Roland, as a director, is the scale of all of his sets — the Pentagon, the White House, the Capitol Building, the White House Gardens, Air Force One and Black Hawk helicopters. What was so exceptional time and time again about Roland was that, even when the actors were exhausted, he never lost his joy. He was one of the nicest, if not the nicest director, I have ever worked for. He was so kind to actors, so fun, and just having a great time, despite the fact that the man probably did not ever sleep. It would be hour 16 or 17 and everyone was slowing down, but he was so happy and awake and ready to go. That just amazed me.

GALO: One thing that people outside the industry are fascinated by is just how actors, like yourself, go about getting an audition for such a large film as White House Down, or really any audition for that matter? What is that process like?

JG: It’s so hard. It is such a weird town, Hollywood, and it is designed to keep you out, as an actor trying to climb the ranks. It really becomes about relationships and finding people who believe in you. For an actor, especially an actor at my level who does a lot of TV, auditions for movies come along very rarely, maybe once or twice a year for me personally. It’s a catch 22 because if you are doing television — which is usually the easiest thing to get started with simply because there are more roles to be cast — then people say, “Oh, you’ve done television, so you are a television actor.” Once casting directors bring you in for their projects, relationships start to grow and they get to know you and it takes them believing in you. That is how I got brought in for White House Down. This casting director would just think of me for things, and it wouldn’t be every day or every week, but I would go in every six months or a year, and he thought of me for this role. And I was blown away by it because, again, these are not the kind of auditions I get.

GALO: Is the waiting process between auditions and callbacks as grueling as it sounds?

JG: It’s horrible [laughs]. You have to try to stay sane in this business. You know, I have dogs and I try to go on hikes, and I go crazy to my husband and my best friends. You just try and stay confident and [be] decent [to] yourself, as a person. The more rejection you face — which having been around for over 10 years, there has been a lot of it — the more it becomes a normal thing and you get over it and try to move on to the next thing. But in the moment, it is total torture [laughs].

GALO: But when you get roles like White House Down and How I Met Your Mother, does it make it all worth it?

JG: Oh yeah. It makes it all so satisfying and worth it. At the end of the day, you have to focus on the work itself, which is your salvation. I had White House Down, which I was so over-the-moon grateful to get, but then there are periods where I had nothing going on. I’m doing a fantastic Web series that a good friend of mine is writing and directing, and I’m co-starring with my husband. We are just having so much fun, just goofing around all day, with one camera, no crew and no hair and makeup. We’re just playing, because that keeps you in touch with what you are actually doing all this for, which is the love of creating. It’s so easy to forget that and get stuck in this rollercoaster of approval and auditions and being wanted.

GALO: It’s a tricky and frequently unforgiving business, I assume.

JG: Yes it is. The rumors are true.

GALO: Now that you have gained experience in both film and television, is there one that you find easier to play or envelope yourself in?

JG: What’s magical about film is that there is so much more time. You have so much time from the audition to when you are actually on set, in the vast majority of cases. I got White House Down in July of last year, after having auditions in May and early June. And then my first day on set was October and my last was December, so it’s a good six or seven months of being able to roll around in there. Whereas in television, very often you get the job a day or two before you start shooting and five to eight days later it is over, unless your character goes back, and then you get a little warning. That is exciting for television, in that it is go, go, go and you get to do a lot of thinking on your feet, but there is nothing like the luxury of time with a character and role.

GALO: As you look to the future, do you have any immediate roles lined up?

JG: Not really. As of right now, I am working the Web series with my husband and my friend, and we are working on getting that out. It is a really great collaborative process, but it is really all I have going on right now. It’s called Jon and Jen Are Married, and it’s about a married couple who are having a mid-30s crisis and about them just being bored. And in their boredom, they decide to get a little crazy and really push the boundaries of what it is to be alive and normal in society. It gets a little crazy and fun. And it will be online in June.

GALO: Since you don’t have any roles on your horizon, are there any specific kinds of roles that you would love to tackle that are really intriguing to you? I know recently some actresses have expressed their interest in being a Bond girl. What about you? What are you itching to try in Hollywood?

JG: My dad, who is a hippie kindergarten teacher and who went to Woodstock and was arrested for protesting Vietnam, raised me as a little feminist and I continued to study a lot of that in college. With that background, I’ve always loved political dramas and movies and topics, and I would love to work on something that blends both passions of mine. But I feel like I’ve been so lucky that even with this sporadic career that I have had, I’ve gotten to explore so many facets of myself. I consider myself sort of a quirky, neurotic, humorous person, and I’ve been able to do a lot of that. And I’ve even been able to be the occasional Sicilian serial killer. I’ve been able to be so many things on screen, but that is one topic I have never had the opportunity to do. Maybe it will be something I have to write for myself, who knows. I would love to blend those two passions of mine. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

“White House Down,” starring Jackie Geary as Jenna, opens nationwide on June 28, 2013. “Jon and Jen Are Married” premieres online in June, with updates posted at https://www.facebook.com/JonandJenAreMarried.

Featured image: Actress Jackie Geary. Photo Credit: Dana Patrick.

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