There’s something about music that makes me feel like a different person, that feels like an escape.
Sometimes I’ll go into a shop and speak in a different accent to see if I can pull it off. But then somebody will be like, ‘Where did you say you were from again?’ And then I panic, and my accent dissolves, and I pretend like I wasn’t doing it in the first place.
Have fun, be yourself, enjoy life and stay positive.
I’ve learned a lot about the limits of what I can do, as an artist, or what I’m willing to do. It’s a lot of responsibility to carry a show and to speak to people on different levels.
There’s something really unique about ‘Orphan Black’ is that it has a lot of female leads, so it’s about a lot of women’s stories, but it’s not women’s stories in terms of trying to find a guy or keep a guy; it’s about entirely other things.
I’ve worked on shows where the lead actor doesn’t know their lines, doesn’t care, and it affects everybody – the crew, the director, the other actors. It’s definitely a responsibility.
The most bizarre demographics come up to me. Men in their 50s come up to me and are like, “Alison is my favorite. I hated her at first, and now I love her.” I don’t know what that says about people’s psychology.
The way people love sci-fi is how I love cartoons.
Clothing and makeup and hair and all of that so much indicates the kind of person you are inside and the person you are presenting on the outside. Sometimes they are in conflict, and sometimes they are the same. That psychology of the exterior informing the interior is just so interesting.
My mom’s a translator, my dad’s a woodworker; that’s the world I grew up in, that’s the world I’m most comfortable in. The whole idea of Hollywood or any of that other stuff that unfortunately goes along with film, that wasn’t part of my upbringing, thankfully.
It’s wild to be seen differently and have more visibility, but it’s rewarding.
It’s the reason we go to films and watch television: to escape the mundane nature of life and see another world and see ourselves in that other world. I think that’s what sci-fi does so well.
I started out as a dancer as a kid; I’ve been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.
I love people, watching people interact. It’s a lot of psychology. We learn about ourselves by watching other people’s lives on the screen.
We’re living in a world where the response is really instantaneous, even though it’s delayed by a few months. It comes at you pretty fast.
I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.
Going back is a nice way to give definition to each of the characters because they are so vastly different. I would never want them to get blended together.
I’m attracted to stories that excite my imagination, stories that, as I’m reading the script, I feel it, I can see it, I can hear the characters. I’m attracted to characters that are real, that tap into something inside me that I haven’t explored yet.
I wanted to get everything right. I was super nerdy and academic. I got so much satisfaction out of getting good grades.