I spoke with Brittany Allen earlier today and started by asking her if she had any hesitation about deciding to submit herself for an Emmy.

No, there's definitely no harm in trying.

Um, and at the point of submitting myself, I was already starting to appear on some prediction lists.

Um, the Hollywood Reporter had, had a list out, Gold Derby.

Some of these, uh, sites which, which anticipate who might be, um, the projected nominees, um, had me at the top of their list.

So I figured, well, you know, that they're, they're suggesting that.

They're seeing the work.

How did you approach playing this woman who was confronting the end of her life without it being overly sentimental or overly dramatic?

I spoke with Brittany Allen earlier today and started by asking her if she had any hesitation about deciding to submit herself for an Emmy.

No, there's definitely no harm in trying.

Um, and at the point of submitting myself, I was already starting to appear on some prediction lists.

Um, The Hollywood Reporter had, had a list out, Gold Derby.

Some of these, uh, sites which, which anticipate who might be, um, the projected nominees, um, had me at the top of their list.

So I figured, well, you know, that they're, they're suggesting that.

They're seeing the work.

I can't, I can't

Yeah

... you know, slashed and, you know, she, she's, she's a very strong woman who has, um, an honest emotional arc.

So that was there for me, and it was something that I connected with right away.

And then, um, yeah, I mean, I, I had seen Grave Encounters, and I saw that these guys liked real acting.

They, or no, sorry, I should, not e- acting that doesn't feel like acting, you know?

Use your imagination.

It really, it really was a great opportunity to let your imagination go wild.

And then once you kind of found what, what worked for you in terms of, you know, what, what created that fear in you, um, I don't know, that was, that was terrifying, actually.

What about you on this side playing the patient? What did you find?

Yeah, so all the research was entirely left up to us, other than when you arrive on set, there is always a doctor there to advise on how you might be feeling, at what stage of the illness you're at, and how the medication would be impacting you.

So that was really helpful for kind of last-minute tweaks to...

the physical state that I was in.

But before filming and while, you know, over the few months that I was working on the show, I was devouring as many books as I could, memoirs on dying, on people who had terminal cancer and just wrote these extremely moving, vulnerable stories.

books before they passed away, uh, when breath becomes air was kind of the, the, the most impactful to me.

Um, but I, I, I was, I always, I, you know, I had, I had books just kind of laying all around the house, um, to, to, I, I got into Buddhism through it actually.

What is being on All My Children, what did that bring to the rest of your career going forward?

Wh- what do you mean?

Well, when I first won it, um, and [laughs] this is, uh, I, I think my thought was, "Oh, my parents will be proud of this.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna gift this to them." Um, but then they were so afraid their house got broken into that they were so afraid that someone was gonna steal it, so it just lived in their closet [laughs] for many years until finally I said, "You know what? I think I want that.

I think I'm ready to, um, own that and feel proud of that." I, I don't know.

Um, I think as...

It, it's probably, it's just, it's probably a condition I have, but I think it's also a condition of being an actor and, you know, being in a business where you're always, you know, your ambitions are high, and every, every job, every award, every, you know, notice of acclaim, it's, it's really easy to just kind of think, "Oh, how will this kind of help me get to the next stage?" And, and I'm, and I'm...

And so then the stage that you're at is no longer something to be proud of.

... have been in there had you not done, done that work?

... weakness and how you dealt with that.

Yeah.

I, I remember feeling, um, just so weak.

Like, I, for me personally, I needed, like, meals and things like that, and that just wasn't something at the time that my church did for women who miscarried, and not my current church, my last church.

And, um, I, but I was scared to ask for help because I didn't want people to look down on me and think like, "Well, why would you need meals? I didn't need meals." And I, I really struggled, and instead of reaching out for help, I, I just didn't do it.

I clammed up, and I suffered on my own, and, um, I think that that just leads to self-pity as well, and isolation, which is the opposite of what we see Jesus doing.

Like, He's reaching out to others.

Mm