BETSY BRANDT

After you leave a show - any show, but for me especially after 'Breaking Bad' - you hope for a job to help soften the blow now that you don't have this amazing job anymore, and you hope that it's good.

For 'Breaking Bad,' it was like, that's one of the best pilots, probably the best pilot I have ever read.

Everybody - even huge movie stars - have downs. That's just how it is. The work ebbs and flows. My manager and I were saying, 'Let's remember that in 2013 we were soooo busy.' So whenever it is that we're not, maybe it'll come back again. Maybe it won't. But you've gotta love the ride.

I can tell you, we had a lot of fun at 'Breaking Bad.' You have to.

I feel 'Breaking Bad' - maybe everybody says this about their show - I feel like this show is so special that I don't 'know' that I necessarily really know what it's like to do a regular show.

When I read both pilots for 'Breaking Bad' and the 'Michael J. Fox Show,' I turned to my husband in real life, and I'm like, 'That is an amazing script.'

In high school, a teacher's friend in the police department asked me to go into a bar and flash a fake ID saying I was 21 even though I wasn't. They were assuming the bar wasn't carding people. Anyway, she forgot to ask for it back. I used it all freshman year in college.

I'd like to be on the next 'Six Feet Under,' whatever that is.

I love opening night, and I love doing plays. But one of my favorite parts about doing a play or working on a new play is rehearsal.

It'd be great to do some other TV. 'Breaking Bad' is definitely my home, but I'd love to have a nice hiatus gig, like a recurring role. Or to do a good film. I'd like to do a Woody Allen movie. I really didn't have a plan, and that's okay with me.

I like 'Mad Men,' and I think 'The Killing' is pretty great too. I like 'Brothers & Sisters.'

For me, I need to be able to show up on set and fart around and goof around. If I can have that, when I'm not acting, then when I'm acting I can go however deep and dark and bad I need to. I developed that more with 'Breaking Bad' because I've never worked on anything as dark for as long.

I believe gelato is meant to be treated as medicine and taken daily as a prescription.

My son is pre-K and my daughter is in elementary school. So they don't watch the show. But my son knows that I'm on it - he says that 'Breaking Bad' is his favorite show even though he's never seen it. It's really great that he says that, because it makes me look like mother of the year.

Hank Schrader is a really good guy - and so is Dean Norris.

After 'Breaking Bad,' I couldn't see myself liking anything nearly as much.

The great thing about being in this business is that you meet people, and I met Sally Struthers.

If I can keep it light in between scenes, then that helps me dig down further than if I try and stay at that constant place all day. That's just me. Every actor's got their thing. But that's what I do.

I got my Equity card playing Helena in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' and I think that's the first job I got that was an offer.

I'm not anymore because I haven't kept up with my certification, but I was a certified actor combatant in rapier, dagger, hand-to-hand, and quarterstaff.

I will say, 'The Michael J. Fox Show' is funnier than 'Breaking Bad' - not that 'Breaking Bad' isn't funny, but this is funnier and slightly less violent.

The great thing with comedy is that I don't memorize ahead of time like I did on 'Breaking Bad.' With 'Breaking Bad,' I wanted to know those words inside and out, really have my lines down so I could say them verbatim. But with comedy, you keep it a lot more loose.

Sunday I try to make up for some sleep I lost the week before and bank some for the next week.

I'd never done a sitcom until the 'Michael J. Fox Show.' I'd never even guest starred in one until then. So it was definitely a learning curve, which is what I wanted. I wanted to do something new, to challenge myself.

That undeniable love for your child... that's something I totally get. And the bumps in the road, too. Like, any parent that thinks they have a perfect relationship with their child is a liar, or they're just not present.