Do you mind playing such a villain, or do you want fans to like you?

I do want the fans to like me a little bit! This season, she does have her evil moments still, but the way she deals with Bill’s wife, I think, is very surprising. You leave that moment where she starts to glamour her and you think, “Oh my God, she’s going to do something horrible to his wife and I’ll never like this character,” but she doesn’t. She’s sort of taken care of in a way. Further on, in episode ten, I think you’ll see more of those moments. I think it makes her a more interesting character and it’s so much more rewarding to play a character who has those sides to her.

You’ve taken a lot of abuse this season, but at least you get to wear some fabulous clothing. I thought Lorena’s riding outfit that she got burned up in was kind of insanely wonderful.

Thank you! Yes, they worked very hard on that outfit. It’s a shame that it was only onscreen for about two seconds. [Laughs] I was set on fire, but I think I had about four different fittings just for that outfit. I’m an extremely lucky girl that I get to wear all these fabulous clothes.

So tell me about this chance meeting with J.J. Abrams that helped launch your career.

Oh, yes. I used to work at Morton’s in Burbank, for about seven years. J.J. used to come in to write when he was working on Alias — he’d come in with his laptop late in the evening and have a steak. I was an insane fan of the show and I knew who he was and I didn’t want to approach him and say anything, but we kind of struck up an acquaintance because I was a hostess and I knew he needed the one table with an outlet next to it for his laptop. So, after about four or five of these times when he’d come in and need that table and we’d have a bit of a back-and-forth, it came out that I was an actress. He started scolding me that I hadn’t mentioned it before and hadn’t been giving him my headshot.

But you couldn’t have!

I know! I said, if I’d done that, he would have been turned off. He was very generous and very gracious and he said, “Please send me your stuff,” which I did, but I thought, “If I just send him my picture and a resume with nothing on it, it’s not going to go anywhere.” So I started to come up with a very clever cover letter about why I needed to be on Alias, full of inside jokes about the show like how I look amazing in colored wigs or how I can pretend that Glendale is the Czech Republic. Apparently, they loved it there and passed it around at the writer’s table or something, and a few weeks later, I got the call from their casting office that they were offering me a little part.

And who did you play?

I play the girl who blows up. I’m literally onscreen for a couple of seconds, and then I blow up.

You’ve gotten blown up, burned up, your head’s gotten twisted around…you have a very interesting resume, Mariana.

I have. I think I’ve died many, many times on TV, and this show is adding interesting some new atrocities to the list.

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