Elliot Segal: Hello?
Annie Wersching: Hello!
Elliot Segal: Annie? How the hell are you!?
Annie Wersching: I’m great, how are you?
Elliot Segal: I’m mad at you is what I am.
Annie Wersching: Oh dear! Why?
Elliot Segal: Uh because a big Hollywood star comes to DC and runs around yet doesn’t have time to come by and see us.
Annie Wersching: Um I don’t remember an invitation!
Elliot Segal: Uh didn’t know you were going to have any off time!
Annie Wersching: (laughs) I had lots of off-time, I did lots of sight-seeing.
Elliot Segal: Oh did you really? Did you enjoy our town?
Annie Wersching: I loved it, I’ve never been there and I really really loved it. I did a lot of stuff, I packed a lot in.
Diane Stupar-Hughes:: Exactly how long were you here?
Annie Wersching: Um I think for like two, two and a half weeks maybe?
Diane Stupar-Hughes: Oh wow.
Elliot Segal: Wait, where are you from?
Annie Wersching: I’m from St. Louis, Missouri.
Elliot Segal: Right, okay. So may I ask your age if that’s not offensive?
Annie Wersching: Yeah, 31.
Elliot Segal: So you’re 31 and St. Louis isn’t that far, and you’ve never been to DC before?
Annie Wersching: I’ve never been to DC. Isn’t that horrible?
Elliot Segal: Communist!
Annie Wersching: I know!
Elliot Segal: So what’d you do while you were here?
Annie Wersching: Um, gosh. Well we toured, as a cast, the NCTC (National Counterterrorism Center) where we met all the people who do what we’re pretending to do on TV. I went to the zoo, I went to the monuments obviously, I went to the museum of African art, saw a Shakespeare show…
Elliot Segal: Oh god.
Diane Stupar-Hughes: Alright, what bars?
Elliot Segal: Yeah, give me something good.
Annie Wersching: Lots of bars in Georgetown. Oh I went to the one where like a lot of old Presidents sat in the booth.
Diane Stupar-Hughes: Old Ebbitt?
Annie Wersching: Maybe. Georgetown?
Diane Stupar-Hughes: Actually Old Ebbitt is right near the White House.
Annie Wersching: Oh wait, no.
Elliot Segal: Mr. Smiths?
Annie Wersching: No…
Elliot Segal: Did you go to a place called Camelot’s? Sound familiar?
Annie Wersching: No… no…
Elliot Segal: They refer to it as a jiggle joint… No? Damn you!
Annie Wersching: Wow, I missed out on a lot of good places it sounds like! (laughs)
Elliot Segal: So let me ask you something, obviously with 24 kinda changing locations, I don’t know if you’re finished shooting the whole season, will you guys be coming back periodically or not?
Annie Wersching: We had plans to, the season actually is finished now. We finally finished in December, end of December. And there was all this talk about “We’re going back to DC, going back to DC” and then it just never happened. Which is a bummer, because honestly, even a year and a half after our DC trip it’s still like the talk of the season. We had so much fun in DC.
Elliot Segal: Oh good for you. By the way, how peeked are you to finally get this thing on television?
Annie Wersching: Oh my gosh. I’m so, so incredibly excited. It was such a tease when it almost aired in ’08, and I just can’t believe it’s finally only like three or four days away.
Elliot Segal: Cause wasn’t the last time, I wanna say the last episode. I mean there was the [24] Redemption thing, but the last episode, wasn’t it like May of 2007?
Annie Wersching: Yeah. We started shooting this [season], my first day of shooting was September 7th of 2007.
Diane Stupar-Hughes: Oh my god. That’s like a lifetime ago!
Annie Wersching: Yeah.
Elliot Segal: So how sweet is that? You finished shooting and then you just like sat on your ass?
Annie Wersching: Well no, we’ve been shooting, up until this last December. It’s like the longest it’s ever taken.
Elliot Segal: Oh you guys are slow.
Annie Wersching: I know, right? (laughs)
Diane Stupar-Hughes:: What do you do now?
Annie Wersching: Now I’m just starting a lot of press for this show. Then um, I don’t know, we’ll see. I guess I’ll start finding out what my next project will be, or figuring it out.
Elliot Segal: Two things, let me start with you getting onto the show. I know it’s kinda like the cool Hollywood thing to say, “Yeah I mean of course I knew the show, when I was approached I started to research it” but you were like a super geek fan of the show, weren’t you?
Annie Wersching: I was a super geek fan, I’ve seen every episode of every season, as it aired on television – not renting a DVD or any of that. So needless to say, even after filming it for a year and a half, it’s still such an incredibly surreal experience.
Diane Stupar-Hughes:: Were you nervous meeting Kiefer [Sutherland] for the first time?
Annie Wersching: I was pretty nervous. In my audition process I was supposed to have read with him a few times, and then it didn’t happen. So my first time meeting him was actually my very first scene shot, so yeah, I was terrified. (laughs)
Elliot Segal: So you’re in this season coming up, you’re in almost every scene with him, correct?
Annie Wersching: Yeah I mean we have a lot of stuff together. We’re paired as partners kinda out in the field, so yeah, we have quite a good amount of time together.
Elliot Segal: So was it comfortable? As long as it took to shoot, was it always comfortable or did you two fight at all?
Annie Wersching: No, no fighting, no fighting. It was very very comfortable. The whole atmosphere of the whole show is so wonderful because they’ve all been together for so long and they’re basically a family. So it was just really really fun. Dedicated, and intense at times as far as trying to get the scenes and the show to be as good as it possibly can be, but also a lot of fun.
Elliot Segal: Hey can I read you two little clips that I pulled out of articles about you and the upcoming season?
Annie Wersching: Sure!
Elliot Segal: And I want you to just agree or disagree with them okay?
Annie Wersching: Sure, okay.
Elliot Segal: No, no, I’m being serious. “Annie will be 2009′s star to watch.”
Annie Wersching: Whoa. Are you making that up?
Elliot Segal: I swear to god.
Annie Wersching: Um, I’ll agree to that. Sure. Why would I say no to that? (laughs)
Elliot Segal: Good for you. True or false, “She eclipses everyone else on the screen”?
Annie Wersching: What? Did my mom write these?
Elliot Segal: I swear to god, right out of articles.
Annie Wersching: Wow, very cool.
Elliot Segal: That’s a very nice thing to have been said.
Annie Wersching: That’s very cool, yes. I certainly hope I live up to it!
Elliot Segal: And I will tell you this, in reading about the season, I mean you watched the show… Did you like the end of season 6? As a fan of the show, were you a huge fan of the end of season 6?
Annie Wersching: (pause) Um.. Well, you know.. Season 6..
Elliot Segal: That’s a no, that’s fine.
Annie Wersching: Well here’s the thing, even 24 in it’s worst season or whatever people thought and all that, is still one of the best out there. So you know, it’s all relative.
Elliot Segal: What I was gonna say was that a lot of people out there, and by people I mean like critics and stuff, they were talking about how the second half of season 6, both with fans and critics, was not the high point of the series.
Annie Wersching: Right.
Elliot Segal: But everything I’ve read is that you kinda have to forget that, and just from what they’re saying, what they’ve seen so far of season 7, it’s right back and as good if not better than you want it to be.
Annie Wersching: Yeah, the interesting thing is that I think it was almost good for the show to have season 6 happen. Cause it really made everybody really wanna just come back with a bang for season 7. They tried really hard to get it perfect and not have any lulls in the season. Sometimes in mid-season there’s a few episodes where it’s like “Okay, now what do we do?” – this gave us some incentive to make it the best it could possibly be. So I think people will be very excited to see it.
Elliot Segal: Good deal. Last thing and I’ll let you jump – you can burp on cue?
Annie Wersching: Oh goodness! (laughs) Um, I’m afraid to say true… the answer might be true.
Elliot Segal: That’s okay, do it!
Annie Wersching: No! (laughs)
Elliot Segal: Why? Oh but then I wouldn’t be a lady!
Annie Wersching: (laughs) Wow, I think that might be frowned upon by FOX and my new publicist.
Elliot Segal: You know, you’re absolutely right. If anyone would be mad about one of their stars burping on the radio, it would be FOX.
Annie Wersching: (laughs) Oh dear.
Elliot Segal: Okay, I’ll let you off the hook.
Annie Wersching: Ok. (laughs)
Elliot Segal: Sunday night and Monday night it’s the two-night four hour season 7 kick off of 24. Hey Annie, it’s very nice to talk to you, you’re very very nice.
Annie Wersching: Thank you, you too!