In Her Own Words: Emily Bergl Opens Up About Acting, Instincts, and What Keeps Her Coming Back
Welcome to the Emily Bergl Online Interview Series — our ongoing effort to give fans the most direct, genuine access to the actress we've all been watching and loving for years. This is the kind of conversation you won't find in a standard press junket. No publicist-approved talking points, no three-minute time limits. Just Emily, talking about the work she loves.
Emily Bergl Online: Let's start somewhere a little unexpected. When you're first handed a script, what's the very first thing you look for?
Emily Bergl: Honestly? I'm looking for the moment where I don't know what the character is going to do next. That sounds weird, maybe, but if I can predict every choice a character makes from the first ten pages, I start to lose interest pretty fast. I want to find the place where the writing surprises me, because if it surprises me, there's a good chance it's going to surprise an audience too. That unpredictability — that's where the interesting work lives.
EBO: You've talked in the past about being drawn to morally complex characters. Is that a conscious choice, or does it just keep happening?
EB: A little of both, I think. I'm genuinely not that interested in playing someone who is simply good or simply bad — those characters can be fun in the right context, but they don't keep me up at night, you know? The characters that I carry home with me are the ones where I have to ask myself: okay, given everything this person has been through, given the world they're living in, does this choice actually make sense? And the answer is usually yes, even when the choice is terrible. That's what I find compelling. Finding the internal logic of someone who does things I might personally disagree with.
On the Early Days and What She Learned Fast
EBO: Looking back at your earlier work — The Rage: Carrie 2, Dawson's Creek — what do you think the younger version of you understood about acting that you've had to consciously hold onto?
EB: She was fearless in a way that I sometimes have to consciously reconnect with now. There's a thing that happens when you've been doing this long enough — you accumulate a kind of self-awareness that can work against you if you're not careful. The younger version of me just threw herself at the material. She didn't have enough experience to be afraid of being wrong, so she just went for it.
I think what I've tried to hold onto is the commitment. Even if a choice turns out to be the wrong one, committing fully to it is almost always more interesting than playing it safe. Directors can redirect a committed performance. It's a lot harder to do anything with a cautious one.
EBO: Was there a specific on-set moment early in your career that you think fundamentally shaped how you approach the work?
EB: There was a scene in The Rage — I won't get too specific because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it — where I had to access something pretty dark. And I remember standing on set thinking, I have no idea if this is going to work. The director gave me room to find it, and something shifted. I remember thinking: oh, this is what this job actually is. It's not about hitting marks and saying lines correctly. It's about finding a true emotional place and trusting that the camera will find it with you. That sounds simple, but living it for the first time is something else entirely.
On the Industry, Typecasting, and Staying Sane
EBO: The entertainment industry in the US has changed enormously since you started. Streaming, the pandemic, the strikes — how do you feel about where things are right now?
EB: It's complicated, right? On one hand, there is genuinely more interesting work being made than at almost any point in my career. The appetite for complex, character-driven storytelling — especially in television — is real, and that's exciting for actors like me who thrive in that space. On the other hand, the industry is also more unpredictable than it's ever been. Projects get greenlit and then shelved. Shows get canceled after one season before anyone has even had a chance to find them. You have to make peace with a certain amount of instability if you want to survive in this business long-term.
What keeps me grounded is honestly the work itself. When I'm in a scene and something true is happening, none of the industry noise matters. That's always been the anchor.
EBO: Has there ever been a role you turned down that you've second-guessed?
EB: (laughs) Every actor has a list. I'm not going to name names because that gets messy fast, but yes — there have been a couple of things over the years where I made a choice based on what I thought was right for me at that moment, and then watched the project go on to do really well. You try not to dwell on it. The choices you make are based on the information you have at the time, and the thing you turned down might have been a completely different experience for you than it was for whoever ended up doing it. You just don't know.
What's Next and What She's Thinking About
EBO: Without giving too much away, what's occupying your creative energy right now? What kinds of stories are you looking for?
EB: I've been really drawn lately to stories about women at turning points — not necessarily dramatic, cinematic turning points, but the quieter ones. The moment where someone realizes the life they've been living isn't the one they actually chose. I find that territory endlessly rich, and I feel like there's still so much to explore there. I'm also just looking for collaborators who are genuinely excited about what they're making. That energy is contagious. When everyone on a set is fully invested, something special tends to happen.
EBO: Last question — what do you want fans who've followed your career for years to know?
EB: Just that it genuinely means something. I know that sounds like something everyone says, but I mean it specifically. When someone tells me that a character I played made them feel less alone, or helped them understand something about themselves — that's not a small thing. That's the whole reason to do this. So thank you, really. To everyone who's been paying attention.
Emily Bergl Online will be featuring more conversations like this one throughout the year. If you have a question you'd love to see Emily answer in a future installment of the Interview Series, drop it in the comments below or reach out through our fan community page. This is your space as much as it is ours — and we're just getting started.
