PCM's Rebekah participated in a conference call with actress Elisa Donovan. Elisa is currently starring as Gayle in the NBC online show In Gayle We Trust. Available here !

Q: Gayle is very sweet whereas your characters on Clueless and Sabrina were very saucy. What is Gayle like to play?

E.D.: You know, that's so funny, I've been asked that before and well I have to say I am really pleased to be playing such a nice person now because you take these characters home with you and you live with them.

And it's amazing what a difference it is to bring home such a nice person who's happy to be there and everybody's happy to see her. And it really is a very different experience.

But I love being, you know, the spice in the soup which is Amber or Morgan or those kinds of characters but they generally are the spice in the soup so you can have too much of them or else it overpowers everything.

But somebody like Gayle can be around all the time because everybody loves her. You know, and she's just as flawed as everyone else but she's, you know, the hero. And I love it; it's been so much fun. I base her a lot on my mom.

And my mom is not from the Midwest but she has this just relentlessly positive attitude that you could just see the edges of her patience being stretched after an inordinate amount of pressure. So I kind of base Gayle on my mom who I love being around so.

E.D.: I think they made me deserving of this one - to finally get to play someone nice. I always approach characters from the opposite place so if you're playing somebody, it's the old idea of like if you're playing Iago in Shakespeare who's this horrible, horrible man you have to see the human side of him or why he does these things.

That's an extreme example but you look at the opposite side of things. So in terms of Gayle or Amber or Morgan I would just always see them as these very human people who just had specific needs and saw the world from a certain perspective.

And so with Gayle, I sometimes look at her relentless positivity as, you know, maybe she's just afraid of losing some things on the other side so she doesn't want to hurt people. And you kind of look at it from the opposite perspective so that there's a certain level.

Because if you watch Gayle there is just a little bit of impatience that comes up towards the ends of certain episodes. And you see she does have a boiling point; she's certainly human. But she has a bit more patience than most.

Q: I'm guessing you and the writers must all have kids, at least know about family and juggling all that. Can you talk a little bit about that and just how that's become a part of the show because it's very real.

E.D.: Well it's funny, Brent does have children, yes, the creator and director. I don't have children but many of my friends do have children and they have all responded so strongly. I mean it's really funny because I think all right well I'm having a great time with having a child onscreen but I don't have the actual experience of it.

And in particular one girlfriend of mine in New York, (Eileen), who's a teacher, called me and was just in hysterics and she said this is what we do with my son at the table.

And she has literally had that experience with the voices and the things. And she is like oh I can't even tell you how great it is. And she passes it on to all of her associates because she's a kindergarten teacher. And everyone clearly has had that experience before.

And I have nieces and nephews and friend's kids but that's what I'm drawing from.

Q: Which one of the insurance stories from the show do you like?

E.D.: They're all hilarious but I love the man who comes into get insurance for his dog. In the unlikely event of his demise.

And it's hilarious because he's clearly delusional first of all but he thinks that the dog is completely in love with him and needs his companionship and then you realize that the dog has simply left the building and is desperately trying to get away from this man.

So I think it's really something that I've realized and people who deal in insurance that you are really dealing with people's personalities and their fears and their apprehension at losing they love and it gets incredibly personal which is really something that I never thought about it from that angle.

So we kind of exacerbate that dynamic to the fullest. But it is pretty real because people are talking about losing things that they love so I guess it can be pretty intense.

Q: Who's your favorite resident of Maple Grove?

E.D.: Oh that's a good question. You know what, I'd have to say - aside from my husband and my son I would have to say my rival because he just really, really needs a lot of love; he needs a lot of support. And I think that, you know, Gayle is really the person to get him on the right road.

Q: Earlier you mentioned how much you were enjoying having an onscreen kid and whatnot. Can you tell me just some of the things that you have learned about kids through this?

E.D.: In particular I just love Shane, he's just a doll, this kid. And I have definitely learned that, you know, it's really easy to be the onscreen mom or the buddy and you can, you know, they look up to you. And I really have learned the amount of patience and time and nurturing it takes to really have a child.

I work with them for 12 hours or day or really eight hours I think is what kids can work. And I realize how impressionable they are and how anything that you say they really pick up.

And with Shane in particular I really, really adore him and we had a great rapport immediately. And he's really curious and really smart. And he's one of these kids that is - he's unusual.

I think I was an unusual kid. Unusual meaning that he's really perceptive and he talks about, you know, feelings and things he observes. And he's a really great kid. And it teaches me about life in general. So I'm enjoying it.

Q: What are the similarities and differences between you and your character Gayle?

E.D.: Okay well I think the similarities are I really do just love people. And I think I generally am a person that cares about people, that is interested in their welfare, that I have a real support - I'm a really generous and supportive person so I think those are definite similarities.

The differences I would say is that my patience is not nearly as extensive as Gayle's.

E.D.: I was given some information about the American Family and the insurance company that we're working with.

So I knew kind of what their brand means and what their way of working is and how they deal with clients and I had to learn about what's, you know, what's confidential information and how they deal with their own clients and that kind of thing.

And then in terms of other research it's more, you know, being a parent - I just talked to other parents and things like that.

Q: I'm wondering how you are at kind of fixing problems in real life I guess. So do you always have like your friends coming to you for random advice and that kind of thing?

E.D.: That's really funny. I would like to think that I'm brilliant at it; I'm not sure I am. But I definitely do play the role of people - I wouldn't say coming to me for advice necessarily but more for support and insight. I certainly do play that role I think in a lot of my friendships. My friendships are that way like we're very supportive of one another and very verbal also in that way. So it's a really open dialogue.

But I definitely think that with a lot of younger people for whatever reason It could be because of the roles that I've played not the specific roles but the shows and the movies, you know, between Sabrina and Clueless especially that, you know, that age group of people they kind of always look up to those people.

So I think I've always been a little bit of a role model and not to sound too egotistical here but, where girls ask me questions and things. So even in that capacity yeah I do kind of play that role.

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