Where are you originally from and where do you call home now?
I was born in Houston, Texas and I live in Las Angeles, California.

We know that you began acting at a young age. How did you get into acting and what are some of the biggest challenges of being a child actor?
I started acting professionally when I was six. My parents are both actors and my mom and dad would go into their commercial agents and take in new headshots and things like that. One day, I went with my father, I was about five, and his agent said, "Oh, aren't you cute? Do you want to do this?" and that put the idea into my head. From then on, I was tugging on their sleeve begging and begging and begging until they finally said okay. And they secretly had a plan that they would let me go on 10 auditions and then if I didn't get anything, they would ease me out of it, but I got the first thing I went on, so their plan was promptly ruined.

We always hear about the crazy stage parents, but you had the opposite.
I did, I did. (Laughs.) Because they know what it's like because they were actors, you know? But they were always really working actors. My dad is a well-known character actor, his name is Jerry Hardin. As a good friend of mine said, they call him "That Guy," you know, when you see a movie and you go, "Oh, that's that guy." (Laughs.) So you definitely recognize him, he's definitely a That Guy.

And my mom was an actress, that's how they met - they met doing regional theatre together and then moved to LA and my mom quit acting and became sort of my stage mom and then took her with me to work and stuff. Also, she then became an acting teacher and became quite well-known as an acting teacher for young people. She had Molly Ringwald and all of the Phoenix kids and Ross Malinger and Kellie Martin. She just returned to acting for the first time in 30 years to be in my film that I just directed

We heard a rumor that you were originally cast to play Jennifer Parker on Back to the Future. Is that true?
Yeah, I was. It was a real small part in the first one and then a bigger role in the second one that Elisabeth Shue ended up playing. When I got it, it was a two picture deal, so it was going to be both films and Eric Stoltz was originally cast to play McFly, so I was going to play his girlfriend. And then they let Eric Stoltz go and I was too tall for Michael J. Fox. They called me in very regretfully and said that it wasn't going to work out, which was sad. I was like 17 and, of course, shed some tears over that.

Now that it has become such an iconic movie, do you ever wonder what would it have been like to have been in it?
Sure. I guess it had the potential to kind of change everything for me, but I don't know. It didn't really do anything for the girl who played the small part and then was recast.

Especially since she's "the girl who played the small part."
(Laughs.) Exactly. So, I don't know. I don't think it would have been bad for me, that's for sure. But who knows how good it would have been.

It definitely would have been a different movie with Eric Stoltz instead of Michael J. Fox.
It sure would have.

You were cast as Trudy Monk on the show Monk. Will you be appearing on Monk again in future episodes?
I just did another episode; let's see - six or seven days ago, so yes. I will be. (Laughs.)

Do you have any theories on who murdered your character?
I just like to be on that show, I love working with Tony Shalub. He's such a nice guy. I don't know. I'm curious, just like everyone is, but I guess I'll find out when everyone else does.

How did you land the role of Jan on The Office, and how was the character explained to you initially?
Well, it was on the pilot and it was a guest star possible recurring character at the time. I went in and I got the material and I read it and I felt like, "I can connect to this." So, I did it, I could feel in the room that they really liked me. I got the part and I guess when I was on the set, it was kind of like - they had taken that character from the BBC version and Greg Daniels, he's our exec producer and creator of the show as it stands here in America, he didn't want it to be the same character. He wanted it to be the character that I had created and I had never seen the BBC show until I got The Office - he didn't want us to look at it until a little later, so I didn't really watch the BBC show until sort of the end of the first season.

So I guess it was sort of like she was his boss and she was kind of a tightly-wound boss, she needed to be a great "straight man" for Steve Carell. I hooked into her really well and that's kind of how we played her, but we knew on the pilot that there was something special about the connection between Jan and Michael and just sort of the chemistry, I guess, that works with Steve and I because we made jokes. Steve Carell, Greg Daniels and I were sitting around having lunch one day and kind of making jokes about, "Wouldn't it be funny if this thing goes to see Jan and Michael hook up at a convention or something?"

So it was that early on that you talked about a romance between the two characters?
Yeah, I think we just knew. We just felt it that there was something going there. So that was kind of what we did, we went down that road - I think hilariously. I think just the way she has unraveled is kind of like the writers seeing something in me that I bring to the part and then me taking what they give me and being surprised by what they give me and it's a wonderful dance, kind of a collaborative little dance that we do together.

Where do you see Jan going from here? Do you think she will eventually get her life together and have a new career or will she continue to unravel?
I think she's going to have to eventually get it together again and get herself back in the work world, but I don't really know in what respect that's going to happen, but she definitely has to do that.

Do you have a favorite episode so far? If so, why is it your favorite?
I love the "Cocktails" episode. I thought it was really awesome when they go to the boss' house for cocktails. I thought it was really, really interesting to see Jan kind of be both repelled and drawn to him for his bad behavior. I thought that was really good. And then, also, the director was J.J. Abrams and I loved working with him. And just a lot of good meat on the bones for me to sink my teeth into.

How often do you get recognized in public and what types of people approach you?
I would say quite often, but people are very - like, I was walking out of California Pizza Kitchen yesterday and I saw this girl look at her boyfriend and gesture as I was walking towards them and he very casually looked at me. They obviously recognized me from the show, but they were pretty mellow about it and I guess if I hadn't been looking right at them, I probably wouldn't have known that. But yeah, I think that most people are very casual about it, maybe excited. They like the show, people really love the show, so I think that when they see me, that makes them think of the show that they love.

You recently attended a convention for The Office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. What was it like to be around so many fans of The Office and do you see these conventions becoming regular occurrences, like Star Trek conventions?
It was pretty intense. I mean, we were shuttled around with police escorts all through the town, sirens blaring, bodyguards from the limo to the hotel, screaming fans on the side of the street, people waving, 4,000 fans at a Q&A that hung on our every word and then on Saturday night I sang in front of 1,500 screaming fans, so it was pretty surreal to be honest.

But people are just really into the show. They stood in line for almost an hour and a half to do autograph signings and you know, just very respectful, there was like no pushing and shoving of each other. They were very sweet to each other and they were very excited to meet us. There were only a few that were shaking so much that they could barely shake our hand, but for the most part everybody was pretty grounded and really excited about the show and really excited about meeting us.

Do you think that like Star Trek conventions, 30 years from now you will still be signing autographs at Office conventions?
(Laughs.) God, I don't know. Thirty years? Well, I guess Star Trek conventions; those have been going on forever. I mean, SciFi has a way of generating itself because there is always some new SciFi show that everyone is in love with. So, I don't know. The Office is pretty unique. I don't know if there's going to be enough for it to go for 30 years, but I do think it will go for a few years for sure and if it does go for 30 years, that would be pretty miraculous. I guess I'd be shocked and pleased by that.

The Office has shut down production because of the writer's strike. What is it like to suddenly find yourself in such an unsettling situation and what do you see happening with the show once the strike is resolved?
I think it's a really important thing that the writers are doing, which would come up for the directors and the producers and the actors anyway. And we, as The Office, have seen the future in the sense that we have webisodes right now that are streaming on broadband on the Internet that people can go and watch and they are calling that promotional material, but they're running ads on it and they're making money off of that - NBC and the studio. And we were paid zero dollars for that. We also won an Emmy for that. So that's the kind of stuff that they're making revenue on that and we're not seeing any of it and they wanted us to do more of that, calling it promotional material and that's just not what it is.

A writer had to write that, actors had to come in and get in makeup and hair and wardrobe to act that and learn their lines and a director had to direct that and a DP (director of photography) had to shoot that and lights had to be turned on - that means crew had to come. A lot of stuff had to happen for those webisodes to get made and nobody made a cent on it. That's just not the way it should be. So, I do agree with them that they need to be looking at the web because the web is the future of this business and nobody really knows exactly how deep those pockets are going to get, but eventually things are going to change and the way that we watch television today is virtually over soon.