She's been acting since the age of five, but Sprague Grayden has lived a full and eventful life. After graduating cum laude from Barnard College, Sprague appeared in several theater productions before breaking into the world of television. I found Sprague to be a bundle of fun, free-spirited energy. Having vastly different roles on several primetime series, I believe she has found the perfect role to match her sweet and up-beat personality.

Q: You have such a beautiful name, what is the origin of the name?

Sprague: "Everybody always want it to be so exciting and it's not -- it's English. It's my mother's maiden name. It was my dad's idea and it has worked out well for me. I've had it my whole life, I didn't choose it."

Q: You began acting at a very young age, how did that come about?

Sprague: "My parents are both public school teachers and they had a friend in Boston who was a casting agent for commercials. We were at a party they threw, I was very young and I just started dancing at the party. They (the casting agent) said wow; she'd be great in commercials. My mom said 'no way' and my dad said, 'oh, what a fabulous idea' and my dad won. They asked me what I wanted to do and I made it clear that I wanted to. They were great about it and always said everything I made was going to go towards college and I could quit whenever I want. That was great because I had a certain freedom that other child actors don't have, I could quit whenever I wanted."

Q: You've done quite a bit of theater, do you hope to return to that medium at some point?

Sprague: "Of course!

I love the theater! But at the same time, the theater I did was mostly like off, off, off, off, so far I was in Connecticut off Broadway. Ironically, I was auditioning for a play in Williamstown and I didn't get it and I was so frustrated because I wanted it so bad, so I went to someone with film experience and I said if I have to do TV to get theater, that's what I am going to do. So, I did TV to get back to theater."

Q: What role do you feel really defines you as an actress?

Sprague: "I think the biggest break I've ever had was Six Feet Under. I don't think any roles define me because I keep doing different things. Hopefully I'll be defined much later in life. Hopefully it'll be a growing process."

Q: Tell me about your role on Jericho.

Sprague: "This is the first time I've really been able to play "sweet," I've never really been asked to play "sweet" in the past. Even if I played "sweet," it was always with a bad girl history, sort of a wounded cub thing and I love it, it's fun. There's something really challenging about playing someone as grounded as Heather. I think Heather represents the innocence of the town in a lot of ways. I think we're going to see her grow up. I'm pretty sure she was raised in a religious background. She's the grade school teacher in the town. She has a crush on Jake, she didn't have a lot of friends in the town growing up."

Q: I see the early signs of a great love triangle between you, Jake and Emily, is this triangle expected to get pretty intense anytime soon?

Sprague: "They've done this really cool thing so far -- I can't really talk specifically about it because we're a little bit farther ahead than you are in the process. I do know that they've kept this great friendship between Emily and Heather very solid and so there is a love triangle, I can say that definitely happens, but there's no catty girl in it. That's so rare. There are the life and death issues that occur in every episode and that becomes the question -- is love a life or death issue?"

Q: Who is Hawkins? Is he part of the problem or the solution?

Sprague: [laughs] "Are you kidding, I can't tell you that! The thing about Jericho is that any major plot point you want to know is a LOT of information. If you want to know about Hawkins, that question is linked to so many different things. Trust me, it's for your own good."

Q: Will that information about Hawkins slowly unfold?

Sprague: "No, and that's what is so cool about the show. Being a sci-fi geek myself, one of the great things about Battlestar Galactica is that in every episode, you get so much information. The great thing about Jericho is that you get a ton of information every episode."

Q: How do you think you'd react if the events on the show happened in real life?

Sprague: "I think I'd react the way Heather is reacting. I'd get done what I could do when it needed to get done. I'm definitely a survivor."

Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you?

Sprague: "I collect Pez dispensers and I graduated cum laude from Barnard College."

Q: Would you like to say anything to the fans?

Sprague: "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! People have been really supportive of the show, so thank you!"