Reveal - Interview Charisma Carpenter

If you love your TV shows to be filled with glamorous people, outrageous plots and too many twists to count, then we think The Lying Game is right up your street!

As star Charisma Carpenter explains: "It's a prime time soap opera about sisters called Sutton and Emma that were separated at birth and are now looking for their mother. Now that they've found her it's about reuniting the family and all the people around that; the lies that are told to achieve that."

Emma is a foster kid who grew up moving between houses, while Sutton grew up in a wealthy family. The first season focused on the twins swapping lives so Sutton could track down their mysterious mother... and ended in the shock revelation that Charisma's character Rebecca - introduced as an aunt - is, in fact, their mum. Didn't we promise you twists and turns?!

Rebecca's goal is to reunite with the twins' dad, Ted, and get her family back together, and to do that she married Ted's best friend Alec. Juicy, right? Then for added fireworks, we saw Alec being arrested at their wedding ceremony and carted off!

Obviously when season two starts up on 5* next week, we can expect plenty more excitement!

"We find out that it's possible Rebecca was the reason her husband has ended up in jail; maybe she is behind setting it up, we're not sure," teases Charisma. "He's stuck in jail for a little while but then gets out - which she wasn't expecting! - and it becomes a War of the Roses story where they're sort of existing under the same roof and pretending everything is fine but they're actually kind of afraid of each other and not sure if they're going to kill each other!"

All very exciting! Another big revelation at the end of season one was the fact Rebecca has been secretly working with one of her twin daughters, Sutton, with the ultimate goal of breaking up her daughters' dad's marriage to his new wife to get her family back together.

Now that secret is out in the open (to viewers anyway), we're going to get an inside look at their scheming interactions... and some pretty dirty deeds on Rebecca's behalf as she tries to keep Sutton on side.

"The relationship between her and Sutton starts to suffer," explains Charisma. "Things start to get strange as Sutton starts to rebel a little bit and there is a bit of a power struggle. Sutton starts to get a conscience about breaking up Ted and Kristin. I have to do some really dirty deeds to show her that Kristin is not her mum, Rebecca is."

Charisma, who shot to fame as cheerleader Cordelia on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, says it's these dirty deeds and twists that make Rebecca such a challenging character to play.

"The greatest challenge is to keep her grounded and not so Machiavellian with the twisting of the moustache and being too obvious. Sometimes there are things she's done that I've said to the writers, 'Oh my gosh! Are you sure she would do this?!' But again it's all about what her goal is."

Luckily for Charisma, fans know she's nothing like her on-screen character. "I think I've been around long enough that people know it's the character and not me," she says, "but I did have that experience with Cordelia - I wasn't approached at all with her at first, but at the end when I was doing Angel and stuff and Cordelia changed so much I noticed a warming of the fans.

"People in the early years thought, 'Is she safe to approach?!' Then her character was fleshed out and became more human and approachable."

Speaking of Cordelia, we had to ask Charisma what her secret to looking so good is - she looks exactly the same as she did on Buffy and Angel!

"I'm flattered by the question!" she laughs. "My mum and dad have good genes. I try to take care of myself and work out and definitely moisturise and drink water."

We also hit Charisma with some of our Getting To Know questions...

I'm happiest when... I'm with my son and he's laughing.

My heroes are... I have a lot of heroes but the first one that comes to mind right now is my mum because she, in her lifetime, has experienced a lot of adversity and always faced it graciously. She and her husband are in love and doing it together. I love that."

My most prized possession is... I don't think of her as a possession but my dog. She's a Cockapoo and so fluffy and sweet!

The person I most want to work with is... The first person that comes to mind is Quentin Tarantino. My favourite movie of his is Kill Bill - I'd love to play a character like The Bride.

My guilty pleasure is... Mexican food! And sweets!

In ten years time I'd like... I have desires for a school in Uganda to be up and running and secure. I'd also like to have branded out; travel more, get more involved in producing, write a book, have a perfume line. I also have some retail ideas. I'd definitely like to be able to financially benefit people in need more, too.

If I could only reunite with one Buffy star on screen again it would be... Probably David Boreanaz. We have a big history as we were together for ten years and it would be comfortable. He's a sweetheart.

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