The first time I saw Amanda Schull she was playing a young ballerina in Center Stage (a film that still delights many of us).

She’s worked steadily since, including a recurring role on Suits, but 12 Monkeys marks her first series regular role since 2007. Based on her work in 12 Monkeys, especially this fourth and last season, I don’t think she’s going to have to wait that long for another series.

As Dr. Cassandra Railly, Schull has played a character that’s rich, complex, action-packed, smart, and most of all, passionate. That passion and her strong sense of both empathy and humanity guide a character who’s guided by her heart as much as her head.

Whatever this last season and the future hold for Cassie Railly, she’s leaving everything on the field. She’s playing full out.

Coming off the end of Season 3, Cassie has had so much happen to her, even just in Season 3. She both bore and lost her son. When we see her in the premiere, she’s got Jones’ life in her hands. She not only hesitates in saving her but actually considers letting her die. What would you say is her headspace coming out of the finale in that kind of opening? As I understand it these are mere seconds after the end of Season 3. Where is she at given everything that’s just happened to her?

It would be hard for me to even be able to put into words where I think her head space in its entirety is. I could touch on it slightly. Devastation doesn’t even begin to encompass it, right? Her son was shot in front of her eyes. By an ally. My first instinct in that moment when it happened was to just collapse. But that became an even bigger thing because we had so much more story to go from there. It was like the physical mental collapse that she’s still internalizing and processing. Then they suddenly––then he’s back, and she’s trying to wrap her head around that. The whole thing is just one layer after another layer and she hasn’t yet caught up at this point. She hasn’t had a second to breathe. One of her greatest allies, Jones, who is for all intents and purposes responsible for who she is and where she is at this point in her life, who she’s loved, Jones is responsible for creating time travel, and thus responsible for her having a child with Cole, and she’s responsible also for being willing to commit murder. I think it’s so hard for her to even to consider at that point.

She’s willing to enact a little bit of revenge and maybe to end it. Maybe just going forward she will no longer have to deal with asking forgiveness later. If Jones is dead maybe she can be at the helm of how to move forward. Maybe she should just give up. So many things are going on that why should she work hard to save this person who was willing to do that to the most precious human she had been chasing literally through time and space to know?

It’s also kind of all of that without needing to have the words. That was something that’s so brilliant about Terry and the writers, so much happens in every single episode that you don’t necessarily have the time to verbalize it. If all of those emotions and thoughts and everything can be played out in actions, that’s how they did it. So I think it was all those things in the consideration of allowing her to possibly die at her hands.

My sense of her was that she’s doing everything she can, she knows there’s a loop so she’s gotta change something somehow to try to break this. It’s just she doesn’t seem to know what she has to do. That’s gotta be the weirdest part. How do you break a loop if you don’t know what it is?

How do you break a loop, and also she’s constantly battling the question of fate. Does it exist? Does it not exist? We’re here now. It’s almost like she can’t do anything about this desperate love she feels for Cole, but her feelings and alliance and respect for Jones has definitely wavered at that point. That perhaps she can do something about.

Bookending that in the third episode she comes face to face with a younger Olivia who she’s hated. She’s ready to wipe her off the planet. And she’s pregnant. The idea that, in the end, Cassie makes this decision from an emotional direction, it’s this baby, this life. She finds out in the end that she’s been played again. My sense of her… I don’t know if this is me putting words in anybody’s mouth, please feel free to correct me, but when we first meet Cassie, she’s in a place where she’s gonna save the world and save people and she’s out here trying to do all these things and she gets pulled into this world and she feels like someone who’s gonna keep trying and keep fighting. Along the way, it feels like she’s just become, that she and Cole have traded places.

They trade places by the end of the first season really. And then I think the two of them vacillate back and forth but Cole, where there’s a very clear disconnect is until Cole looks into the eyes of his child, until he looks into Athan’s eyes when he’s in the safe house during season 3, he doesn’t understand Cassie coming at this from an emotional standpoint. Because he hasn’t put a face to this concept yet.

He didn’t bear the child, he didn’t feel a life within him, he couldn’t possibly understand. He was in a completely other time, different time. He had no idea what was even going on, he just sort of heard about it secondhand, so until he looks into Athan’s eyes he doesn’t get it.

At that point, they kind of vacillate back and forth from that point forward with their humanity and what they’re willing to do. What one is willing to do, what the other isn’t willing to do. They’re teamed up because they both understand that she is there and he is, I think in the script when it was written we first met Athan, the way it was described was he was, I can’t remember the exact wording. But he was an exact combination of Cassie and Cole. The way that it was phrased, describing this child, and then later the man, that they could see themselves and each other in this person. So they didn’t… he didn’t get it until then.

Then going forward in season 4 they’re more on the same page at that point. After season 3 she still is the only person, between the two of them, who has borne a child. She gets it that maybe this is how she can change the loop.

Maybe this is the ticket.

I have to tell you that when I read that episode I was mad at Cassie. Because I’m not a mother of a human, and I am a dog mom, but when I read the episode knowing Cassie’s plight up until that point, knowing how conniving Olivia is and how conniving this Army of the 12 Monkeys is in general, before I got to the end I was like, “You idiot, come on, of course you’re going to figure out a way. Just knock her off. What are you doing?”

Obviously, that’s not where I have to go with the character. But as Amanda, I was like, “Don’t do it, Cassie.”

What do you think is Cassie’s greatest strength and probably her greatest weakness? Would you say it’s some of that emotion?

Yeah. I think her greatest strength is also her greatest weakness… I really respect the character they created. I think among her strengths and weaknesses would be her humanity and her empathy.

It seems like that’s the thing, she tends to… it shows up and she wants to shut it off so she can do what she has to do but it always pops up at the last minute, the conscience always shows up somewhere and she regrets if she doesn’t listen.

She’s a doctor at her core.

That makes perfect sense. I have to ask really quick about 406 because 406 is my favorite episode. What was your favorite part of 406?

Do I have to choose?

I don’t know. I loved the costume changes alone. I was just wondering if there was anything that was your favorite thing to do.

We did have a lot of underwear fittings, I can tell you that much. And what was and what was not plausible. A lot of consideration went into Cassie’s undergarments for that particular scene.

What have you found the most enjoyable about playing Cassie? And the most challenging? Over the course of the four seasons?

I think, I really enjoyed the physicality that Cassie grew into, with the fight sequences, and her strength that was sort of a manifestation of her inner strength. That played out in her physical strength as well. That was really an interesting parallel.

Then in addition, I think, that was challenging also because I’ve never really done that many fight sequences before. Or weapons training or usage. I think what was also exciting and intimidating and challenging was also her emotion. The thing that makes her who she is and walking the fine line between her trying to wall things off, like in 405 for example, just expressing her total and complete love for this person that she cannot imagine her life existing without, even though it’s under the most bizarre of circumstances and the possibility of losing him, that was a really emotionally challenging episode for me as well.

I know fans have been asking, are you going to be live tweeting along with the cast?

I don’t know if I’ll even be able to see it. I’m in Canada now shooting Suits, so I don’t know. They have a different airing schedule here. I don’t know what I’ll see and what I won’t see. I’ll do my best.

Is there anything you want to say to the fans?

This has been the most rewarding journey I’ve ever taken with a character. The fact we touched and entertained and excited people has meant so much to me. I really hope we’ve done everything in this final season to surpass people’s expectations and live up to the groundwork and foundation of the first three that Terry and everyone created. It means so much to me. I hope we deliver for everyone.