Memories From The Set: Idara Victor

If it hadn't been for this short-lived FX comedy, which followed members of an eating-disorder support group and featured future Go On star Laura Benanti, Victor might be sitting behind a desk somewhere. "Those people on that set were so crazy sweet to me," she recalls. "They encouraged me to pursue acting, because I was in school for business. They were like, 'I couldn't even imagine you working in some office.'" She appeared in one episode, as a bulimic police officer's dream woman, and had just one line. "Sometimes, when you have those one-liners, it makes the job that much harder, because there's nothing to tie it to," she says. Still, B-school soon went bye-bye; being on a set "just felt so much like it was exactly where I was supposed to be."

After stints on SVU and a few daytime soaps, Victor wound up at Seaside Wellness as Pilar, a character who feared her headaches were a sign of something far worse. "I thought it was a tumor, but it wasn't. It was something really simple," she says. A good day for Pilar, then, but a not-so-great day for Caterina Scorsone's Amelia who — during the episode — learns that the baby she's carrying has no brain development. "That set was one of those shows where I knew the secret before the audience could know," Victor says. "It was hard to discuss [the gig], because I couldn't tell anyone what was really going on." Subject matter aside, she remembers the girls'-club atmosphere on set was infectious. "They were all so strong and so funny. So we were just cracking these really crass jokes the whole day."

Victor auditioned for the roles of Sterling Cooper & Partners secretaries Dawn and Phyllis before landing the part of Nikki, the engaged pal with whom Dawn discusses her work issues in Season 6. Victor experienced series creator Matthew Weiner's notorious attention to detail firsthand: He vetoed some nail polish ("He made a last-minute change and decided, 'I don't want them to be red. They'll be clear.") and had a hand in picking Victor's character's diamond ("We tried on a few different ones to really be like, 'What would Nikki's ring look like?'"). All of the little choices made it that much easier to slip into character in the scene. "It gave me so much freedom," Victor says fondly. "I was collaborating creatively, and I could just focus completely on the work."

Victor's most memorable co-star during her stint as a "super-pregnant" patient on Grey's? Her giant, prosthetic baby bump. "Once they put it on me, I was like, 'That is a big belly,'" she says, laughing. "Then, everybody was like, 'We need a picture with this belly!'" The highly emotional plot — Victor's character's baby has a heart defect that must be fixed, via surgery, within an hour of delivery — called for some dramatic heavy lifting... made no easier when another guest star cracked jokes between takes. But Victor says she found a way to use her frustration to get into her frightened character's mindset — plus, star Sandra Oh helped her make it work. "Sandra, on that show, was my angel," Victor says, remembering how Oh carved out a little time and space for her to give the performance she wanted to give: "She'd kind of protect me a little bit."

Crime-scene analyst Nina Holiday, who debuted on the TNT procedural last season, "didn't feel like she was coming in there, trying to prove anything to anyone. It seemed like she was somebody who knew who she was at the very pit of her soul," Victor says. So the actress went to the audition in casual clothes, sporting natural hair... and nailed it. Once shooting started, "That took a second, to find the balance between her as this woman who's been on the street working [as a beat cop] and this super-brilliant, tech-savvy woman that she also is," Victor adds. When Rizzoli returns June 16 (9/8c), look for little details to give you a better idea of who Nina truly is. "She'll take an astronomy course," Victor says. "She's very eclectic in her tastes."

Victor's Abigail, a freed slave who becomes involved in the Revolutionary War-era Culper Spy Ring, didn't do it for liberty and justice and a desire to kick the Redcoats out of the colonies, the actress says. "She only agreed to this to blackmail Anna into taking care of Cicero" — Abigail's young son, Victor notes. But Agent 355 has proven a reliable spy in the AMC drama, which closes its second season Monday (10/9c), as well as someone who has her own intrigue with Aldis Hodge's Jordan — and Victor says their characters were supposed to rendezvous early in the season, but the scene wound up getting changed. "He was supposed to be in a marketplace in Philadelphia, and we were supposed to see each other from afar. Then he was going to make his way over later and talk about a possible future, but then they cut that," she says. The show "decided to change directions, so we never shot that."