PASADENA, Calif. _ When she was in high school actress Yvonne Strahovski used to walk around with a dictionary in her hand. Every time she heard a word she didn't understand, she'd look it up and write it on the back of her hand. "And I'd use that word throughout the day so I could get it in my vocabulary," she says in the noisy lobby lounge of a hotel here.
Though you'd never know it by talking with her, English is her second language. She's the daughter of Polish parents � an engineer and a lab technician _ who fled Communist Poland for a better life in Australia.
Strahovski was born Down Under, and while she claims her English is imperfect, she has no difficulty pulling off a variety of accents as she's done in shows like "Chuck," "Dexter," "24: Live Another Day," and her latest project, "The Handmaid's Tale," premiering on Hulu Wednesday.
She plays a bitter and guarded woman who's entombed in a totalitarian society where women are stratified according to their function for the state. "I wasn't anyone's go-to for this," says Strahovski, who's wearing black pants and top, her long, blond hair contrasting with the dark colors. "Knowing that, I was kind of up to the challenge of convincing someone that maybe I could do it."
She's spent her life convincing others she can do it. "I remember being the lanky, goofy, acne-covered child who was always clowning around in front of a home video camera. And there was just never any question in my mind that I wanted to go down this path. I was just always involved with it in school," she says.
"As I've gotten older, I think I've come to realize that it really is about storytelling and about reflecting life and life reflecting art. And you always learn something from watching art of any kind. You always take something away from it because you can't help but have it reflect on you, and hold up a mirror to your own personal life."
Her wary parents urged their only child to become a doctor or a lawyer � something with a solid future. "But I was very stubborn and I said, 'No I want to pursue this.' And they turned around and have been very supportive," she says.
Strahovski waitressed for three years while she attended drama school in Sydney. "I enjoyed waitressing. It was kind of like going to the gym for 10 hours. There were a couple places I worked in Australia that was just hardcore for 10 hours straight. You would just run around and then clean up the place at the end of the day and close up shop. It felt very satisfying after a hard day's work."
She also worked in a movie theater ticketing and ushering. "Then I got my first couple commercials and my first steady gig on television, and that was it. I've been acting ever since."
Doing OK in Australia, she had no intention of trying her luck in the states. But when acting friends urged her to accompany them to L.A. to audition for pilot season, she went along. On that brief visit she attended five meetings. At one of them she met her new American managers, who are still with her after 10 years.
"I remember coming home for Christmas back to Australia after I took those five meetings, and had my tonsils removed." She was 24.
Her new managers kept sending her scripts for pilots. She would cut audition tapes in a small studio and send them back with little hope that anything would come of it. But one of those pilots was NBC's "Chuck." And Strahovski was cast as the toothsome CIA agent hired to guard the nerdy Chuck who harbored state secrets.
"It was me and my little blue suitcase for the rest of that year because I kept thinking, 'Oh, I'm probably going to go home now.' After the pilot and an indie movie and 'Chuck' was picked up for a series, I realized I probably should rent a proper place because I was living in a shoebox studio apartment and rented eight cars by that point from a Hollywood rental place."
She searched Craiglist and rustled up a roommate to share a home in the Hollywood hills. Half-way through "Chuck," she finally mustered the cash for her own place.
Strahovski, a self-confessed "goody-two-shoes," admits that she's great at organizing. "If I weren't an actress I'd be a professional organizer," she laughs. "I love to organize people's houses. I love to de-clutter other people's houses _ anything to do with organization." Pausing, she adds, "Sometimes I'm pretty terrible at relaxing, at just sitting on the couch doing nothing. It's like a guilt complex."
Strahovski has a sweetheart. Though she won't say who he is, she does admit he's "sort of, kind of in the business. One day it'll come out," she laughs.
'GOOD WITCH' RETURNS TO ROMANCE
Fans of Hallmark's "Good Witch," will be delirious to know that Catherine Bell's and James Denton's characters will finally fall into each other's arms when the show returns on Sunday for Season 3.
Bell, who was so popular as Sarah MacKenzie on "Jag," and is now the queen of the good witches on "Witch," didn't start out to be an actress. She intended to train as an engineer or a doctor when she first entered UCLA. "I wanted to be an artist first, but my mom said, 'What are you going to do, go to Venice Beach, sit and paint and try to sell your paintings for 20 bucks? Huh-uh.' But I think she knew underneath that I was an artist, and so finally when I said, 'Mom, this is just not my thing,' she knew I'd given it a good try." Bell dropped out after a couple of years of college to pursue her dream and never had to sell her paintings for $20.
MCSHANE REIGNS IN 'AMERICAN GODS'
Ian McShane's back on television in Starz's new series, "American Gods," premiering Sunday. The eight-episode fantasy is based on Neil Gaiman's successful novel and stars McShane as Mr. Wednesday, a conman who is really an old deity searching for past glories.
McShane, who was brilliant in "Deadwood," remarks that acting is the only thing he's ever done. "Sometimes I don't know whether that's a good thing," he says.
"I had a teacher at school, my dad's a soccer player; I come from a sporting background. This teacher said, 'I'm going to do a play, and you're going to play the part.' So we did it and he said, 'I'm going to do "Cyrano de Bergerac" next year, and you're going to play Cyrano.' I said, 'Fine.'
"You're lucky if you find someone like that. And he said, 'You ever think of being an actor?' I said, 'No, sir.' I do the play, finish, and then go play football. Then he came to see my mom and dad and said, 'You know, I think maybe we should go to London.' So I went to London auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and got in. So at 17 off I went to be an actor, not knowing any better."
NETWORK STARS TO BATTLE IT OUT
Everything old is new again as ABC will prove this summer when it revives "Battle of the Network Stars," a series of specials that aired in the late '70s and early '80s. It featured stars of what was then three all-powerful networks competing in various sporting contests. Narrating as though these were actual athletic tilts was Howard Cosell, who co-hosted all of the shows except one. In 1985 they moved the competition briefly to Mexico where things grew hot when Erin Gray chewed out Tony Danza in a tennis mismatch. Captains were chosen each year and included guys we still know like Mark Harmon (a real ex-athlete), Tom Selleck, and Mr. T. This new 10-episode event will recruit current TV stars as well as some from the classic old days of tvdom. On your mark ...
