B.L. You left the very popular TV series ER to pursue film work, and knock wood, you are doing very well.
M.M. I can’t complain, thanks.

B.L. You are ironically going to be competing against yourself at the box office with How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days and then Dark Blue.
M.M. (laughing) I’m not competing against myself; maybe Kate Hudson will be competing against her dad Kurt Russell. It’s weird how those things turn out. It’s fun and quite a coincidence, and a happy one.

B.L. For your own personal enjoyment and acting challenges, which one did you prefer working on?
M.M. I really can’t make a fair comparison because I haven’t had a lot of experience doing romantic comedies, this was my first. I love drama, that’s what I do and that’s what I trained and studied to do. I know that genre really well and I have played women in law enforcement a few times so it’s comfortable.

B.L. I have to tell you, it’s hard to look as good as you do in a police uniform.
M.M. Well, any time I have played a policewoman I haven’t really thought about the visceral aspect of it. It’s about being believable when you walk into a room. Would the people perpetrating the crime, will they believe you when they say I’m a cop? So very clearly I’m not dressed up with makeup and fancy clothes, which is mainly why I like doing it so much. I get to focus on the character and I don’t have to spend a lot of time grooming before I go in front of a camera.

B.L. Was it hard to take on that very intense, kind of tough cop role?
M.M. No, not at all because I’ve done it. I did it on Homicide: Life on the Street and I’ve done it a few times. I’ve had the opportunity to meet women in law enforcement in Baltimore and New York where I live and they have always fascinated me. A lot of them are mothers. They are married or they have been married and divorced with kids. I’ve always been fascinated how they put their lives on the line on a regular basis.

B.L. It is interesting. Maybe because women give life, maybe we value it more.
M.M. That’s exactly right. We are the bearers of life, so you have these fascinating creatures and I happen to think we are the best! You have these women out there in a career that has typically been very male dominated and for the most part, still is. It’s a very testosterone profession but you see women out there doing their business and doing it really well.

B.L. There was a lot of corruption going on in the police force in Dark Blue and we are living in a time where the NYPD can do no wrong.
M.M. I’m a little biased. I’m from New York!

B.L. In this movie, it’s a very bad time for the LAPD. They were making some wrong choices.
M.M. Although what occurred in Los Angeles in 1992 with the Rodney King riots was a real occurrence; it is a dramatization of "what if." The riots and Rodney King are really a backdrop and the film is really not at all about that story. But what happens when you have this systematic corruption, what happens when you have this one really good cop who just made some bad choices? The system and society has kind of hardened and his heart and soul has kind of crystallized. What happens to him and what happens to his department in times like that? It’s a fascinating exploration.