As a star of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and a veteran of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity, Summer Glau is accustomed to being recognized in public by enthusiastic and devoted fanboys.

On March 9, art will imitate life (or real life will intersect with art) when Glau crosses network boundaries to guest star as herself on CBS’ Big Bang Theory.

In the episode, airing on March 9, the brilliantly geeky heroes of Big Bang Theory run into Summer Glau on a train and, as one might imagine, they’re pretty excited about the chance for celebrity interaction.

Meeting with reporters before the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel at San Francisco’s WonderCon, HitFix asked Glau about her foray into sitcom work and how Fictional Summer Glau differs from Real Life Summer Glau.

“They’re very different,” Glau laughed. “I think that I was playing myself, but I was trying to be funny, they tried to make me funny. I was nervous, because it’s supposed to be about how I respond to people who know my work as Cameron, so I was concerned about how people might perceive that. But I was honored to work with such talented actors.”

A FOX star going on CBS to effectively plug her role on said FOX show seems a little unusual, but both Big Bang Theory and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are Warner Brothers TV productions (and CBS probably wouldn’t figure T:SCC is much of a threat to its Friday supremacy).

“Bill Prady and I are friends,” added Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles creator Josh Friedman. “He’d done a couple little shout-outs over the last season, done one or two things. When I talked to him, he said, ‘Do you think Summer would want to play Summer?’ The script was really funny and the idea was really funny. I was at the read-through and I wanted to go when they were actually shooting, but I thought it would be a little weird. I didn’t want to be like the protective parent, the stage dad or something.”

Although Glau’s spot-on dead-pan delivery has generated comedy on her previous TV work, this was a different kind of experience.

“When you do drama, you try different things — Not my [Terminator] character, because I play a robot — you come in… and something might happen on one take that you didn’t expect and you just go with it and the scene flows with it,” she noted. “When you do comedy, it’s so precise. Every word can change whether it’s funny or not. I didn’t realize that. I had no idea. Every word that I would say, sometimes they would say, ‘Say it going up. Say it going down. Say it fast. Say it slow.’ That’s how specific it was.”

After reading the script, Friedman wasn’t worried about how the show would depict Glau and reflect on how she actually is.

“It was very respectful, I think of Summer, of her words,” he said. “Those characters make fun of each other all the time… She doesn’t want to be seen as someone who if you were a fan and came up to to Summer on a train and asked her a question, that she would mock you. That’s not Summer. She’s would never do that.”

Glau quickly added, “Yeah. I would never do that. So I was nervous, I was like ‘It feels like I’m being mean.’”

So will the Big Bang Theory actually encourage people to come up to Glau whenever they see her in public?

“Parts of it. I think things go wrong,” Glau said with a smile. “It starts out like it might be good and then things come apart. I hope it will be funny. I enjoyed it a lot.”

Glau’s Big Bang Theory episode airs on Monday, March 9.

Source: HitFlix

Who says you have to be a former bodybuilder to be a Terminator?

The Fox Network is counting on Glau to provide the punch needed to draw viewers to the show’s new 8 p.m. Friday time slot. In a real show of girl power, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is being paired with the new Eliza Dushku action series Dollhouse.

Terminator executive producer and creator Josh Friedman saw so much powerful potential in the petite actress, he wrote the part of the female Terminator with her in mind.

“I had seen Summer a few years earlier. She came in and auditioned for another show. But then she went off and did the Serenity movie. I walked around carrying her audition tape for a few weeks, kind of lamenting the loss of Summer,” says Friedman in a telephone interview. “So when I was working on the show, working on developing it and I realized I wanted to do a character like this, she was about the only one that I felt like I knew could do this.

“You know she has a quality. It’s her physicality and her dance training and all sorts of things. She’s really the only [person] I know who can kind of be completely still and still be fascinating to watch act. She’s got it.”

Portraying a human-looking robot offers a host of challenges for the actress. Often she is required to remain emotionless. At the same time, she must generate enough sympathy for the character to believe she could become close to John Connor (Thomas Dekker). The Terminator mythology says it will be John Connor who will one day lead the battle to save mankind from the killer robots.

Glau’s character, Cameron, has changed since the series started. Cameron is absorbing human behavior and trying to understand human emotion. The actress suggests Cameron is actually showing a weird form of love for John.

“The biggest difference between playing Cameron and playing other roles that I have in the past is I’m constantly making a decision about how I play this role. You know it has to be planned out. And as an actor, a lot of times you just react in a scene and you just do it from your heart. And you know Cameron cannot do that,” Glau says. “I really rely on Josh and I rely on my writers to help me with the character.”

Glau adds there are times when Cameron almost comes across like the family pet because she is docile. Then the character will do something so cold and unfeeling the viewers are hit with the show’s central reality: Cameron is a robot whose sole purpose is to use any means to complete her mission.

Look for those actions to get cranked up in upcoming episodes. There have been few days of filming when Glau has not had to wear a vest of squibs, which are the special effects devices used to show bullet holes.

These days, Glau fires big guns, gets blasted and basically handles any action required of Hollywood’s big men. This has not always been the case. The majority of acting roles for the 27-year-old actress have been more traditional. She’s appeared on Angel, Cold Case, CSI and The Unit.

She rarely gets to dance on Terminator, but all of the years she spent training have come in handy.

“I’ve been really fortunate to have been cast in some roles where I’ve been able to incorporate movement. I think that Cameron is isolated in a way and isn’t really able to relate to the other characters on a human level and I feel that movement is a way for me to express that,” Glau says. “I feel that sometimes her movement is awkward or her movement is unpredictable. And it is a way for me to help tell her story.”

Source: Fresnobee

This Monday at 8 pm/ET, Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles presents a midseason finale which reveals one character’s shocking secret, sets the stage for other surprises, and ultimately leaves Sarah herself in perhaps one of the last situations you’d imagine to find her in. Summer Glau shares a peek at the episode, shedding light on Cameron’s “issues” with John’s girlfriend and teasing insight into one of the series’ biggest mysteries of all. (After this week, Sarah Connor returns Friday, Feb. 13, leading into the debut of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.)

TVGuide.com: Cameron isn’t liking John’s girlfriend Riley (played by Leven Rambin) too much these days, is she?
Summer Glau: No, and I think it’s more than her just being worried that Riley’s a threat. She doesn’t like having her place taken over by somebody else.

TVGuide.com: And what do you mean by “her place”?
Glau: Well, Cameron only exists to take care of John and be with him at all times, and he keeps trying to spend time alone with Riley. That leaves Cameron feeling like she doesn’t have a purpose. So it’s really uncomfortable for her — if it’s possible for a robot to feel uncomfortable.

TVGuide.com: And this week, Riley tells Cameron a lie which only exacerbates the suspicion.
Glau: Yeah…. I believe that Cameron doesn’t really know what’s really going on with Riley, but she’s definitely on to her.

TVGuide.com: There’s a big reveal about Riley coming. Did you know it was coming before they introduced that character?
Glau: I knew partly what was going to happen, but I certainly didn’t expect it to go as far as it has. Things have gotten even more complicated. I think the storyline is great.

TVGuide.com: Do you enjoy playing the pseudo-jealousy thing between Cameron, John and Riley?
Glau: I love it. It adds so much dimension to Cameron, and it’s fun to figure out how far to take it. You don’t want to take it too far, but I do want to insinuate that it’s there.

TVGuide.com: I enjoyed the scenes a few weeks ago between Cameron and Eric (The Black Donnellys‘ Billy Lush), the librarian guy.
Glau: That was a really interesting episode because Cameron doesn’t usually say much, and as far as doing meaty scenes as an actor, it’s fun to just sit down and talk. That’s one thing that Cameron really got to do in that episode. I enjoyed Billy as an actor, he’s really, really gifted.

TVGuide.com: I saw that story as almost an “escape” for Cameron, a secret place she could go to and be “regular.”
Glau: Yeah, it was very creative. Toni [Graphia] always writes really good stuff for me.

TVGuide.com: Do you hope to someday get a fight scene with Shirley Manson’s T-1001?
Glau: Yes! Shirley hasn’t done many down-and-dirty fights yet — she usually takes people out pretty easily — so I wonder how it’s going to go. [Laughs]

TVGuide.com: One burning question fans have concerns what happened to Derek in the future, in “the basement.” Do you have any insight into what went down?
Glau: I do. Later on, maybe this season, it will be revealed what really went down…. Remember – Cameron knows Derek, and Derek knows Cameron, so that’s also going to be fun to explore.

TVGuide.com: Eliza Dushku told me she’s excited to have Dollhouse sharing Friday nights with Sarah Connor. She sees it as a night of “female empowerment.”
Glau: Yeah, me too. I think it’s a good match.

TVGuide.com: Plus, you have that Joss Whedon connection. [Glau starred in Whedon's Firefly, also for Fox.]
Glau: We do, and I think the fans will band together and support us on Friday nights. We had a lot of competition on Monday, so I think this might be a good thing.

TVGuide.com: Oh, let’s be clear — the competition on Monday is ridiculous.
Glau: It is. It’s impossible. We’ve held onto our fan base, but you just cant hope for much more on a Monday.

TVGuide.com: Coming off of Firefly, Terminator and the bitchy gal you played in [the TV-movie] The Initiation of Sarah, do you crave playing a different role during the summer hiatus? Maybe a romantic comedy where you wear flirty dresses and chase boys?
Glau: I would love to wear a dress and play “normal”! I’m so in love with Cameron and I would never want to lose that, but it will be nice to challenge myself. I’m hoping to do a straight drama, or possible a comedy.

TVGuide.com: What else can you tease about upcoming Sarah Connor episodes? Any kisses in Cameron’s future?
Glau: Not in Cameron’s, no! [Laughs] But the mystery is going to get deeper and deeper. Sarah has been tormented by the visions of these three dots, so she goes off on her own, and she meets up with similarly “possessed” people. It’s always interesting when you leave “the kids” [John and Cameron] alone. A big piece of the mystery is going to come to light in the next couple of episodes.

TVGuide.com: I was going to say, the final scene of the midseason finale leaves a person wondering….
Glau: Yeah, and what’s coming up is going to be cool.

Summer Glau is a tough (and gorgeous) android from the future who’s trying to save the world from oblivion in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Offscreen, though, she prefers to have someone protect her. But not just any man will do. The standard-setting man for this football-loving Texas gal: “My daddy. He’s so masculine—a manly man—and he’s a caring, sensitive guy. It’s a magical combination. I’m so lucky to have grown up with that.”

Glau can’t help but compare boyfriends with her father. “I like pretty conservative guys, good guys,” she says. “I always look for the qualities I find in my father.” Master the strong, sensitive combo with Glau’s advice below.

Terminators Need Love Too

It’s hard to believe that this wisp of a woman inside an enormous jacket, huddled against a rainy morning on a Malibu beach, spent the night trying to save the world from oblivion. Summer Glau was up until 3 a.m. on the set of the Fox series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. She plays the next generation’s Terminator, Cameron Phillips—a robot with a killer instinct (used for good, of course) and a body to match. “Everything aches,” she says when she arrives.

Glau, 27, is used to pushing herself. She endured years of ballet training until a leg injury ended that dream at 19. When she turned to acting, she scored a guest spot on Angel (as a ballerina who hangs out with vampires) and a starring role in the space-Western series Firefly and its film version, Serenity, doing her own stunts playing a “small and delicate” teenager with preternatural mental and physical gifts.

In her current role, she says, “I spend most of my time shooting guns and breaking things.” But today, she curls up on a bed with her legs tucked underneath her to discuss men and relationships. The standard-setting man for this football-loving Texas gal: “My daddy. He’s so masculine—a manly man—and he’s a caring, sensitive guy. It’s a magical combination. I’m so lucky to have grown up with that.”

So she can’t help but compare boyfriends with her father. “I like pretty conservative guys, good guys,” she says. “I always look for the qualities I find in my father.” Here’s a primer on being that strong, sensitive combo.

Be a Man of Your Wrord

“The number one thing I look for in a man is integrity,” she says. “A man who does what he says he’s going to do.” That’s especially true for the little things, like making that all-important phone call. “Women have to feel that stability. When a man calls me when he says he will, it just makes me feel so safe. That’s important to women, but a lot of men just don’t get it.”

Make It a Family Affair

You’ll always win points bonding with Dad (and taking notes from him), but don’t neglect the rest of the crew. “I love it if a man makes an effort to get to know both of my parents and my sisters,” says Glau. “Getting to know the people who matter to me goes a long way.”

Enjoy Her Efforts

Glau loves to cook. “Nothing makes me happier than when a man likes something I’ve made and goes back for seconds,” she says. “That just makes me feel fantastic.” Easy enough.

Buy a Calendar—and Check It Regularly

A flashy bouquet delivered the day after her birthday just won’t cut it. Remember what she said about being a man of your word? A late bouquet means you weren’t thinking about her when you should have been. “Holidays are very important,” says Glau. “It doesn’t matter what you do, just acknowledge it. Just say, ‘I know it’s our anniversary.’ Let me know it’s on your mind.”

Come Clean

Don’t even think about lying. If you’re an account exec, don’t invent that VP title thinking it will impress her. Quite the opposite. “Lying about anything is the cruelest thing in the world you could ever do. Be who you are. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. It never works.”

When to let her lead

Summer Glau plays a take-charge fembot. Here are three real-life areas where ceding control to a woman can help both of you.

1. Holiday parties: Women are 66 percent more likely to remember faces than men are, according to Swedish researchers.

2. Your portfolio: Men trade an average of 45 percent more often than women do, reducing their net return by 2.65 percent a year (as opposed to women’s 1.72), according to a University of California at Davis study.

3. The edroom: “Women don’t get enough props for being sexual initiators,” says Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., the Men’s Health Sex Professor. So encourage her. She’ll feel good, and so will you.

Source: Men’s Health