What does Krista Allen want?

First, for you to tune in and watch Significant Mother Season 1 Episode 5 on The CW. Second, for the TV gods to grant her wish to continue to play the quirky but vulnerable Lydia on Significant Mother for another season, and third?

Well, that’s a toss up. It could be to have Linda Gray back to play her mom, or to star in a Judd Apatow movie, or maybe for a certain muppet to stop hitting on her boyfriend.

Keep reading to check out my chat with Krista about her most memorable soapy moment on Days of Our Lives, to the challenge of being Unscripted, and of course, more on Significant Mother.

I have to tell you that I’m loving Significant Mother. I wasn’t sure what to think from the concept, but it’s turned out to be very sweet while still being funny and sexy.

Thank you so much for saying that. You know, it’s funny because when people hear about the show, the first thing they think is that it’s so awkward and weird or whatever, but then I keep telling people, Just watch it! Just watch it! It’s really cute.

What was it about Lydia that attracted you to playing this role?

I got the script, and I started reading it, and she was one of those funny, quirky, vulnerable…She was just coming into this place in her life where she was vulnerable to her circumstance, I guess. I loved that she had so much heart and the character was so very likable even though the situation could merit a lot of judgment. I think I just liked the way the character was coming alive on these pages as I was reading it, and I just really liked her. I thought, Oh my gosh! I can do so much with this character and it would be so great. It would be a dream job for me, and that’s what it is. I have to give huge credit to Erin Cardillo and Rich Keith because what they wrote on the page, it was very easy for me to see what I could do to contribute to the character. That doesn’t really happen all the time, so that was really fun for me and exciting for me. 

Now Significant Mother was originally slated as one of the CW’s online seed shows and then things changed. How quickly did you find out it would go direct to air on the network?

It wasn’t an immediate thing. We shot the pilot and we were just waiting to see if we were going to get picked up as a web series and we were very excited about that. We knew we had something really special when we all got together in Portland and shot the pilot. Then when we got back to Los Angeles there was buzz. Even when we were in Portland, we heard the CW really likes it and we were like, Wow! Awesome. But we never thought they would completely bypass their plan of putting us on as CW Seed and taking us directly to network. It just hadn’t happened to anybody yet, so the fact that it happened to us confirmed the fact that we were like doing a really cool, special show. It was a few months down the line and then the talk was, I think we’re going to go straight to network and everyone was like What? And then it happened, and the next thing you know we were back in Portland shooting the series. 

Were all nine episodes filmed in Portland, Oregon?

Everything is filmed in Portland.

How different is that from filming in LA?

Portland is such a great place. The people are amazing. The food is amazing. They have micro brews and amazing local wine, and the food is tremendous. Just the environment itself, there are so many different, scenic spots and everything is so green. It’s just different. The air is clean. It’s a really beautiful place to film. We got really lucky having a location to film like Portland. 

I was a huge fan of the show Dallas, and I hear Linda Gray plays your Mom in tonight’s episode! How cool was that? What was that like? Tell me everything!

First of all, when I found out that Linda Gray was going to play my Mom, I absolutely fangirled out so hard. I was so excited. I was also a huge fan of Dallas, a huge fan of Linda Gray. I’ve always thought she was fantastic and it was a real big deal. Linda Gray is playing my mother! It was amazing. When she first came to the set, I just gushed. I was so happy and welcomed her. We had such a great time shooting. She was wonderful. She was just wonderful. She’s such a great lady and so talented and so funny and so easy to work with and everyone loved her. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Linda Gray. She’s fantastic. 

Significant Mother Clip: "Suffering & Succotash"

How many episodes is she in?

Just one. She plays Gammy. Gammy is what my son calls her, so she’s Gammy on the show. If the season 2 gods grace us, I’m sure she’ll be back. 

Any word from them, by the way? The season 2 gods?

Not yet. We’re just keeping our fingers crossed. We’re having a little bit of a hard time right now. I shouldn’t say a hard time, but we’re not being shown in New York because of the baseball games, so we have to be objective every week. Our numbers are great, but then it gets adjusted because of New York, so that’s hard.

Yeah, you're being bumped for the Yankees in New York, that is tough.

Yeah, of all places. So that’s been the only thing. I’m a huge fan of baseball, but I kind of wish that we could have moved that just a little bit. 

You were my favorite actress to play Billie Reed on Days of Our Lives. Do you have a most memorable experience from that show? 

What was most memorable, I think, was that I was pregnant with my son, Jake when I was on the show. Not only did I find out I was pregnant only months after signing a three year contract, but they also gave me this fantastic storyline where I’m on heroin. That storyline had been written beforehand, so it was all planned out. All the episodes were mapped out, and here I was being pregnant, but they couldn’t show that I was pregnant, so I was a bloated heroin addict. They were shooting everything from the waist up, and I gained a good solid 70 lbs while I was pregnant working on the show.

But the best experience, well not the best but the funniest experience, was in the storyline Billie married Bo again in a ceremony, and this was about a week before my maternity leave was suppose to start. I was ready to pop. I was in full wedding attire. I had a tiara. I had the whole thing going on, and I’m pregnant. We were shooting really late nights. It was a long, long day, and I wasn’t really drinking enough water, and in the middle of the scene I started getting contractions. I thought for sure that I was having this baby, so I was rushed to the hospital. The funny thing is that I was rushed to the hospital in a full on wedding dress while pregnant. So I’m on the gurney, in the wedding dress with the tiara and the whole thing with my big belly, just laughing because it’s so ironic that I’m doing this. Then you hear some guy go, “Well, if that ain’t a shotgun wedding, I don’t know what is.”

It was really funny, but it was only Braxton Hicks contractions, so I did not have my son that night, but it was definitely a scare. 

Speaking of funny, with all the buzz about the new muppet show coming out this fall, I have to know. Who is your favorite muppet?

I really love Miss Piggy but she’s totally hitting on my boyfriend right now! (See video below.) I love Fozzie too. Fozzie Bear. Picking a favorite muppet, that’s so hard. It’s like picking a favorite child. 

Miss Piggy Ogles Nathan Fillion

Other than your current role as Lydia on Significant Mother, what has been your favorite role that you’ve played?

That’s also such a hard question. I don’t think I have a favorite role. I have projects that I’ve been really, really, very proud to be a part. Unscripted on HBO was a very proud moment for me. It was such a great show that was totally ahead of its time, and it was wonderful. It was dark and funny and awkward all rolled into one. I really, really loved that. It was super challenging. It was unscripted, it was mostly improv, so that part in itself was very challenging, and I had a blast. It was really fun. 

If your fairy godmother popped in and said she would give you whatever role you wanted in TV, movies, whatever, what is your dream role?

See these questions are the hardest for me. Picking favorites is always the hardest. Like even a dream role…I don’t know! Like right now, I have a dream role. A dream thing to happen would be Significant Mother Season 2. The dream people to work with would be Judd Apatow. That or to do some amazing voice in a great animated cartoon or work for Pixar or something. Those are dream things too, but they’re all so incredibly different from each other. So, I don’t know. There are so many dream roles out there. Maybe that’s what it is, maybe my scope is so large. I want to do that and that and that and oh! That too! I don’t know, but I’m a big Judd Apatow fan for sure. I think all of his stuff is really great, brilliant. And I love the Coen brothers. I think they’re freakin’ amazing, too. That would be awesome. Oh gosh, there’s so many dream roles. 

Back to Significant Mother, do you think Jimmy and Lydia are meant to last, or does Harrison have any chance to win Lydia back?

I don’t know. I wonder what the fans think. I wonder if they would want that to happen. From what I’ve seen, everyone has really liked Lydia and Jimmy. I wonder how people would feel about Lydia and Harrison getting back together. That isn’t me ever saying that that’s happening, but I wonder what they would think about that. 

Tune in tonight for Significant Mother Season 1 Episode 5 and check back here at TV Fanatic for our recap and review.

Can’t wait for more? You can watch Significant Mother online here at TV Fanatic. 

C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.