INTERVIEW – ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star Maggie Siff walks the line between light and darkness.

Portraying Tara Knowles on FX’s critically acclaimed Sons of Anarchy isn’t an easy task. She’s an incredibly polarizing figure, a character that simultaneously inspires hatred and love from the show’s audience,with some fans pointing to Tara as the reason Jax is struggling to remain an effective leader, and others seeing her as Jax’s last chance for salvation.

We recently took part in a conference call with series star Maggie Siff, where she discussed playing the role of Tara and the evolution of her character over the past six years. Here are some of the highlights.

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Going into the sixth season of Sons of Anarchy, what still surprises you about playing Tara?

What still surprises me? You know, I’ve been joking that Tara’s like the place people go to see their dreams die, so I guess what surprises me is the darker and darker progression of the things that she sees fall away. The thing that surprises me in playing her and in figuring out how to play her are really her reserves of strength and power. Even as her mind is sort of warping and things in her psyche are shifting in a way that I think is really negative and things are kind of breaking, there’s also a fierceness in her that rises up perpetually. That’s the surprise.

There’s a large contingency of viewers that are still pulling for Jax and Tara to work things out. Would you classify them as being hopelessly naïve?

I don’t think so. You know, I think that one of the things about the show that really pulls people in is that no matter how awful things get between people there is this deep, kind of violently passionate love between the characters, within the family, between Jax and Tara. It’s hard not to, on a basic level, root for that. I think I root for that. I think we all root for that.

That said, it’s such a brutal and brutalizing world, god knows how it’s all going to end. I think it’s natural and I think it’s set up for us to root for that.

The scene from the premiere where Jax cheats on Tara certainly raised the ire of many fans. How did you feel about it when you read the script for that episode?

I’m glad to hear that fans were upset. I was upset as well. You know, I think that they’re in such a disconnected place from each other right now. I think that at the end of season five we saw just incredible disillusionment on both their parts with the other person. I think Jax is feeling the sting of her betrayal in terms of trying to set things up so that the kids would be given to Wendy, and she was feeling the sting of his betrayal in terms of a real lack of support for her priorities in terms of getting out and getting her kids into a safe place, and also some of the more violent and terrifying aspects of his nature that were revealed to her at the end of last season.

They’re on different planes right now and she can’t even see him when she’s in prison. What I was playing with in the premier episode is that she’s using the time to really collect her thoughts and create a plan for herself in terms of what she’s going to do to protect herself and her kids, because nobody else is going to help her, and that includes Jax. Therefore, she can’t expose herself to him because it would be too difficult.

In the beginning of the series, Tara almost seemed to serve as the moral compass of the show. With everything that’s transpired over the past few years, the show has certainly gone to a much darker place. Did you know from the beginning what your character’s arc would be like, or has it happened more organically?

I think it’s been pretty organic. I think he always wanted to see Tara progress towards Gemma and towards assuming the role of matriarch. I think he didn’t know how that was going to happen, in particular because she was a moral compass, which I think was not necessarily what he  anticipated for the character. I think it was a combination of who I was as an actor and some beginning notions that he had about her.

I think early on, the thing that he would say to me is that he realized that she was like the window through which the audience could see these people. Like the audience, she loved this man but knew better, and that’s sort of the audience’s position as well, like you love them but you know that they’re bad people.

I think getting from A to Z in terms of that slide, she can’t actually become a Gemma-like figure without losing some of her moral ground, you know?

Do you think that’s her goal? To become the sort of “neo-Gemma?”

No. I think that’s the thing that ultimately will always distinguish her from Gemma and ultimately the thing that keeps her on – it’s not firm moral ground, but I think it’s slightly firmer moral ground, that she really wants to provide a safe life for her children. She really ultimately doesn’t want to live the life of a criminal within the world of that kind of danger and violence.

I think this season what you see is a Tara who’s progressed to a place where she knows how to use the tactics of Gemma. She has violence in the aspects of her nature that she now draws upon or that rise up more quickly, but her goal is different. Her goal will always be different.

It seems that no matter how hard Tara tries not to become Gemma, she continues to find herself gravitating toward that. What’s it been like to play such a conflicted role?

It’s pretty fascinating. I think there’s something almost magnetizing about Gemma and Tara. The way I’ve been thinking about it recently is Gemma is like this fierce mother figure. She’s just such a powerful matriarch and she loves fiercely and will protect to the death her children, her clan, anything she feels is going to threaten the sanctity of her family. Tara is like this quintessential orphan who’s parentless and she’s been so in need of parents and protectors and people she can look to. So between those two things there’s this magnetism, which is why I think they’re so drawn to each other and repelled by each other.

Gemma is the only person around who serves that role for Tara. It’s a huge source of conflict because I think while she desperately needs a parent she desperately doesn’t want to become Gemma. It’s just had her bouncing back and forth between states of mind over the last six years. It’s really fun to play, especially with Katey, who I love. She’s a very maternal figure but she’s such a fierce actress we just flip in and out of these modes acting and hating each other, and then love each other as people. It’s all there for us to play with. It’s a fun relationship.

You talked a little bit earlier about Tara’s evolution and how these days she seems quicker to let the violent sides of her nature take over. Are we going to see more of that side of her as the season goes on?

Yes, you’ll see a little bit of that. I mean, I think that she spends a lot of this season really scheming and plotting and doing what she has to do to protect herself. Her tactics are somewhat questionable sometimes. So yes, you’ll see her doing some things that are pretty reminiscent of Gemma and they’ll make you cringe slightly.

I think she’s also learned that if she’s going to survive in this world, which she’s determined to do, then she has to get a little bit dirty.

When you’re on set everyday and dealing with some of this darker subject matter, how do you separate yourself from that when you go home for the day? How do you leave that on the set and not let it affect you in your personal life?

That’s a good question. I always feel like maybe I’m a freak this way, but when I’m there, I’m there one hundred percent, and when I leave I’m gone. I don’t know why. The world is so dark and so specific and we throw ourselves into it, but the beauty of shooting film and television as opposed to theater, where you have to keep reliving things night after night, is that you do it and it’s done. If you do it well it’s like a form of catharsis. That’s what I find. I find that if I commit to something one hundred percent and I’m satisfied with what comes out, then I can walk away from my day and I feel pretty light. I know that’s not true for every actor, but on this show I have found  that to be relatively true.

Also, I will say as Tara, I don’t have to do a lot of that shooting that the guys do, where they’re constantly in the middle of these terrifically violent things that are happening day after day and they’re riding around in the desert in their leathers. Really, my job is so confined to a really specific portion of the story.

Tara’s background as a surgeon and a healer seems like an interesting juxtaposition when we find her in situations where she has to hurt people, whether directly or indirectly. Was it always Kurt’s goal to showcase both sides of the character?

You know, from the beginning I thought that the thing that’s interesting about her being a doctor and being a surgeon is she’s somebody who has to be capable of performing surgery, of dealing with the blood and the guts of life. To me, that means that she’s somebody who’s really fierce and tough. Even though it was for good and she’s a healer and she really identified herself as a healer and she has a gift, I could also connect it to the part of her that came from that world and was able to deal with life and death and darkness and shadow and light.

In some intuitive way she’s somebody who is comfortable taking life and death into her hands, so I kind of felt like that’s interesting, it’ll be an interesting coin to flip through the series, to see her going between these places of healing and destruction.

I think she’s lost right now because she’s lost her ability to be a doctor and a healer. She has to turn her attention to other things and I think it’s really wreaking havoc on her and bringing up the darker parts of her nature. I don’t think that part of her that is a healer has been destroyed.

There seems to be a consensus right now that some of the best roles for actresses are being written on television, rather than in films. Would you agree with that?

I think so. I think the thing that we’re seeing in television, in particular on cable television, is a really wide array of roles for women both in terms of age, ethnicity, type, socioeconomic status. There are just more roles, but I think there are also more kinds of representation happening. I know that I feel more excited about the landscape now than I did five years ago, so it’s good.

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Sons of Anarchy airs Tuesday nights at 10pm, exclusively on FX.