Sipping coffee in the rooftop greenhouse at New York's Gramercy Park Hotel, Melissa George is discussing her role in HBO's new therapy drama, In Treatment. "I'd rather play a sex addict than a pure, beautiful, loving wife with three kids." She's wearing jeans with knee-high leather boots, and her naturally blonde hair is pinned back tight. By her own criteria, the part—one of six alternating characters undergoing weekly analysis—is especially satisfying.
When we first encounter George's character, Laura, it's 9:00 A.M. and she's spent the predawn hours in a park across the street from her shrink's office. Mascara blotches her tear-stained cheeks and she's wearing a low-cut black minidress. Her analyst, Paul (Gabriel Byrne), dutifully pushes a tissue box in her direction.
Between sobs, the details slowly emerge. A fight with her live-in boyfriend had sent Laura fleeing to a bar where, inevitably, a man sidled up beside her. The two strangers soon ended up together in a bathroom stall. But while he was lifting her dress, Laura had second thoughts. Fast talk and a conciliatory hand job got her off the hook. Then Laura drops the real bombshell, telling Paul, "When I went into that stall with that guy, I imagined it was you behind me. That's what made it so exciting." It's a hell of a jumping-off point for the series, and sets the tone for the psychological warfare that follows.
You might not guess it from George's peppy disposition, but Laura is the perfect fit for her. "When I go to work, I don't want to be me," George says. Indeed, she credits watching Jennifer Jason Leigh play the hooker in Last Exit to Brooklyn as the moment she knew she wanted to become an actor. Well, almost. As a 15-year-old Australian national roller-skating champion from Perth, she wasn't yet so savvy at distinguishing fiction from reality. "I thought it was a documentary. Then I found out they were actors, and I was like, 'Wow, what a career.'"
The following year, George auditioned for the first time, and landed the Australian soap opera role of Angel, a teenage runaway. She's since played an evil double agent on ABC's Alias as well as the female leads in both the remake of The Amityville Horror and the vampire thriller 30 Days of Night.
Because of the gore, she's often typecast. "This word horror really freaks me out. I'm always like, 'Wow, you don't see the love story, or the moments of frustration?'" A vehicle devoid of fake blood, In Treatment will no doubt focus viewers on her superb acting.
The morning of our interview, George, now 31, and her husband (the director Claudio Dabed) have just entered into contract on a townhouse where she hopes to raise offspring of their own. "There's a humming in this city that I love," she explains. "I like banging into people?to learn from characters on the street. If I'm in L.A., I have to drive an hour to find that."
