Yeah, it is, and it's actually pretty fun. I think that the hardest part of that is when we're rehearsing a scene and I'm like, "Hey, can I say it this way instead of that way?" I see this thing happen to him where he's struggling with doing his job as an actor and being the showrunner, so over the course of working on these scenes, I came to understand that what I really needed to do was not ask him those questions and really just treat him as an actor, because he needed that space in order to do his job as an actor.
He loves acting and he loves the process of acting, and [playing Otto] is his chance to let go of all his other responsibilities and just play in this way. So, it's actually really lovely to be able to have some scenes with him and work with him strictly as a peer. He's a very good actor, and to get inside a scene with him, it's a different kind of connection. We get along really well as people and as collaborators, but he's also my boss. But in that room, acting, he wasn't my boss. He was just my co-actor. It was really enjoyable.
[Related: Get a first look at the Jax and [Spoiler] face off and Otto's torment continues]
Tara and Otto had some weird chemistry during her visits to the prison, and there were those scenes in Episode 9, "Andare Pescare," when Otto masturbated while Tara stroked his hair... What was your take on that whole situation?
(Laughing) I know people were so confused by that. As was I. Well, I don't think that she was fantasizing about him, and I don't think she felt a sexual connection to him. That was not my read on the situation.
I think she felt like this was a desperately lonely man who was taking a rare opportunity to give comfort to himself, and she was like, "Uh, OK, that's what's happening now." She sort of let that happen. But she didn't feel involved in it in any way beyond being there and letting him comfort himself.
To that extent, I think that if there is a connection between what we see her doing later on in the episode and what he was doing, I think it's much more about her experiencing her own loneliness and making a choice about addressing it in that moment in a way that she does. But I don't think ... she certainly wasn't fantasizing about him or connecting in any really erotic way. It was much more ... an expression of loneliness, I think.
She was very lonely this season, wasn't she?
She's always lonely! (Laughing) But yes, yes. I think so. I mean, I felt like her and Jax's connection … you just didn't see them enjoying each other that much this season, because he's in such a terribly dark place, and she's really on her own and trying to figure out how to fill this role, and then trying to figure out how to get out of this role. They're always promising not to keep secrets from each other, but they're always keeping secrets from each other. This season was almost worse than it's ever been.
One of the other really great Tara moments of the season, and one of the rare, but so welcome, moments of levity was her scene with Unser at the hospital. It was funny and moving, because it felt like both of them are in deep with the club, yet they also can both sit back and just say, "Man, can you believe the stuff we've gotten into with these people?"
(Laughing) Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think Unser is another character who's a very lonely person. For better or for worse, these are the people he's thrown his lot in with and who he calls family. [Unser and Tara's] position within that world is really, it's really weird and sweet, but also at times very alienating and lonely. I loved that scene. I mean, I just love Dayton [Callie, who plays Unser] and his work so much, and that character, he is like this elder. He's like this curmudgeonly elder, just like Tara says, "I think of you as someone who's seen it all."
I think of Dayton that way a little bit as well. We haven't had many opportunities to work together, and whenever we do, I enjoy it so much, because they feel like a very unlikely pair, and yet in that scene, you see everything that they have in common.
On a far happier note, in an interview earlier this season you mentioned you were planning your own wedding while you were filming Jax and Tara's brothel wedding. Did you get married?
(Laughing) Yes, I did. I got married last month. I had a very small wedding, with just close family and friends. We did it in Maine, where a lot of my family live. It was really lovely, and we did not get married in a brothel! We got married on a beautiful farm, and it was a great weekend.
"Sons of Anarchy" airs Tuesday, Dec. 4 at 10 PM on FX.