There are a few things you automatically notice about Canadian actress Laura Harris. The first is that her hair is uber-blond right now--the kind of hyper-Nordic look that could permanently blind you if the sun hit it at the right angle. The second is that her voice has a very child-like quality to it; the sort of voice you'd expect to come out of a cartoon heroine (which, no surprise, was one of her first gigs in the biz). But, in her new comedic-horror film, Severance (think The Office meets Halloween, not the Scream trilogy), she puts aside these angelic traits in order to kick some serious ass.

"I sort of fantasized about [my character] being a little bit like Sigourney Weaver in Alien. My back-story for her was that she grew up in Michael Moore-America. I've been in gun clubs when I've been training for roles, and I've seen 6 years olds shooting targets and I'm just like 'What parent does that with their kid?' But, I used that as a character trait. She's someone who from a very young age grew up shooting guns as an extra-curricular activity."

It's not the first time the actress had to come to terms with one of her character's gun-toting ways. In her turn as Marie Warner on the popular series 24, Harris freaked out at having to shoot a weapon. "The gun had a waited emotional aspect to it. I had this visceral sense that it was this tool of death. I'm fine handling and getting to know how to use it, but hitting the target is something I've always had trouble with. I'd rather hit the tree behind the person."

From handling tools of death to just plain dead, one of Harris' most memorable roles was that of Daisy, a grim reaper on the TV series Dead Like Me (which airs on Showcase, Mondays at 10PM). In order to play the character--a self-proclaimed 1930s "movie star"--Harris spent a lot of time studying those Norma Desmond moves. "It was a real stretch for me to play her. She's from a different era and I had to cultivate qualities that weren't naturally occurring in me--flamboyant femininity, that star-quality, gesticulating, crossing your legs... but now they're part of who I am. You bring them out; they're latent qualities."

Outside of acting, Harris is heavily involved in the community gardening scene. "I just saw this incredible documentary about Peak Oil in Cuba [The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil] and it was so affecting. I just bought my first house with a garden and there are four community gardens in my neighbourhood alone."

So, a rose grows in LA you say--who knew? But, gardening aside, does this down-to-earth, Vancouver transplant ever get caught up in the Hollywood hype machine and the celebrity gossip sites the feed it? "I have gone to those sites, but I consciously try not to because I think it's an easy thing to get addicted to--someone else's opinion of you. I think it's just healthiest to stay away from it. I also know people who obsessively do that and I don't think it's good for them. You're better served reading a book!"