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" Even if you never watched AMC&amp;#039;s The Killing, chances are you heard somebody like your insufferable cousin or the Internet gripe about it. After the show answered the question &amp;quot;Who Killed Rosie Larsen?&amp;quot; last summer, it was canceled. &amp;quot;Good riddance,&amp;quot; said huge TV nerds. But miraculously, AMC had a change of heart some months later and revived the show for a third season, which premieres this Sunday, June 2, at 8 p.m. ET. Plot points aside, the show was beautifully shot over the course of two seasons and anchored by the charming Mireille Enos, who plays detective Sarah Linden. The new season picks up a year later, and Linden has left the force and, by all accounts, seems happy. But in the first episode, her old partner Holder (Joel Kinnaman) walks through the door and just like that \u2014 murder is back on the table (this time a serial killer!). We recently talked to the effortlessly charming Enos while she was on the set of The Killing in Vancouver about the show&amp;#039;s resurrection, her starring role in Brad Pitt&amp;#039;s upcoming zombie flick World War Z, and why she could probably kick your ass (but never would, unless you stepped to her). ESQUIRE.COM: Last summer, The Killing was killed, then brought back to life by AMC. Were you shocked by this? MIREILLE ENOS: The whole event was surprising. It was surprising when it went away, it was surprising when it came back. I&amp;#039;m so glad now that I&amp;#039;m three-fourths of the way done with this new season. The storyline is so strong. It would&amp;#039;ve been a shame if we hadn&amp;#039;t gotten to do it. ESQ: Was there discussion during season two about where season three would go? ME: Yeah, I think that&amp;#039;s why I felt so disappointed when it got canceled. I already knew the whole arc. There were breadcrumbs for this whole season even laid into the pilot. It was definitely meant to be a trilogy. I think it will be really satisfying to watch. ESQ: What were you doing when you heard the news that it got resurrected? ME: I was working on an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in Atlanta [eds. note: Ten]. It was a big, 14-hour day and I was in the van, driving home to the hotel when I got the call. ESQ: Were you going to miss playing Linden? How do you let go of a character that you&amp;#039;ve worked so hard to create and shape? ME: I think it comes with the territory. You get used to falling in love with people and having to let them go. Sarah is one of the more complicated people I&amp;#039;ve gotten to play and I&amp;#039;m definitely just crazy about her. Finding out it was canceled was a bit of a heartbreak. But there&amp;#039;s also wonderful stories to tell so you just pick yourself up and look for the next thing. ESQ: The second season seemed to generate the same strong reactions as the first. Did you guys come to any conclusions as to why people had problems with it? ME: I think the main contention people had was that it took too long to solve [the case]... I felt it was like a gift we were given to have so much time. I can understand as an audience wanting it to be resolved a little faster. I know the Danish model solved it in 20 episodes. Which may have been closer to the right kind of timing. This season we&amp;#039;re solving the case in 12 episodes. It definitely feels tighter. The momentum is a lot faster. Audiences who had a problem with the pacing in the first two will find that resolved. This year it&amp;#039;s about finding a balance. The pacing is definitely a signature of the show; we haven&amp;#039;t completely let go of that. But then, there&amp;#039;s room to accelerate it at different points. We just walk that tightrope. ESQ: In the first episode, Linden seems to be happier, more full of life, even a bit sexier.  ME: Yes! Sarah&amp;#039;s spent the year away trying to be happy. She&amp;#039;s moved out of the city, she&amp;#039;s living on the island, has a cute boyfriend \u2014 she&amp;#039;s trying to be as relaxed as possible. And for the most part, she&amp;#039;s succeeding. And then of course Holder walks back through her door. ESQ: That damn Holder. ME: Yeah, I know. ESQ: Dare I say she&amp;#039;s ditched her wool sweaters? I didn&amp;#039;t see one. ME: Um, you didn&amp;#039;t watch episode two, did you? ESQ: I did not. ME: [Laughs.] ESQ: They make a triumphant return, don&amp;#039;t they? ME: They do! They&amp;#039;re stubborn, those sweaters.  ESQ: You mention that the show picks up a year later. Where is she in her professional life? ME: She&amp;#039;s chosen to work on the ferries. It&amp;#039;s something that requires no emotional commitment at all. It&amp;#039;s the perfect departure for her. She can make a little money, be out on the water, and not have to think or feel anything about her job. For the short term, it was a really good fix. Ultimately, it&amp;#039;s not something that would satisfy Sarah. I think it&amp;#039;s clear, once Holder shows back up, she needs to spend her life doing something more important. ESQ: Have you received feedback from actual cops on Linden? ME: I haven&amp;#039;t asked them about their ideas of who Sarah is but they definitely talk about the drain of the job and how the job is never finished. These crazy long hours, you don&amp;#039;t eat, you don&amp;#039;t sleep. Cop culture is very insular. They tend to not have a lot of friends who aren&amp;#039;t cops; there&amp;#039;s just this whole cop culture where they just trust each other and not civilians. The way that being on the job works on your adrenaline highs and the crashes that come after the adrenaline highs. It really takes over your life. ESQ: So that&amp;#039;s a big deal for her if she&amp;#039;s letting all that go. ME: Yeah, yeah. She&amp;#039;s doing a good job of being happier. But then it gets complicated. It&amp;#039;s a more vunerable Sarah that steps back into these worlds. And it&amp;#039;s a case that&amp;#039;s so personally loaded. She&amp;#039;s less equipped to keep herself safe from that. ESQ: How does she get back into the game? ME: The case that Holder brings to her \u2014 she starts to do her own kind of investigation and that leads her to discover that this one girl Holder finds is connected to a whole string of murders. Which helps supports her theory that she put the wrong man in prison years ago.  ESQ: World War Z hits theaters in a few weeks. What&amp;#039;s your character like? ME: She&amp;#039;s a mom. She&amp;#039;s a smart, great woman who has worked as a nurse in several countries. She&amp;#039;s very globally minded. Right now, her focus is being a mother to her two girls and a wife. She has a great marriage and when this epidemic strikes, they&amp;#039;re fighting for their lives to keep their family together.  ESQ: Is she heroic? ME: I think so. It&amp;#039;s no small feat keeping just herself alive. ESQ: I read that the idea is presented that after a bite, a human would turn to a zombie in 12 seconds.  ME: That&amp;#039;s correct. ESQ: Does that seem a little fast to you? ME: Well, we talk about that at different points in the epidemic, that change is either slower or faster and that the virus is evolving. So when the outbreak happens in Philadelphia where we are, the rate at which change is happening \u2014 that&amp;#039;s not always true.  ESQ: If I was bit, I&amp;#039;d like at least a day to wrap my head around it. ME: No. There&amp;#039;s no time. [Laughs.] ESQ: What&amp;#039;s your supernatural being of choice these days? Zombies, vampires, werewolves? ME: Oh... It&amp;#039;s funny you should ask. I&amp;#039;ve never seen a zombie movie. This will be the first zombie movie I ever see. Probably I&amp;#039;d lean more toward werewolves. Wolves are cool. Vampires \u2014 we just kinda played out the vampire thing, right? Yeah, maybe werewolves. ESQ: Have you seen The Walking Dead? Zombies are hot right now. ME: I know. Zombies are the new vampires. ESQ: World War Z had a bunch of production issues. What was the deal? ME: You know, I was kept pretty much out of the loop. Those issues were above me. I was just showing up, doing my work, and everything seemed great. Marc Forster is a fantastic director, Brad is an incredible partner to work with, and we just were having a really good time. I think there was scheduling stuff and money stuff and I was not involved in that. ESQ: Did they seek you out for this role or did you do a reading for it? ME: I did read for it. I actually got sent it while I was up here in Vancouver doing [The Killing] season one. I didn&amp;#039;t have time to come down to L.A. so my husband [actor Alan Ruck, who you know as Cameron from Ferris Bueller&amp;#039;s Day Off] and I, after working a really long day, at one in the morning, put me on tape with a Flip video. He was running the camera and doing the lines with me. I stayed up until four in the morning, figuring out what was the best take, getting the e-mails, then I slept for two hours and went back to work. That went out into the ether. [Director] Marc Forster got in touch and said he&amp;#039;d like to meet with me, and then I met with Brad, and we made a movie!  ESQ: Is that an abnormal way of getting a job? ME: Joel Kinnaman got his part [on The Killing] by sending in a tape from Sweden. [Laughs.]. It was easier than flying the whole way. ESQ: You&amp;#039;re so busy these days. What are you doing in your free time? ME: I spend time with my two-year-old and my husband. I do taekowndo. ESQ: You do? ME: Yeah. I was in L.A. this weekend and I planted blackberries and that was fun. ESQ: Are you a black belt?  ME: I am. ESQ: Does that come in handy when you&amp;#039;re shooting zombie films and The Killing? ME: It does! Even when I&amp;#039;m not typically fighting, I think the confidence that it gives me definitely affects my work. ESQ: That Arnold film sounds fun. ME: It&amp;#039;s about an undercover DEA team. Arnold is kinda the Daddy of the team. It has Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, me \u2014 a whole bunch of awesome guys and me. Totally amazing. We go in these really gnarly cartel situations and we find ourselves picked off. And we don&amp;#039;t know who&amp;#039;s after us. It&amp;#039;s suspenseful and really a form for really great character work. I think that&amp;#039;s what makes David Ayer really interesting. He likes to make a tough-y movie, but actually he&amp;#039;s a character director. He&amp;#039;s fascinated by the actual people who decide to have these jobs and the way it affects their lives. ESQ: Would you ever be a cop?  ME: No. I admire so much that there&amp;#039;s people willing to do it. But it&amp;#039;s a hard, hard world. ESQ: It&amp;#039;s much easier to think about blackberries.  ME: Exactly. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/interviews/a22839/mireille-enos-the-killing-interview/>