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"  Rachael Taylor, stunning star of the new ABC horror-drama 666 Park Avenue (premiering this Sunday), is an Australian actress who grew up around Tasmanian devils and pageant moms. So while it&amp;#039;s probably safe to say she&amp;#039;s the sexiest woman of fall television, she also may be the least afraid. That was quickly confirmed when I talked to Taylor recently about ghosts, Ghost, Patrick Swayze, and nightmarish things more generally. MARK SVARTZ: Let&amp;#039;s start at the top. Do you believe in ghosts? RACHAEL TAYLOR: I personally don&amp;#039;t think that I do, which is kind of a buzzkill, considering that I&amp;#039;m on a supernatural show. I err on the skeptical side of things. But we&amp;#039;ve all had that experience where we&amp;#039;ve walked into an apartment and gone, Oh, this has a really bad energy. A couple of my fellow cast members firmly believe in ghosts, and I definitely wouldn&amp;#039;t dismiss it out of hand. MS: I used to be just like you, until I had an incident. RT: What happened? MS: I moved into my first apartment in Virginia when I was 20. I was alone the first night, when I got up to go to the bathroom. As I passed by a bedroom mirror, I swear I saw an old lady standing behind me in the reflection.  RT: I&amp;#039;m intrigued by that. That story gave me chills. My mother firmly believed that she&amp;#039;s had a supernatural experience. In fact, since we started filming 666 Park Avenue, I&amp;#039;ve been having bizarrely vivid, not-so-lovely dreams. It could be a product of spending sixteen hours a day creeped out in a basement, or the fact that we shot an episode recently where I got chased down by a guy with an axe. MS: I&amp;#039;m no expert, but I&amp;#039;m pretty sure your job will guarantee nightmares. But unlike axe murderers, ghosts aren&amp;#039;t always scary. Sure, sometimes they&amp;#039;re portrayed as evil, Poltergeist-y spirits. But sometimes they&amp;#039;re kindhearted, romantic, Patrick Swayze-type ghosts. RT: I agree. I had a friend a long, long time ago who unfortunately passed away, and I remember one of his family members believing very firmly that his spirit had come back and visited in a way that was quite emotionally evocative and healing.  MS: Personally, I like to think that all ghosts spin pottery to the Righteous Brothers&amp;#039; &amp;quot;Unchained Melody.&amp;quot; RT: I&amp;#039;m partial to the Ricky Gervais-style ghost from Ghost Town. I thought that was a lovely way to look at ghosts. MS: That movie played off a very popular belief that ghosts stick around certain locations because they have unfinished business. In which case, my ghost would be at the gym, finishing up my three-year membership. RT: Yeah, I can see my ghost trying to get that Academy Award, forever stuck in a casting office. Can you imagine? I&amp;#039;ve spent enough time in audition rooms. I don&amp;#039;t want to be doing that in my afterlife. MS: If you&amp;#039;re not a true ghost believer, does anything scare you? RT: Something that truly terrified me is this great Australian film called Wolf Creek. Have you seen it? MS: No. What&amp;#039;s it about? RT: These three kids from the city get stranded in the outback and are taken advantage of by an axe murderer who knows the land. It&amp;#039;s a scary thought \u2014 the space around you being so vast out in the wilderness, but you&amp;#039;re still trapped, because there&amp;#039;s nowhere to go. You&amp;#039;ve got all the space in the universe \u2014 you can run forever \u2014 but there&amp;#039;s no way out.  MS: It&amp;#039;s creepy when your environment becomes the enemy. RT: The earth is such a voluminous, sparse, wild place that has its own rhythm that human beings try to control and strategize our way around, but the truth is, if you&amp;#039;re out someplace like the ocean on a capsized boat, it doesn&amp;#039;t matter if you have academic degrees, or if you&amp;#039;re a martial-arts ninja. Nature is a bigger force than you. MS: Ninjas have nothing on waves. I find that people are particularly terrified of the unknown.  RT: Yes. It&amp;#039;s the question, not the answer, that&amp;#039;s scary. The fact that we can&amp;#039;t answer it. MS: If scientists could provide verified proof that ghosts exist, I don&amp;#039;t think they&amp;#039;d be scary anymore.  RT: RT: Sure, if we could prove it, it&amp;#039;d be like, Okay, cool. MS: It&amp;#039;d be like in Ghostbusters, where ghosts are an accepted part of society. They ride the bus, read the paper. And occasionally they steal socks from dryers. RT: That explains every time you can&amp;#039;t find your cigarette lighter. Ghosts steal stuff. MS: Halloween is a few weeks away. Do you get into it? RT: In Australia, we don&amp;#039;t typically celebrate Halloween, but on the show, we&amp;#039;re doing an episode where my character dresses like Tippi Hedren from Hitchcock&amp;#039;s The Birds, so I think I might steal my costume from wardrobe. It&amp;#039;s super-authentic, with animatronic birds and everything. I think it would be pretty badass walking into a bar in the West Village with that getup. MS: That makes my Say Anything Lloyd Dobler costume sound terrible. RT: That&amp;#039;s the perk of working on a horror show. You get to steal fabulous costumes.  MS: So I know you&amp;#039;re a little skeptical of ghosts. But what&amp;#039;s your take on Bigfoot? RT: I&amp;#039;m not that familiar with the myth. What&amp;#039;s his deal? MS: Basically, he&amp;#039;s a gigantic half-man, half-ape that roams the Pacific Northwest.  RT: If incredible creatures like sharks can exist, why not Bigfoot? When I look at sharks, they&amp;#039;re the most terrifying, monstrous, dinosaur-like things. To this day, I&amp;#039;m so fascinated by them and can&amp;#039;t get my head around how they are on planet earth at all. MS: If we didn&amp;#039;t have actual evidence of sharks, that would be the next myth. Sharks are scarier than ghosts. But final question. It&amp;#039;s a big one. You know how ghosts are often portrayed in those white sheets with the eyeholes?  RT: Yeah. MS: Apparently, it&amp;#039;s because many cultures believe ghosts wear whatever they were buried in. The white sheet resembles a classic burial shroud.  RT: That&amp;#039;s interesting. I didn&amp;#039;t know that.  MS: Knowing your ghost would be stuck wearing its outfit for eternity, what would you want to be buried in? RT: If it&amp;#039;s for eternity, I&amp;#039;m going to need something comfortable. Sweatpants, a loose T-shirt, a pair of gumboots. If I&amp;#039;m walking around for an entire afterlife, I want dry feet. MS: Personally, I&amp;#039;m thinking a silk smoking jacket and velvet house slippers. RT: So you&amp;#039;re coming back as Hugh Hefner. Why does that not surprise me? MS: Probably because there&amp;#039;s a fifty-percent chance Hugh Hefner is actually a ghost.  RT: We&amp;#039;ve proven the existence of ghosts, and it&amp;#039;s Hugh Hefner. You heard it here first. -- Mark Svartz is an artist and creative director and author of the book I Hate You, Kelly Donahue. FALL TV CENTRAL ON THE CULTURE BLOG &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a16024/rachael-taylor-666-park-avenue-13167075/>