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"  If anyone knows about workplace trysts, it&amp;#039;s Kathleen Robertson, who plays the extremely personal personal aide on Starz&amp;#039;s extremely excellent Boss, which returns this Friday. Also, she is an actor, and actors are apparently always sleeping with their coworkers. So I talked to her about that and quite a bit more. MARK SVARTZ: Have you ever worked in a traditional office environment? KATHLEEN ROBERTSON: No, never have. I&amp;#039;ve been an actor my entire life. But I have worked &amp;quot;regular&amp;quot; jobs in high school. I worked at a place called the It Store, which was basically a joke shop. I also worked at a place called the High School Cafe, which was a bar for teenagers before you could go to an actual bar, so it was done up like a bar, but instead we served root beer. And I didn&amp;#039;t last very long at either one.  MS: I don&amp;#039;t know how long you really want to last at the It Store. KR: Yeah, they were weird jobs. MS: Did you end up having any jobsite romances during those summers? KR: No, definitely not. But even though a movie or TV set isn&amp;#039;t the typical office environment, whatever would be a normal sort of office crush, on a movie set, is always completely heightened, because everybody&amp;#039;s living out of a suitcase and plunked down in a random small town \u2014 places like New Mexico or Bulgaria. So there&amp;#039;s always these set relationships that pop up. MS: Who&amp;#039;s getting down? KR: It&amp;#039;s usually the lead actress with a grip. That&amp;#039;s a very common one. And it&amp;#039;s usually the cute female makeup artist with the lead actor. That&amp;#039;s always the most common &amp;quot;office relationship&amp;quot; on a movie set. I&amp;#039;ve always been terrified about it, though. I&amp;#039;ve never gone there, because I&amp;#039;m very private, and I&amp;#039;d be worried of everybody knowing my business. MS: I figure Hollywood must be readymade for work romance. KR: Oh, one-hundred percent. MS: Some industries are suited for it, and some aren&amp;#039;t. The music industry seems pretty natural. Working at a church, less so. KR: It&amp;#039;s tailor-made for that. Especially for actors, because you&amp;#039;re being given permission to not only flirt, but people have to kiss and do lots of other sorts of things. It&amp;#039;s part of your job. MS: When everyone is beautiful, and you&amp;#039;re being directed to get naked and go to town, it&amp;#039;s a little more conducive than, say, the plumbing industry, even though plumbers are popular porn characters. KR: Any time I ever have to do any steamy scenes like that, I always look at the actor before or after the first take, and I say, &amp;quot;Weirdest job in the world.&amp;quot; The guy is often on the ground doing pushups before the first take, hoping that it&amp;#039;ll pump his chest up just a tiny bit more on camera, and I&amp;#039;m standing there in a bathrobe thinking, Oh my God, what am I doing here? MS: I think office romances are pretty natural, especially in America, because we work so many hours. We spend more time at work than at home. Probably the same reason everyone gets together in high school and prison. KR: Yeah. Where else do you have a chance to meet anyone \u2014 at a bar? Unless you meet someone in school, once you start your career, that&amp;#039;s who you spend time with. I guess a ton of people I know do online dating, which I can&amp;#039;t even imagine doing personally, but I don&amp;#039;t hold it against anyone. If it works, it works. But the natural pool of people you&amp;#039;re looking at are the people you&amp;#039;re with every day at work. Unless you&amp;#039;re working at the It Store, in which case, I&amp;#039;d advise against it. MS: I have friends who work at ad agencies where the hours are so intense, inter-office dating is kind of unofficially officially encouraged. KR: Oh, that&amp;#039;s interesting. MS: It&amp;#039;s just convenient. Even though it&amp;#039;s often frowned upon, at the end of the day, I don&amp;#039;t see how office romances are that bad of a thing. KR: Absolutely. I mean, if it&amp;#039;s an affair, that&amp;#039;s a whole other thing. But if you&amp;#039;re both single, go for it. Like I said, even though it&amp;#039;s common on a movie set, people still keep it pretty secretive, because even in this day and age, it&amp;#039;s not something considered appropriate. That&amp;#039;s why, for us, at the wrap party after filming \u2014 that&amp;#039;s when you can see who&amp;#039;s gotten together on the job. That&amp;#039;s when they finally allow each other to hold hands and kiss, and everyone&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Oh my God, are you two together?&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s always the chance that certain bosses will disapprove and say that it&amp;#039;ll get in the way of your performance, and they want your total focus on the job. It makes sense. MS: But what&amp;#039;s the worst that could happen? It&amp;#039;s not like we&amp;#039;re talking about dating on a nuclear sub. KR: Right. You would hope that coworkers who are dating can act professionally. But then again, some people can handle it, and some people can&amp;#039;t. And those who can&amp;#039;t kind of ruin it for the rest of us. Sometimes it&amp;#039;s hard to be around an office relationship that went sour. When two actors have to be onscreen together, it can get really, really awful. MS: Have you been on a set when two people were dealing with a romantic conflict? KR: Many times. I will not name names, but I did a movie with an actor who was my love interest in the film, and he was dating one of the ADs... We were on location, and they met and they were wildly in love and everyone knew it. It was this big secret, and they broke up halfway through the movie, and it was awful. I mean, you could hear them in the trailer screaming, and she would then come out and be like, &amp;quot;Okay, we&amp;#039;re ready for you on set&amp;quot; \u2014 trying to manage this movie while dealing with this huge breakup. It was a nightmare. Everybody was ticked off, because it really did affect the energy and feel of being on that set. MS: I guess the good thing about being professional actors is that, if anyone can hide it, it&amp;#039;s you guys. KR: It&amp;#039;s why we get paid. MS: In most professions, another concern about office romances is the potential for sexual harassment lawsuits. KR: On movie sets, they always have a crew meeting about that, but I&amp;#039;m sure they do that in most offices, right? MS: Definitely. But it must be tough to have a fling at a law firm, because everyone&amp;#039;s got those statutes memorized. KR: Everyone knows what you can or cannot do, down to the letter. MS: If you loosened your necktie in a conference room while licking your lips, according to California v. Jenkins... KR: Totally not allowed! MS: I read somewhere about how there&amp;#039;s often an overnight room in hospitals where surgeons and residents will sneak off to when they really want to play doctor. KR: No kidding. MS: It&amp;#039;s weird to think of brain surgeons having office flings. Though I wonder how many people actually choose their profession based on the potential for office affairs. KR: That would be sad, if that&amp;#039;s what determined your career. MS: But you know there are hedge-funders who went into to get rich and get women. If they had been smart, they could&amp;#039;ve skipped the MBA and gone into fashion or cosmetics and been surrounded by lovely female coworkers. KR: There are plenty of people who do that. Straight hairdressers. MS: Being that you&amp;#039;re in a political drama with plenty of office affairs, I have to ask: If you were a White House intern and could have a fling with any U.S. president, past or present, who would you choose? KR: None. Never! I would never be that stupid. I&amp;#039;m a good girl. I&amp;#039;d never go there. MS: Really? How cool would it be to have Abraham Lincoln as a notch on your bedpost? KR: None for me. MS: I&amp;#039;ll have to chalk that up to you being Canadian. KR: Exactly. Let&amp;#039;s go with that. -- Mark Svartz is an artist and creative director and author of the book I Hate You, Kelly Donahue. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a15354/kathleen-robertson-boss-11711446/>