Katey Sagal interview, clip from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

By April MacIntyre Nov 20, 2009, 15:39 GMT

Best dramatic actress on smallscreen currently - Katey Sagal - 61st Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards - Arrivals - Nokia Theater LA Live - Los Angeles, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

FX Network "Sons of Anarchy" star Katey Sagal, who portrays Gemma Teller Morrow on the best damned drama on TV was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Jimmy talked to Katey Sagal last night, and she regaled him about her upbringing on the road as a backup singer for Etta James and Bob Dylan and her very unique role in Sons of Anarchy.

Sagal has turned in two outstanding seasons on FX drama “Sons of Anarchy” as the matriarch of the SAMCRO MC, Gemma Teller Morrow.

Gemma’s steely gaze speaks volumes in a supremely subtle yet powerful performance as a woman whose past we know little of, and whose future seems as murky too.

The way Sagal attacks this overtly sexual alpha female who rules as Queen in the center of a testosterone-dominated world leaves a mark on every viewer.

She owns each frame she is in, and her husband Kurt Sutter, who created the series and wrote the role for her, knew her monster talent would rise in the right script, character and opportunity.

It was a sin that she (and the entire show save for the Music) was overlooked in the last Emmy nominee roundup.  Sutter is reaping revenge as the ratings for this sophomore season have gone through the roof and crushed network stalwarts like The Jay Leno show, a fact that does not please Sutter, who blogs and blames NBC for jacking around with Jay's established slot in the first place.

The season has been underscored by events that thrust Sagal's Gemma at the epicenter of all the action: The rape, and its fallout and cover-up will be the continuing theme until a resolution (or not) is worked out in Charming.
How this goes down exactly will reveal in the next five episodes.

Katey Sagal talks to Jimmy about getting fired by Bob Dylan and her fake scar and tattoos on Sons of Anarchy.