Morena Baccarin

It’s not easy to be ’V’s’ Anna. Sure, she’s an alien lizard lady bent on world domination and she’s murdered countless people (and lizards) who’ve gotten in her way. But things don’t always go swimmingly for her, to put it mildly.

Below, Morena Baccarin, who plays Anna on ’V,’ previews the ABC show’s Tuesday finale and about talks what’s going on in the exclusive Anna image below. Baccarin says the finale is "not for the faint of heart," and that may apply to the freaky picture of Anna as well.

In this photo from the ’V’ finale, Anna is trying out her new trick: Giving her "bliss" to humans. It’s a skill she recently discovered, and as you can see, it takes a lot out of her.

To prepare for Anna’s blissed-out scenes, Baccarin said she would tilt her head back while makeup artists splashed her with drops of red goo, and then she’d tilt her head forward to let the goo run down her face. The process was repeated a number of times.

Baccarin said the application of the red substance didn’t hurt, though some of the sticky stuff got in her eyes, and it certainly made for an interesting day at work. "There are some really strange photos of me between shots, on my lunch break," she recalled. "All my food tasted really sweet."

All things considered, it wasn’t her most physically challenging day on the ’V’ set. That came in the first season, when she had to lie in water and, for each take of Anna coming out of a pool, rise up just so. "That was technically challenging," Baccarin said.

As for the season 2 finale, "I don’t know if I can watch it," Baccarin said. "It’s definitely action-packed and emotional. We have some pretty big deaths coming up. It’s really bloody, and it’s not just the eyes. It’s not an episode for the faint of heart."

She wouldn’t elaborate on the deaths, obviously, but she said, "It’s really sad." (For more on the show and the season finale, check out this recent interview with cast members and a ’V’ executive producer.)

Marc Singer, one of the stars of the original ’V,’ has a role in the season 2 finale, but Baccarin said she didn’t have any scenes with the actor, who is pictured at right. She did get to chat with him, and she added that it was "exciting" to see Singer talking with another original ’V’ star, Jane Badler, on the set.

"It was so surreal, because I was such a big fan of the original," she said.

Singer plays Lars Tremont, who’s part of a group of world leaders who are suspicious of the Vs, but there are many other plots afoot in the finale, which also has Anna trying to force her daughter Lisa (Laura Vandervoort) to breed with her human boyfriend, Tyler.

Not surprisingly, many of the biggest confrontations of the finale involve the three ladies in Anna’s family. She has to contend with a newly assertive Lisa as well as Diana (Badler), Anna’s mother; both women are contemplating a coup that would oust the V leader from power.

"I think she knows, at this point, that Lisa" is working against her, Baccarin said. "But she’s excited about a little queen egg" that she has in reserve. Anna views it as her backup plan should Lisa fully rebel against her mom.

"She’s a control freak," Baccarin said of her character. "With Lisa, she wanted to create the perfect daughter, and now she’s trying again with her queen egg."

Now that the second season of ’V’ has wrapped, Baccarin has had time to take on other roles. She’ll appear in an April episode of ’The Mentalist’ as Erica Flynn, a woman accused of murdering her husband.

She’s not worried about being typecast as the murdering kind, she said.

"It was just really nice to play a human again," she said with a laugh.