Summer Glau

It was the opportunity of a lifetime, but actress Summer Glau almost didn’t even show up to her audition to play Cameron in the new Fox series "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

"I had such an idea in my mind of what the Terminator should be and I didn’t fit that in any way," Glau told reporters. "I’m short and I don’t have that Terminator look."

"But because Arnold Schwarzenegger [who played the original Terminator] is such an icon and such an action hero, [’Sarah Connor’ creator] Josh Friedman decided to take this Terminator on a completely different path. We’re not trying to recreate Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that makes me feel safe."

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" follows the story of Sarah, played by Lena Headey, and son John, played by Thomas Dekker, after they decide to stop running from a destructive race of evil machines from the future and fight back against them. Cameron, who herself is a robot, acts as a guardian to John so that he might one day fulfill his prophecy as the savior of mankind. A new episode airs tonight at 9.

Glau said the hardest part about playing the Terminator is that she has to repress all her human instincts.

"My scene partner might be spilling their guts to me or crying and I can’t give anything back," said Glau. "I can’t respond in a way that I would playing a human, and that never quite feels natural to me."

But Glau relishes being able to kick some serious small-screen butt.

"I love the fact that I get to be very physical and that they’ve chosen a girl to be John’s bodyguard," Glau said. "I always look for roles that make me feel good about being a woman and that’s not always easy. But I think on our show in particular, women are so empowered and we have a place of importance in the script and that’s really gratifying as an actress."

Previously, Glau has appeared in other sci-fi roles such as River Tam on USA’s "Firefly" and Tess Doerner on "The 4400," though acting wasn’t always in the cards for her.

"I was a very serious dancer and then I got hurt," said Glau. "It’s a very cliché story, of the girl who put all her eggs in one basket, it was all I ever learned how to do... but then I ended up coming to L.A. to dance the tango because I couldn’t do pointe anymore and I started auditioning for odd jobs and something just fit for me. ... I was lucky. Very lucky."