ABCIn just one week, Bridget Regan went from sweet and innocent to totally badass and scary on not one but two hit TV shows.
When she was introduced on both Marvel's Agent Carter and Jane the Virgin, she played two very similar roles. On Agent Carter, Regan played Dottie, a wide-eyed and enthusiastic-yet-dim ballerina who just moved into Peggy's (Hayley Atwell) building. On Jane the Virgin, she played Rose, Rafael's (Justin Baldoni) stepmother whose main passion was interior design...and having a fluid sexuality.
That is, until two massive twists came one week after the other, completely flipping everything we thought we knew about these two characters. Dottie was actually a Black Widow, a Russian spy undercover tracking Peggy, and Rose was actually the identity of Sin Rostro, the faceless drug kingpin and head of an illegal plastic surgery ring operating out the Marbello hotel!
Regan clearly hit the jackpot when it came to booking roles this TV season, huh?!
"I know, it's nuts!" Regan tells E! News with a laugh. "These two shows are so very different, very, very different in tone, but at the same time, there are some similarities. They are both women-driven shows with the highest caliber of talent across the board. Playing the Black Widow has been a real dream for me. There's such a darkness to her that is at times frightening but also really powerful."
Regan couldn't believe how she booked two major villain roles in such close proximity to each other.
"I did have a few weeks of overlap and it was pretty crazy for me," Regan says. "On Monday, I was going to Jane, on Tuesday I was at Agent Carter, on Wednesday I was back at Jane! I had to keep my head real straight."
She continues, "And then within a week of each other, they aired. My Twitter was blowing up like crazy. It was so great because I could finally talk about it! I couldn't talk about either show before that, and it's so great that both those reveals are out there. I was too terrified to spoil it!"
But filming the two roles so close together wasn't difficult for Regan because of the major differences between the two women.
"Rose isn't one to get her own hands dirty," Regan says. "She's not physically violent whereas Dottie, this Black Widow, is more of a soldier and there's a real masculine energy to her. But there are some bizarre similarities, like power and control, strength and a driven focus that both women have."
And when we asked the obvious question—Why did she land all these "juicy" roles now?!—Regan laughed.
"I have no idea! I have no idea what happened!" Regan says. "It feels like a total coincidence. And it's funny because when I was on White Collar the last two seasons, on that show as well I was revealed to be a villain. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, no one is ever going to trust me on TV again! They'll always think I'm up to something from now on!' But the truth is, I'm a very nice person and I don't do things like this in real life, I just play them on TV!"
But Regan admits that she wouldn't want to play any less interesting characters than these two villains.
"I am very attracted to roles that have complex and dynamic characteristics to them," Regan says. "It's very interesting when characters have conflict within them. Characters that are content and happy where they're at are kind of a snooze in comparison!"
On Jane the Virgin, Rose is currently struggling with balancing her real identity/obligations as Sin Rostro with her unexpected but totally genuine feelings for her stepdaughter Luisa (Yara Martinez).
"Playing Rose's conflict between her desire and love for Luisa vs. her driven focus for her plastic surgery and drug smuggling ring has been very fun," Regan says. "Playing the Black Widow on Agent Carter is similar. There was a lot more insight into her upbringing, and those flashbacks were a real gift in ‘The Iron Feeling.' I love playing these women. They're so exciting and they're both so badass. I am attracted to strong characters for sure! Both of them are the coolest roles ever."
On the CW telenovela, Rose just murdered her husband Emilio (Carlo Rota) to throw everyone off her trail.
"This is all part of her master plan. Emilio is missing—aka buried in cement—and she's framing him to be Sin Rostro," Regan says. "It's all going according to plan, but Michael [Brett Dier] is going to be doing some digging and he reveals something to Rose that she didn't know about Emilio and it throws a real hitch into her plan."
Regan is excited for fans to get to see Rose get shaken up when things don't go her way.
"Seeing this polished, strong woman get rattled is my favorite part of this show and Luisa has such an effect on her," Regan says. "It's a great thing to play, how her feelings for Luisa are actually quite inconvenient. She wasn't looking for love, she was looking for a marriage of convenience to get into the Marbella to run this plastic surgery ring. But she's completely in love with this woman, who is also her stepdaughter!"
And expect her fling/feelings for Luisa to cause some major problems for Rose going forward.
"We will get to see some moments coming up where Rose's true feelings shine through, where she doesn't have an agenda, just being who she is," Regan teases.
Fans will also get to see a very similar situation on Agent Carter, when Dottie drops her disguise and shows her true colors as well.
"This whole persona of 'Dottie' is a character," Regan reveals. "She created it, and it's based on Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. In the coming episodes, we'll get to see more of her when she's not playing Dottie, when the real fun comes out. When we get to see who this woman is without a mask so to speak, I'm very excited for everyone to see that."
Jane the Virgin airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on the CW and Marvel's Agent Carter airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.