How have you been spending your summer?
Seeking any reason to be outdoors–farmers’ markets, outdoor screenings, art festivals, music festivals, and bicycling to these destinations as much as I can. Working, too of course. I have been promoting Parenthood and we started shooting our second season in July. As for traveling I have been to Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and Rome.

Best memories?
Having a picnic at the Hollywood Bowl with my brothers and great friends while Buena Vista Social Club and Goldfrapp played. My brothers and I have been big fans of Buena Vista Social Club for years, and of Goldfrapp as well. Such a delightful surprise of a double bill!

Most exciting thing that happened?
The trip to Rome for the Roma Fiction Fest was romantic through and through. I had never been, and will never forget the trip. The beauty of the city and the joy of life there truly left an impression. And some tan lines.

Any hobbies?
Cycling long distances! And attempting (with Sarah Ramos from Parenthood) the New York Times’ Sunday edition crossword edited by Will Shortz, whose name I’ve cursed on many an occasion.

What inspired you?
Happily, I happened upon an art show put on by the students of The Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, and was really taken with pieces by a number of the artists. Now on my walls are three incredible landscape drawings from a student named Michael Hubbard. Film-wise, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was so thrillingly creative that I’ve felt the need to tell everyone to go. Also, The Radiant Child, the documentary by Tamra Davis about Jean-Michel Basquiat literally made me want to go and immediately paint. Now I’ve got a canvas, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m enjoying the books Take Ivy and Labor Day by Joyce Maynard.

Most looking forward to this fall?
Parenthood returning for its second season and cooler weather for cycling. Also, women wearing menswear and tweed.

Elle.com

“The good thing about the show is learning more about what happens in being a parent and it readies me for it because I am definitely going to be a parent at some point,” the 27-year-old gushed to OK! at the L.A. premiere of Mercy on Monday, “I look forward to it. It doesn’t discourage me, that’s for sure!”

Starring alongside Lauren Graham and Dax Shepard in a series all about the ups and downs of parenting, Erika admits that she does think about the chaos of being a mom at times.

“I imagine the chaos of it all like making breakfast with someone over there making eggs, someone over there buttering the toast, whatever it is. It’s like the whole assembly line of any activity with five kids.”

But, a bit of commotion won’t stop this actress from getting her wish of a big family!

“Ask me after I have had the first one or two, but I have always wanted a big family,” the Parenthood star told reporters at the Egyptian Theatre.

Catch Parenthood on NBC every Tuesday night.

From OK! Magazine

IGN TV: How would you describe Julia and her place in the family?

Erika Christensen: She’s the youngest of the four. She is the real overachiever, and she’s a bit of a know-it-all, because she’s very competent at work, and she thinks that translates to family, and it doesn’t translate to family. She’s a brilliant lawyer, and sometimes you can see that, you can see bits of that, but really she’s a control freak. And she’s beginning to learn that. This is the time in her life when she’s beginning to realize that. I’m really a control freak, and it makes things hard for me when things don’t go exactly as I’d planned them.

IGN: What’s her dynamic like with her kid? Do you think she has a handle on the whole parenthood thing?

Christensen: Noooooo. She adores her kids. And she’s adorable. [Referring to the actress who plays her daughter] I don’t know if you saw her. She’s so frickin cute. Her name is Savannah Ray.

She adores her kid, but it’s also a wake-up call because her child is five now, and it kind of just went by like that while she was focusing on her career. And it’s that classic struggle: career and family. She’s just realizing now that she’s missing out, and she needs to focus on her family, or it’s just gonna flash before her eyes.

IGN: What’s it like working with this impressive ensemble of actors?

Christensen: It’s silly how much we love this show. It’s like, we keep saying, “Is this wrong that we love coming to work every day?” This is stupid. We get along so well. Seriously, we hang out when we’re not at work. These actors, we really have found probably the common ground is our love of the show. Everybody seems to be really a team player, which is necessary when it’s an ensemble show.

IGN: You’ve got Jason Katims producing your show. I’m a huge fan of his work on Friday Night Lights, and the thing about that show is you feel the people are so believable. Is there a similar vibe with this as far as the portrayal of these characters?

Christensen: I certainly hope so. I’m a huge fan of the show as well, and obviously they’re our station [NBC], so we have that going for us. I think that stylistically it’s different. You know, the way that Friday Night Lights is shot very hand held, in focus, out of focus, in light, out of light. It’s that documentarian feel. This is a little more polished, so it won’t have quite the sense of immediacy, I think, stylistically. But yeah, the writing is that kind of real interaction. And the actors are so good. I’m so proud that these are the people that ended up on the show. And we are, a lot of us, are fairly obsessed with Friday Night Lights. So I think we’re happy to be associated with it, and we want to try and capture a bit of that spontaneity. Recently we’ve started shooting faster, which I know they do.

IGN: Having done film and TV, do you have a preference, or does it even come to mind? Is there something about it that feels different?

Christensen: It’s definitely different living with a character longer. It’s its own thing. It’s a very finite story in a movie; they go through that certain arc, and then, with a play — which I don’t have a lot of experience with and I’d like to — you live with the character a long time, but it’s the same material. This is kind of both, where you’re living with the character a long time, but it’s an ever-changing story, and you can kind of grow up in this parallel universe. And I think that’s really cool and really interesting, artistically.

As far as television goes, though, I actually really want to be doing television right now. I just decided a year ago that I wanted to go there. And there was awesome material there, and I’m just one of those people; I don’t like vacations. I would rather be working. It keeps me alive and interesting and gives me a reason to live. So I was like, “OK, this can be really cool. I wanna do the series.” And I just couldn’t be happier.

IGN: Was it interesting meeting your TV daughter and bonding with her?

Christensen: Yeah, the side effects of having taken forever to actually get this show going is that we’ve known each other for a long time now, and our relationship has developed a lot since the pilot. So that’s really cool. And now she’s so frickin cute, and she goes, “Even though you’re my pretend mom, I love you.” And I’m like, “I love you too! Oh my gosh! You’re my pretend daughter, but I love you!” It’s just the openness of children. And she’ll tell me things. You know, “I fell off a boat, and I swam to an iceberg,” or something. And I’m like, “Really? OK.” Kids are awesome. She’s a really wonderful little actress. She’s six years old, and she’s a regular on a television series. Kind of a crazy responsibility, but she loves it. Somebody asked her on set the other day, “Would you rather be here or in school?” And she was like, “Here.”

From IGN