Bryce Dallas Howard isn't intimidated by the legions of Terminator fans waiting to see how the latest installment of the franchise does; she is one of those fans. "I know what people are looking for and asking for, because that's what I'm looking for and asking for," she told me in a phone conversation a few weeks ago. "I'm a huge fan of the franchise."

Playing Kate Connor, John Connor's wife who is eight months pregnant when Terminator: Salvation begins, Howard says her job wasn't to run around with the machine gun, but keep everything running at resistance home base. "The way that my character best serviced the film was being kind of an emotional sounding board for John Connor. If there are other films, and if I'm a part of them, I would love to be able to do some intense action stuff. "

Playing that emotional sounding board, Howard had most of her scenes with Christian Bale, and while we didn't talk about the infamous on-set rant, she said the perception of Bale as an intense presence is totally false. "I found him to be really chill. He's definitely focused. He's not there to kind of mess around. Like when people will call him intense, I feel like that implies a self-obssessed way of working, and he couldn't be further from that. He's really generous, and he's thoughtful and kind."

Below listen to my full 12 minute interview with Howard, in which she tells me the exact moment that McG called her and asked her to be part of the film, the benefit of pretending to be pregnant on a set full of people playing soldiers, and why no one is talking sequel just yet.