By Jeanne Wolf, Photographs: Giuliano Bekor

shley Scott hasn't lost her vivacious Southern charm, even if she has left behind her accent. The sexy blonde from Charleston is scoring many fans playing Emily in the popular new CBS series Jericho, which has more mind-bending plot twists than Lost. But she has also made her mark in movies: She shared the screen with Jude Law in Artificial Intelligence: AI, and last summer got lots of attention for the bikini she wore as a scubadiving treasure hunter in Into the Blue.

Television fans will recognize Ashley from her stints on Dark Angel and Birds of Prey. She is frequently picked to play edgy and far-out characters, but she's really a sweetie who likes to cook dinner for her husband, film producer Anthony Rhulen. And since Jericho has a very serious story line, you can imagine that she's looking forward to having people see her in the upcoming comedy Strange Wilderness, from Adam Sandler's production company.

VEGAS: Fans of Jericho love the tantalizing mysteries that keep them guessing from week to week. How about spilling a few secrets about what's coming up?

ASHLEY SCOTT: I'm dying to tell everyone because it's so exciting, but I can't. I'm Jericho's target audience — I'm 29, female, and I watch tons of TV. I like a show that doesn't explain things. But you can only be led on for so long, especially in a world of immediate gratification. You are going to get some payoff this year. Some big things get revealed that open up some cans of worms. It's really getting good.

Did you know it was going to be a hit?

It has been such an awesome ride, a roller coaster of emotions, from reading the pilot to getting cast and then waiting to see whether the series gets picked up. You have to just kind of leave it up to the TV gods and say, hey, as long as you did the absolute best job you possibly could have, you're successful, because a lot of the rest of it isn't up to you.

Your character, Emily, is a small-town girl, but she isn't exactly a shrinking violet, is she?

There are two types of girls who grow up in a small town. There are the out-there ones — crazy, causing trouble, having beers with the boys — and then there are the ones who probably graduate from high school and go to college, the sweeter type. Emily is just funkier. She's a tough broad. She's a tougher broad than even she knows ...

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