Grey’s Anatomy star, Chyler Leigh stars as “Queenie Alton” in Lifetime’s newest Original Movie, The 19th Wife which premieres tonight!

The 19th Wife is the story of “19th Wife” and fundamentalist sect “First Church of Latter Day Saints” member BeckyLyn (Patricia Wettig), who is accused of killing her husband. Queenie (Leigh), another wife in the sect, doesn’t believe BeckyLyn is capable of such violence and, desperate to prove her innocence, reaches out to BeckyLyn’s excommunicated son Jordan (Matt Czuchry) for help in freeing his mother. But when Queenie and Jordan start asking questions about the fateful night of the murder, they quickly see all is not what it seems — putting their own lives at risk. The film is based on David Ebershoff’s New York Times best-selling novel that takes an inside look at the secret world of polygamy.

Chyler recently took some time out to speak about the film, as well as give some Grey’s Anatomy scoop! Check it out:

The 19th Wife

Can you talk about your experience shooting so far from Los Angeles?
My experience being out there in general while I briefly stayed in Calvary…it was so fantastic between the people that I worked with, both the cast and the crew. It was a really unique experience for me to be able to work on something and being 100% focused on just that. My family stayed in LA while I was gone, so that was the first time being away from my family. So that was a very unique experience for me. Just being able to dive into something with 100& focus…once you get on set and you’re doing something, especially with TV for so long, you kind of get into a pattern. So it was nice to be able to break out of the pattern a bit and dive into something different. With that, the challenges come; your prep for a character like that and doing the research – which wasn’t a challenge but was exciting.

Can you talk about wearing the wardrobe?
(laughs) It was great. The weather changed so much so near the first week that we got there it was raining heavily and was really cold. So to have the dresses and everything, it’s pretty thick cotton, that was nice. I got a nice little case of back acne since there’s no breathing with the cotton and everything, so that was a little challenging. And on the hot days, it was hot…so it was a little bit extreme. But it was fun being able to dress up like that because I was really able to step in the character from head to toe and that was fun.

Can you talk about that flattering hair as well?
Yes, it will be all the rage on the runways I hope. No but um yeah, it was a lot of work to get that hair. I had 24 inch extensions, so it was quite heavy. I can’t even tell you how much hairspray we used. My hair and makeup team did a tremendous job.

What grabbed you about this project?
She is an incredibly strong woman who has a great sense of family and faith. She was such a compelling character with such strength under such extreme circumstances. I found a lot of similarities in the sense that her child was so important to her. Once she started seeing a lot of the bad stuff that was going down with the Prophet and how much was being covered up, she really got a good look at her daughter, thinking, “Oh my God, everybody’s looking at this 6 year old girl as a wife already.” I think that was a major motivator. It was such a really wonderfully written piece and so different from anything that I have done, so I was excited to be able to step into something like that.

What do you think is so interesting about polygamy? It has gotten a lot of attention lately.
It really has. There is something to be said about the condition that these people have and how much they really believe in what they believe in. Regardless of whatever anyone’s faith is, it is just interesting to see how far they carry out their beliefs. Once you kind of dive into the research, it’s incredibly interesting and sad in a lot of ways. The women get treated like…they are like robots to keep everybody happy. To lose children that will be immediately born into something that just perpetuates this constant cycle…it’s incredibly compelling. The strength of these women is really incredible.

Had you read the novel, The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff that the film is based on?
I didn’t before I had gotten up to Calvary. I actually got a copy when I got up there. The author makes a cameo in the film and he gave me a signed copy of the book!

What was your experience working with director, Rod Holcomb?
What a wonderful man. He is so tall! (laughs) He is a gentle giant. He loves what he does and he is an artist. He is very genuine and cares about his actor tremendously. I felt safe the entire time that I was there, especially walking into something when I hadn’t auditioned and hadn’t really stepped into the characters shoes until they called action.. It was a little bit daunting but just having Rod there…and all the work that he did and the research that he has done…he loves what he does and it shows. He makes you feel excited and passionate about the work you are doing as well. He is an incredibly talented man.

Grey’s Anatomy

How does Lexie deal with the trauma from the shooting?
Right when we come back into it, you’ll basically see the trauma manifest differently in every character. In my character in particular, she end sup having a complete breakdown and ends up having to go into the psych ward for a few days. She can’t shut her brain off, so she doesn’t sleep. Everybody has to do mandatory counseling sessions and each person has to get cleared to go back into surgery and what not. When Lexie has quite a public breakdown, she feels like she has to regain everybody’s trust, like, “I’m okay, I can handle this stuff, let me do stuff” since everyone thinks she’s going to crack again.

How does this effect her relationship with Alex & Mark. What is going on with the love triangle?
I’ve got be honest, there’s not much of a triangle this season. Lexie has definitely walked from something, as they all have but it becomes the question of who’s going to be there for her when she does have this breakdown, regardless of what happened in the past. It’s quite depressing what does happen but it gets shown right away.

Do you trade any parenting advice with your Grey’s Anatomy co-stars?
All of us do yeah. I think there are like 20 kids between all of us, it’s something crazy like that. We trade all of the time; things that work, things that don’t work, things that we struggle with, having more than one child…it is quite the hot topic over there.

The 19th Wife premieres tonight at 9/8c on Lifetime.

Grey’s Anatomy Season 7 premieres September 23, 2010 at 9/8c on ABC.