"Me and Jeremy and [co-star] Jeffrey Sams looked at each other and started crying," Marshall recalls. "We were like, 'But there's magic here. Doesn't anybody care about magic anymore?' "
This year, a decade after the show went off the air, ABC sort of admitted it made a mistake, reviving Cupid, but with Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson as the leads. Marshall insists there's no resentment, although she does acknowledge, "There is a little part of me that says, 'Darn, that was my role, that was our show.' " The revived Cupid fared no better than its predecessor; it was canceled last week.
Marshall's least-favorite series experience?
"Snoops, that was the worst," she says. "I was always a huge David Kelley fan, and they kept telling me I was going to be the next Calista Flockhart. But then they couldn't find a guy to cast alongside me, so they turned the guy into a girl, and cast Gina Gershon. The show slowly turned from what they wanted it to be, kind of funny, to not funny, this drama that was just too kitschy. It was supposed to be like Charlie's Angels. But from the beginning, it didn't feel right."
Still, the experience wasn't a total loss. In 2003, she married actor Danny Nucci, who was also a regular on the show. They have a 3-year-old daughter, Maya.
Since giving birth to her daughter, Marshall has attacked her career with renewed vigor - and some steamy roles decidedly unlike the sitcoms and light dramas that had been her forte. On the F/X series Nip/Tuck, she was the surprisingly naughty love interest for Dylan Walsh's Dr. Sean McNamara; on the Showtime series Californication, she played a Scientologist who happily succumbed (in a memorably unabashed nude scene) to the charms of series star David Duchovny's oversexed Hollywood novelist.
"Taking my clothes off, at my age, that was kind of out of my comfort zone," she says. "Most people are like, 'Kudos to you, for not being 25 and doing that.' It turned out to be a really good job. David, I'd work with him again in a heartbeat."
Now, with a renewed TV series finally under her belt, Marshall says she's done it all. She's always been proud to be an actress, rarely going without work. The experience, she insists, has been all good.
"Really, life is so short," she says, refusing to complain even about that show-killing nickname she hopes never to hear again. "I can't believe I do this for a living. It's just unbelievable that Paula from Rockville, captain of the Peary pompom squad, can do this. It's the greatest thing ever."
