'Unreal' star Constance Zimmer on the new season, how she got into acting from gymnastics and playing strong women

Just because Constance Zimmer plays a sometimes mean person on TV doesn’t mean she is one in real life.

“I find it so funny that I always get cast as these types of characters because I’m actually so not that. I am controlling. Don’t get me wrong. That I can admit to,” Zimmer said in an interview on ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers.”

Zimmer stars in the latest season of Lifetime’s “Unreal” as Quinn King, the showrunner and woman in charge of the fictional reality dating show “Everlasting.”“Being behind the scenes of a reality show, she is the queen bee. And she can be as caustic as she wants to be and doesn’t have to say sorry because it’s her show and she’s running it. And if she gets a good show and she gets good ratings, then she’s done her job. It doesn’t matter how she got there,” she said.

While she said she’s similar to Quinn in some ways, Zimmer admitted, “I’m super insecure. I’m just like every actor, artist out there. We’re all insecure and we like to dive into characters that aren’t ourselves.”

“Unreal” attempts to pull back the curtain on reality television, with inspiration coming from shows like ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.”

“We have past contestants who come on our show. They walk on our set and say, ‘Oh my God, I’m having PTSD. This is so much like what it was like.’ And that to me is a huge compliment,” Zimmer recalled.

Zimmer began her acting career as a young girl, but not before a short run in gymnastics that almost led to the Olympics.

“It was 18 hours of training and certain ways to eat and I’d get to go home just to do my homework. And it turns out, I realized that I was a very social person. I actually liked to have friends and do stuff with my life.”

“Also, I don’t like working out, which is a big problem,” she added, laughing.

Zimmer said her mom was supportive when she wanted to quit training in gymnastics competitively. And she didn’t figure out she was interested in acting until she started high school, when the school was having auditions for its production of “Grease.”

“Because I had dance training and I had been singing -- and I was a cheerleader, and so I auditioned for the cheerleader part in ‘Grease’ because I didn’t really know yet if I was going to be good at this or anything,” Zimmer recalled. “I got it, and then when I did it, I just went, ‘Oh, this is -- what’s this? There’s like people applauding and clapping.’”

Since then, Zimmer has gone on to earn an Emmy nomination for “Unreal” and memorable roles, like that of Dana Gordon from the HBO series “Entourage.”

When asked if it felt like a burden to have played such strong women throughout her career, Zimmer said, “It feels like an honor.”

“I’m so unbelievably grateful that these roles have been written and that I’ve been able to portray them,” Zimmer said.”

She added, “I hope to play these types of women for my entire career. I mean, I look at Frances McDormand and I feel like she’s been playing these strong women in so many variations and throughout her entire career.”

Watch the full interview with Zimmer and Travers in the video above.

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