"A lot of people loved to hate my character on 24," says the actress, who played Jack Bauer's rebellious, accident-prone daughter Kim on the long-running series. "I want to be the character people love to love."
So she signed on to star in the new ABC comedy series Happy Endings (tonight, 9:30 p.m. ET/PT).
It might take a few episodes for audiences to fall for her. When they first see her character, Alex, she's walking down the aisle in a wedding dress. A few minutes later she has a change of heart.
The wedding disaster is just a vivid way to introduce all the characters. "It shows who we are and where we're at," Cuthbert says. "I have some redeeming to do after leaving my fiancé at the altar. I have to win back the audience, but we don't dwell on that for too long."
Cuthbert herself has never exited so dramatically from a romance. "I've had pretty standard relationships that weren't too long-term," she says. "My relationship now (with Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Dion Phaneuf) is the longest I've ever been in. I think that's good because it's keeping on track with my age (28). I'm getting older and wiser."
Cuthbert lives part-time in Los Angeles and part-time in Toronto. "I do believe that when you know better, you do better," she says. "You know what was wrong about the last relationship, and hopefully you will do better the next time."
Since becoming famous through 24, Cuthbert has tried with limited success to build a film career. She co-starred in Old School, Love Actually, The Girl Next Door and House of Wax, along with a few little-seen independent films. She also appeared in six episodes of Christian Slater's recent crime series The Forgotten.
Cuthbert decided to seek out TV comedy because, she says, "I want people to see a different side of me. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out plotlines and do the whole dramatic thing. It's been an awakening to not have to think too hard about anything and just have a good time. I'm trying to let go of any feelings of embarrassment."
Cuthbert says she's more like her character Alex than any other character she has played.
"Maybe it's because I was always afraid to be myself. I always thought the hard part about acting was creating another character, being someone you're not," she says.
After 17 years in the business, Cuthbert was ready to show people "a little bit more of me."
She says, "Alex is the heart of me. I'm a regular Canadian girl. I enjoy staying home. In the summer I've got a garden. I'm very much a homebody, a normal, family-oriented girl. But I do have this other incredible side of my life that involves acting and traveling."
If Happy Endings has any of the success of Friends, a show that it resembles, Cuthbert will completely lose her anonymity.
"We've been getting a lot of comparisons to Friends," she admits. "Of course we have some correlations. There's a part of Friends in every half-hour comedy." In fact, the first episode of Friends featured Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) arriving at a coffee shop to meet her pals after leaving her fiancé at the altar.
"Our show is about love," Cuthbert says, "love between a group of friends, love that doesn't necessarily always work out, the search for love."
Although there is still talk of a 24 movie, Cuthbert is skeptical of it happening any time soon.
"Kiefer (Sutherland) is in New York doing a play (That Championship Season)," she says. "I've heard the script is there, and then I've heard it's not there. I don't think that Kiefer would do anything not up to par."
Would she return as Kim? She was a regular cast member for three years and then popped up occasionally during the next five seasons. "My character is very particular, and her appearance needs to make sense in the plot," she says. "But if they wanted me, of course."