Celebrity Scoop: Jasika Nicole

In a way, Jasika Nicole of Fox's Thursday-night thriller "Fringe" is in her own TV show, co-starring John Noble and a cow.

Her character, FBI agent Astrid Farnsworth, was recruited at the beginning to be the constant companion and essential lab assistant to the show's unstable genius, D. Walter Bishop (Noble).

"In the beginning," Nicole says, "there wasn't a whole lot for Astrid to do. She was a presence in the lab, so people were familiar with her, but she just kind of popped in once in a while.

"It really grew into this beautiful way to show how Walter connects with other people, and how she is able to take the place of other people who are absent in his life."

While Bishop's son, Peter (Josh Jackson), and Astrid's FBI colleague, Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), come in and out on their way to investigating strange occurrences, the lab's only other permanent resident is Walter's pet Holstein, Jean.

"Astrid is probably completely over the cow," Nicole says. "I'm pretty sure she was over the cow from the beginning. It's a lot of work (to have a cow), and it's a lot of work for us.

"Of course, we don't have a cow on the set every day. We film the scenes and the shots we need in a couple of hours, because the cow can only come every couple of episodes or so.

"But when she is there, oh, my gosh, it's really like dealing with a super diva actress. The whole production has to stop what they're doing to make room for the cow. Cows can't go up stairs, so we have to build a ramp for the cow. She will do her bathroom business right in the middle of a scene if she wants to, and we have to stop and start over again."