As the woman positioned awkwardly between two alpha males, what does that make Wendy?

We’ve imagined that she started as a sports therapist, and I think of her as someone who really loves people who are that smart, that competitive, that powerful. She has a lot of empathy for the male ego structure, and she identifies with them in a lot of ways. I think of her almost being split down the middle in terms of the male and the female, the soft and the hard, the yin and the yang.

And reluctant to give up a job she loves, even if it conflicts with her husband’s crusade to take down Axe?

I think she loves the power that she has. It’s the ongoing question I’ve had with the writers: Somebody who’s a therapist, who wants to help people — what does it mean that these are the waters she’s chosen to swim in?

How do you explain her marriage to Chuck?

I think it’s sort of obvious why Chuck and Wendy would be together. They’re both really, really smart. They share a sharp sense of humor. His ambition and oversized nature is something that she finds exciting, and I don’t think they’re ever bored with each other — and for some people those are the criteria for how you choose a mate. [Laughs] They have an amazing honesty, which is partly why you’ve seen them able to have that B.D.S.M. aspect to their relationship — but also why they can fight the way they fight and love the way they love.

You briefly temped at a hedge fund in your early 20s. How else did you prepare for the role?

I spoke with Tony Robbins, who’s a good friend of Brian Koppelman, one of the writers and directors and creators. I think he embodies something that the writers were interested in seeing in the Wendy character: helping people make change quickly. These are guys who are dealing with moving enormous sums of money around every day, making incredibly fast decisions. Working with mathematical algorithms but also with their gut, their instincts. And so all of those things need to be performing optimally in order to make sound decisions that have enough risk that they can achieve profit — and not so much risk that they’re blowing their wad.

So you incorporated some of Mr. Robbins’s attributes?

I tried to, like when we were playing around in the pilot with the character of Danzig: Let’s stand, let’s sit. What does it mean if I’m physical here, if I get up in his face? If you’ve ever seen Tony Robbins, he’s like a force of nature. I definitely have thought about how Wendy inhabits space, how she uses physical proximity.