After being arrested at the end of Justified‘s Season Four finale, Ava Crowder has spent this season languishing behind bars, charged with a murder she didn’t commit. With Boyd working tirelessly to clear her name, it seemed like Ava was about to catch a break in this week’s episode – until she once again found herself on the receiving end of a frame job, this time at the hands of a vindictive prison guard.

Shipped off to the state penitentiary and cut off from the outside world, Ava no longer has her support system, and quickly realizes that she can no longer rely on anyone but herself. We recently spoke with actress Joelle Carter about Ava’s misfortune, her drastic transformation, and what lies in store during the second half of this season.

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Ava’s never really had to be on her own before – she’s always had someone to look over her and take care of her. Even in the Harlan County jail, she was still being protected, but now that she’s in the state penitentiary she’s completely isolated. What do you think she’s going through mentally, at this point?

I think when she first gets to prison, she’s just overwhelmed. I think she’s completely horrified, she’s way out of her element. They pretty much beat her down to the point where I think most people would give up, and she just takes that shiv and decides “okay, now I’m going to be somebody else.” So we’re going to see her become a much harder person. She’s lost all of her innocence.

It’s interesting that you bring up the loss of Ava’s innocence, because that feels like it’s been woven through the series since the very beginning. Going all the way back to the beginning of Ava’s relationship with Boyd, where she threatens to kick him out of the house if he breaks certain rules, and then seeing her become more and more involved with his criminal enterprise, it seems like she can’t escape that lifestyle.

That was another point, when her and Boyd started living together, she had just been kind of beaten down and decided that “okay, now I’m going to be this person that lives this civilized life, and these are the rules.” And as she falls in love with this man, Boyd, she has to accept all of him, or none of him, and she decides to get involved with certain aspects of his lifestyle and try to fit into his world.

And that’s what we saw her try to do, and the outcome is that now she’s in prison, and in a whole different world where she has to step up and reinvent herself. It’s something to say for the human spirit. I think we throw people into the sewer, and the strong ones figure out how to swim, and the other ones drown. And I’m really happy that Ava is a swimmer right now.

I don’t blame you. I think that Ava’s survival instinct and refusal to give up is one of the things that makes her so compelling, and makes the audience want to root for her.

Oh, I do too. I agree with you, and I think you’ll see in future episodes, the writers and Ava struggle with trying to maintain that part of Ava that tries to keep herself a little bit pure, a little bit cleaner. And circumstances don’t provide for her to be that way, they provide for her to really reach down through the darkest parts of herself and pull up the stuff she may not have ever tapped into.

I really loved your scene at the end of the last episode. Watching Ava staring in the mirror and sawing her hair off with a razor reminded me of Breaking Bad, the first time Walter White shaved his head and began the transformation into Heisenberg.

Oh, thank you. We did the hair-cutting in one take, obviously, because it was my real hair. The ended up editing it, I thought they were just going to keep that one take, and I was a little disappointed because I thought it was an amazing way to see that it was truly happening. Not only for the character, but for myself, it was like “okay, here goes a new transformation for Joelle, too.”

How nervous were you that day?

Graham [Yost] had made a personal phone call to me and said “this is what I’m looking to do with Ava, and this is how I want to show [her transformation].” I had originally said yes, and then so many people had input about like “oh, you’ll never work again, don’t cut your hair,” and I got a little nervous.

I took Thanksgiving break and I said “okay, what do I want to do?” I didn’t want to do something based on fear of not knowing the outcome, so I finally called him back and said “okay, I’ll do it.” It was like Hairgate, on set, and by the time I did it I really wanted to do it.

It’s almost liberating in a way, right?

Totally, yes.

During the first half of the season, even with Ava in hail there’s still some interaction with Boyd because he’s able to visit her. Now they’re completely separated, so what is that going to do to Ava’s mindset, and to the relationship as a whole?

You know, they say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but I don’t think in these circumstances that will apply. I think it’s really, really hard for both of them. Neither of them knows what the other is going through, and they’ll never understand the journey they’re taking separately. Which is a shame, because they finally came together, and they’ve been able to completely be there for each other and understand each other.

I think it’s going to tear them down to the point where they have to meet each other again and see if they can live with the new people they’ve become. For Ava, the absence of Boyd, no matter what he’s doing, is the absence of the only person she feels like she has fighting for her, so she’s slowly discovering that she’s going to have to forget about the outside world and learn about what a relationship is in prison, and how to build those and how to survive.

Click here for part two of our interview with Joelle Carter, where she discusses feeling isolated on set, and her hopes for the end of the series.