Rizzoli & Isles star Sasha Alexander is used to having criminals on her mind. As Maura Isles, she plays the dorky yet calm and collected medical exaimner. Usually involved with crimes after the fact, she works with with her partner Jane Rizzoli to find the missing pieces and catch Boston's most wanted.

While she has dealt with criminals on TV with her work in NCIS and Rizzoli & Isles, Alexander has also had first hand experience confronting criminals in real life as well. During her inital years in college Alexander encountered both a bank robbery and was held at gunpoint all in one month. 

"When this happened to me, I was incredibly strong and clear. I was almost defiant in the way that I dealt with the situation ... In the bank robbery there was a woman in front of me as the men came in, who was an elderly woman, and I got so scared because he had a gun trained on her. So I stepped right in front of her, not even thinking. Even my move could've made him do something. I didn't think about it. So after the fact I went into a paralyzed state of shock.”

The second instance she had just gotten in her jeep when a couple of young men pulled up with guns demanding she hand over the radio.

"I stood looking at their guns because they had some kind of strange tape on them — looking at them wondering whether they were real or not — not handing over my radio. I held on to it. I don't know why, maybe fear. Some big guys were walking by and the guy said, 'Let's get out of here.'

Thankfully Alexander was able to leave both of these moments alive and well. While these events were frightening, she has said that she often uses these memories in her acting.

“When you’re playing a character, you understand why somebody in that line of work would be very clear.”