As cool-headed Special Agent Emily Prentiss in TV One’s Criminal Minds, Paget Brewster is used to dealing with serial killers and psychopaths – on screen at least. But the actress starts shaking as she recalls the terror of her
ordeal with a real-life violent stalker and its ongoing effect on her life.

“My heart’s beating really fast,” she says, laughing nervously on the show’s LA set. “It’s not funny but I’m probably laughing because it was so horrible.” The actress was living in San Francisco in the mid-1990s,
hosting her own TV talk programme called The Paget Show, when she started receiving disturbing fan letters. At first, they seemed playful. One read, “When are we going to meet?” and another asked, “Will you marry me?”

But within weeks, they had escalated into vicious threats detailing the torture he intended to inflict upon her.
“It’s a terrifying thing,” says Paget (40), who is still not over the ordeal. “If you’ve been threatened and you don’t know who they are and you don’t know how they’re going to get to you... it’s horrifying.”

Paget’s worst fears were realised when the stalker entered the studio armed with knives wrapped in plastic. Terrified, Paget hid in the bathroom as police were called. Although the man eventually stopped trying to reach her, Paget decided to arm herself with knowledge about psychopaths. She read as many books and articles on the subject as she could find. “It made me feel educated, it was control or something.

I was paranoid for a long, long time.” Although the ordeal left her on edge, it also led to her dream job – Criminal Minds’ producers were impressed by her detailed knowledge of serial killers, right down to the names of history’s worst offenders.

Given the grisly nature of the show’s subject matter, it’s surprising she is able to cope, but Paget says she has learned to “completely separate” herself from the fi tional material.

However, the terror of that dangerous encounter continues to haunt her. Paget has bulletproof windows in her house and steel spikes around its perimeter. She also uses a false name wherever possible. “I’m good at self-protection,” she says. “But I don’t know if I will ever get over it.”