Thorne is part of a “Californication” story in which Duchovny’s sex addicted writer, Hank Moody, gets involved with an actress who is playing his daughter in a movie, and with the actress’ mother.  “We went right into a steamy scene – of course,” she notes, recalling her first day on “Californication” production.  “To suddenly be intimate with David Duchovny, someone I’ve consistently been in awe of – it could have been disastrous, but instead we had an enormous amount of fun.  The credit for that goes to David.  Even though it’s a sexual thing going on, there’s such a magnitude of comedy, any nerves I was feeling went away.”

Thorne, best-known as Sheila, Leary’s crazy extra-marital paramour, on “Rescue Me,” adds, “It was also great for my psyche, the perfect timing after wrapping the series.”

So how do Leary and Duchovny compare?  “They are similar in that they are both forces to be reckoned with.  They also share this great magnetism in terms of talent and humor, and they’re incredibly handsome and sexy,” she gushes.  “In some ways their characters are alike in that they’re troubled sort of reluctant heroes, men who’ve done some really abhorrent things and yet, if you’re a guy you want to hang out with them, and if you’re a girl you want to date them.”  If they met, “They would be besties,” she opines.

According to Callie, Leary and the rest of his “Rescue Me” cohorts managed to stave off getting emotional about the end of production on the series until the very last day of shooting.  “I think that everybody was in denial a little bit.  We had really big things going on in the last two episodes we were shooting,” she says.  “But certainly that final day, when they started calling ‘That’s a series wrap!’ on each actor… The words were just too much to take.”  The award-winning FX series returns for its sixth season Tuesday (6/29) .  Season 7 is already in the can, planned for airing next year.