"My character comes back to stir things up a little more in Dexter's life, as if they weren't stirred up already," says the 30-year-old actress, who plays Hannah McKay, the love interest of Miami forensic expert - and murderer - Dexter. "She's a sneaky girl with some charm, I think, and she's got a crooked past that she hides pretty well." Are the fans as charmed as Dexter himself? "I haven't received any severed fingers yet," she says, laughing. "Nothing mental: maybe a bag of rat poison." In Dexter fandom, such things are compliments.
Perhaps their affection can be traced to a series seven episode featuring Strahovski, some clingfilm and very few clothes? "I went from about to be killed by Dexter into a love-making scene with him," she says. Erm, "love-making"? It wasn't exactly Downton Abbey... "Well, OK, it was a little rougher than that!"
Next up is the Melbourne-shot I, Frankenstein - starring Aaron Eckhart as Frankenstein's monster and Strahovski and Bill Nighy as modern-day scientists trying to harness his immortality - which will be released in 3-D in 2014. "I made Bill Nighy eat a massive meat pie!" You can take the girl out of Australia...