By Jenny Halper in New York City

Newsflash: Julianna Margulies is not Carol Hathaway. Six years and thirteen projects after gracefully exiting the NBC hit “ER” (via George Clooney and a Seattle pier) a plum part on “The Sopranos” helped fans forget her star-making Nurse turn. But the real dividing factor between Margulies and Chicago County General might be a movie she thought would go straight to DVD.

Yes, it’s about snakes. And they are on a plane. And Margulies, who plays flight attendant Claire Miller in the most oddly anticipated movie of the summer, has been granted the dubious privilege of fighting the CGI created reptiles (real ones were kept in a closed room) with a fire extinguisher.

The actress recently took a break from filming the sci-fi series “The Lost Room” to tell New York press dirty jokes, scary set stories, and why “Snakes” cast and crew thought co-star Kenan Thompson was her husband.

Q: Was the set of “Snakes on a Plane” as scary as the set of “Ghost Ship”?

JULIANNA: “Ghost Ship” was much scarier because we were in Australia, and no one really cared. I swam in the water all night long and the next day there was this huge thing in the newspaper that said “ex-‘ER’ star risks her life for movie. Did they not tell her about the shark attack?” I was in the water all night, and apparently there were sharks that had come down from the Great Barrier Reef because of a school of tuna. But I survived. So no. “Snakes on a Plane” was so much fun.

Q: Even though you never worked with the snakes?

JULIANNA: Did Sam tell you about my eye? This is glass! The snake bit it…(laughs) I’m kidding. I went in the snake room sandwiched in between the director and Sam, and I peeked out and I held onto David (Ellis)’s shirt and I went, “I’m done.” I’m petrified.

Q: How did you get involved?

JULIANNA: Cause of Sam. I got sent this script called “Pacific Air 121” a.k.a. “Snakes on a Plane,” with a cover letter that said, “Samuel L. Jackson is attached.” When I met the director I was laughing. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t believe that this was an actual movie that was going to happen. But if Sam’s doing it it elevates it.

Q: Why?

JULIANNA: Samuel L. Jackson to me is one of our finest. I was like, “I want to work with him!” I was like, this is going to be a fun way to spend three months in the summer. If anything I can die happy saying I worked with Samuel L. Jackson, you know? And we had a ball, and I was so impressed by his work ethic. Honestly, he’s a real consummate professional, but he knows how to hang with the crew, knows how to tell a dirty joke. The two of us immediately bonded because we both love to tell dirty jokes.

Q: What kind of dirty jokes?

JULIANNA: Oh, I have some nasty jokes. Let me think of a mild one. ‘Cause mine are really sick. I’m a bit of a truck driver. Well…this is a George Clooney joke. OK, so a man walks into a bar and he says, “Have you got any pints other than Guinness?” And the bartender looks at him and he says, “You’re mad! Guinness is the best beer we have in the land!” And he goes, “No, you don’t understand. Last night I had thirty pints of Guinness, and I went home and blew chunks.” “If you thirty pints of anything you’re going to blow chunks!” He said, “You don’t understand, Chunks is my dog!” That’s a George Clooney joke. I do not take any responsibility for that joke!

Q: Speaking of jokes, how was it working with Kenan?

JULIANNA: Hard. I’ll tell you why it’s hard to work with Kenan. I can’t keep a straight face in any scene with him. He always looks like he’s just on the verge of laughing, and it kind of psyches you out a bit. I loved it, because I was always on my toes, but he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. I just adored him. We had a whole thing going on, Kenan and I, we’d fly back and forth from L.A. to Vancouver a lot, and Kenan had this whole thing worked out with the airline where he would buy a coach ticket and somehow upgrade himself, I don’t know what he did, but I was sitting in first, and Kenan walks on the plane, and he’s like, “Excuse me sir,” and he makes this man get up, and he goes, “This is my wife, we just got married, I lost her in Hawaii…” He starts this whole thing and I’m just going along with it. And they bring us champagne, welcoming the newlyweds, so it became this onset thing that Kenan and I were husband and wife. To the point where some people actually took it seriously. And I just went with it cause it was fun, and he got to ride first class every time. His ‘wife,’ who paid for her ticket…

Q: Do things like that make you think, “why didn’t I take the 27 million dollars from ‘ER’?”

JULIANNA: No. Not once. Honest to god, not once. I was bored. I felt like I had a great character and I’d done as much as I could with that character and I was feeling bored learning my lines for her again. I wasn’t excited about work, and I certainly didn’t want her to go out with a bomb rather than an inspiration. I didn’t become an actress to do the same thing, I like to step in other shoes. I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had, and I’ve had six years of unbelievable experiences.

Q: A lot of people would say, “take the money.”

JULIANNA: When’s enough, enough? I was 32 years old, I owned a home, had money in the bank, and I had two years of work lined up. I went straight to do “Mists of Avalon,” then straight to Lincoln Center to do Jon Robin Baitz’s play (“Ten Unknowns”), and I did “Evelyn” after that so…I’m not stupid. And the truth is, if I had waited two years to become rich, what if I’d gotten hit by a bus waiting those two years? Is that how I’m going to spend my life? For money? I have yet to meet a really happy rich person. Honestly. If it’s going to cost me my soul, it’s not worth it. I was a waitress, if I have to I’ll go back; I know how to bartend. Nothing’s worth that to me. I admire the people that stayed, (but) I would have killed myself.

Q: Was there one project, or one experience you had, that made you really glad you left “ER”?

JULIANNA: It’s just recently happened. I left on very good terms with John Wells and everyone at “ER” and they really understood why I needed to move on. And every year they ask me back, and I love that they do, I think it’s really sweet and I’m very flattered by it. And this past year they called me and asked me to do four episodes. They said, “it’s not like you’re going back to the hospital, you’ll be in Africa it’s going to be like a Doctors without Borders and it’s a good cause,” and they threw a lot of money at my face for a month, and I came so close just because my parents are getting older and I take care of them, and my nieces are going to college and I thought, “I should hop on that bandwagon.” But every time I thought about it I thought, “I’ve spent six years trying to get people to think of me a different way, and at the last minute I went, “John, thank you, keep asking ‘cause you never know, but no.” And two days later David Chase called and offered me “The Sopranos.”

Q: You couldn’t have done both?

JULIANNA: I wouldn’t have been able to. It was the exact same time. And I’m not a very religious person at all, but I do believe that there’s something up there that guides you. I think first and foremost probably your heart, but I just went, “go with your gut.” When I finished doing “The Sopranos” and it aired and I went to present at the Tonys, that red carpet was the first red carpet in my professional life where everyone was talking about “The Sopranos,” not one mention of “ER.” Not that I don’t love “ER,” I’m grateful to “ER,” but I just went, “I finally got out of the box. They finally saw me as something else.”

Q: Will you be on the next season of “Sopranos”?

JULIANNA: I’m not in the first four episodes, they’re only doing eight. I don’t know, is the answer. The problem is they have a lot of characters they have to wrap up fully. We’re hoping the last four, but I don’t know.

Q: And next you have “The Lost Room”?

JULIANNA: I’m doing that right now. It’s with Peter Krause and I’m so excited about it, it’s like “The Twilight Zone” meets “The Fugitive.” It’s done very film noir, the costume designer has all these sketches, he’s like, “I want you to look like Kathleen Turner in ‘Body Heat.’” But it’s very, a little bit of “Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” also, because it’s about this lost room. Anyway, it’s a real page turner, and it was my first summer off in a while, and I was excited to have a summer vacation, but now it’s gone.

Q: Who do you play?

JULIANNA: I play Peter Krause’s…I play this woman who tries to help him out and we end up having a thing and…sure. You know, once you’ve done “Sopranos,” now I’m just taking my clothes off, smoking…no snakes. No snakes. Thank God.

Q: When will George show you some love and put you in an “Ocean”’s movie?

JULIANNA: I think he is showing me love by not putting me in an “Ocean”’s movie. That’s the boys club. I want him to direct me, you know? I want to be in a movie that he’s directing. It has to be really right.

“Snakes on a Plane” opens nationwide on August 18th.