'Maura Tierney Is One Of The Most Amazing Actresses We Have': Julia Goldani Telles On Showtime's 'The Affair'

(CBS Local)-- "The Affair" returns to Showtime on Sunday August 25 for its fifth and final season and the end of the series will close a major chapter for Julia Goldani Telles.

The actor began the show when she was a college student at Columbia University in New York and is now in her mid 20s. Telles plays Whitney Solloway and has had the opportunity to learn from many incredible women on this show like Maura Tierney, Ruth Wilson, Sanaa Lathan, and Anna Paquin.

"This is the second show I've ever done. I was really inspired by Sarah Treem our showrunner, who was very young when she wrote this and had just graduated from Yale," said Goldani Telles in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "She had a really good voice for teenage girls. Maura Tierney is one of the most amazing actresses we have. She is so smart. I always tell her she should direct because she has a really good birds eye view of things. I've always asked people for acting advice on the show and they've never been pretentious. It's also shown me a lot of people I look up to have balanced lives, which is what I strive for."

The television landscape has changed a lot since "The Affair" first came to Showtime and Goldani Telles is proud of the way the program has lasted all these years later.

"When we started, we were entering this sort of Golden Age of television," said Goldani Telles. "It wasn't how it is now... I mean there's so much good stuff and it's also so saturated. There was still prestige with cable and it was pre-streaming. It's nice that it has held up in the current landscape. I don't know if we'd be able to make it now in the same way."

Goldani Telles says her character Whitney will go through a lot in this final season and that is because family dynamics are extremely complicated when the actions of parents have ripple effects on others.

"It was interesting to examine the downfall of a family unit through somebody that is still at a crucial and fragile time, "said Goldani Telles. "I think that gave me more empathy for people my age. It made me a better listener and a better friend because we had so many conversations on this show about families and the breakdowns of marriages. This season she [Whitney] has perspective and we see how her lack of good role models has influenced her own life. She's not great at being in a relationship and she's not super faithful."