Photography by George Pimentel/Getty Images

Sarah Rafferty Talks Suits, Shifting the Focus and What it Takes to be Awesome

Sarah Rafferty may not be a household name—yet—but if you’ve watched Suits or are a fellow Suitor like me, you’d agree that her character, Donna Paulsen, is bewitching. As the legal secretary of Harvey Spector (played by Gabriel Macht), Donna is a modern-day female superhero we look forward to following season after season. She also has the best comeback lines, but we’ll come back to that.

But Donna aside, Rafferty has been an inspiring role model for not only for her fans but also her two daughters. So when we heard that she partnered up with Dove Canada for its latest campaign, Look How Far We’ve Come, we weren’t at all surprised. The new campaign is a celebration of the company’s work with the Dove Self-Esteem Project over the past 10 years, a program that not only helps support and empower young girls and women through self-esteem problems and beauty-related anxiety but also provides amazing resources for parents who want to start the conversation with their kids.

“I think it’s about shifting the focus off the things you’re insecure about,” says Rafferty when asked how she deals with negativity. “Playing Donna is a great exercise for me because you’re really stepping into someone else’s shoes. The other part of it for me is to not always focus on how I look in this industry…I just continue to invest in the work, invest in the scene and invest in the moment, invest in the connection between two characters. Invest in the telling of the story…the creation of the character—the part that I can control.”

Season 7 is set to air this summer (July 12, people!), and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for Donna and the rest of the Suits cast. Considering how things ended between Donna and Harvey in last season, it looks like the show is about to get even more interesting.

Watch the video below to find out what it takes to channel Donna Rafferty’s confidence (and see how well she did when we asked her to complete the most iconic Donna Paulsen one-liners).

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