Ferlito scored an early breakout role on the hit Fox crime drama 24, appearing on 11 episodes of the show's third season as Claudia Hernandez, Hector Salazar's girlfriend and secret lover of the show's protagonist, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). She agreed to help Bauer in exchange for passage out of Mexico, but she was killed in the process.
According to Ferlito, her character wasn't originally supposed to die. "I was supposed to be on the show as a regular," she told TV Guide, "but I was [not given] a permanent contract. It was more like a recurring contract, where, if I got a movie, I had to let them know three weeks in advance. So, I only shot two or three episodes and I then got a movie [Man of the House with Tommy Lee Jones]." When asked what would have happened had she remained on the show, she revealed, "We would have went to the States and Kiefer and I would have ended up together. It's sad. It's really messed up."
Of course, we're talking about a show which features an impossible amount of action, deceit, sabotage and heroics in the span of only one single day, so "messed up" kind of comes with the territory.
