J.J. Abrams sits on the stage at the annual William S. Paley Television Festival with Jennifer Garner and Keri Russell sitting to his right. Given that Wednesday night's (March 3) session is titled "Creating Characters" and given that Abrams is the man behind both "Felicity" and "Alias," the event seems right on the verge of turning into a Pygmalion scenario.

Fortunately, Abrams is less interested in discussing how he took two relative actors and made them into stars and more eager to delve into the collaborative process that leads to beloved television characters.

The character of Felicity, for example, began as a fusion between co-creator Matt Reeves' (who also attended the Paley event) most recent ex-girlfriend and a mysterious artistic girl Abrams barely knew in high school. The entire shape of the character changed when Russell, then best known from "The Mickey Mouse Club," walked into the audition room.

"The part was written as this homely girl who had never had a boyfriend and Keri walked in and it was like, 'Oh, come on,'" Abrams recalls.

Instead of finding the character's inner loner, Russell tapped into a sense of humor that ultimately helped viewers embrace (or tolerate) the character's self-importance. The laughter and vulnerability Russell brought to the part helped shape Abrams' conception of Felicity.

"I thought, 'I can write anything for her,'" Abrams says of that first meeting.

While Abrams loved writing for "Felicity," the limitations of that character provided the fuel for the creation of "Alias." Frustrated with the finite number of college-based plots for his heroine ("Not another failed test," Russell jokes), Abrams threw out the idea that Felicity could be recruited by the CIA.

"Because then she could go out on missions, kick ass and she would come back and she couldn't tell Ben or Noel," he says.

Instead, Abrams developed the idea as a new series, though "Felicity" co-star Garner wasn't immediately in his mind as he wrote the "Alias" pilot. It was his wife who insisted that Garner was going to become a star with or without him and that he should get in on the ground floor.

Abrams says that in pilots, it's important for actors to stay close to the interpretation of the characters in the script, but that after that point, "It becomes more of a dialogue and less of a monologue."

From there, it's up to the actors to find personal entrances into the characters and to the writers to find the actors' comfort zones.

"You do have secrets, but you have to keep them secret," Russell teases, discussing how she became Felicity Porter. "I related to the character a lot and I still do."

Garner says that she responds to some of Sydney's toughest challenges by remembering what she actually did in similar, actual situations.

"There was this one thing for me," Garner begins, "where I was looking for Rimbaldi's..."

The giggles overtake her before she can finish. Garner acknowledges that although she's played the character for nearly three seasons, there are still scenes where she has to call Abrams for advice, though sometimes the creator can only offer cryptic suggestions like "This is the hugest moment of your life. Play everything."

Though his name is on both shows as "creator," Abrams looks to the ladies to his right and declares, "They always take the material and elevate it."