Talking Your Tech:

Katie Leclerc

On ABC Family’s Switched at Birth, actress Katie Leclerc, 24, plays hearing- impaired 16- year- old Daphne. In real life, Leclerc— who has a hearing disorder ( Meniere’s disease, which causes occasional hearing loss)— shares a Los Angeles apartment with boyfriend Brian Habecost. Wemet Leclerc there, and she showed off a new 55- inch LG 3- D flat- panel TV, which she uses to watch Blu- ray movies and play games on the Sony Playstation 3. Her app- loaded Apple ipad 2 is a constant companion at auditions.

3- D

“I wasn’t sold on 3- D until it was in my own home. The images jump out at you, even more so than in the theater, because you’re in tighter quarters and you’re closer to the TV, so it feels like the depth is very dramatic. Wehave the passive glasses ( non- battery operated), and they have a very lightweight feel.”

Watching herself

“HD is very unforgiving as a rule, and so is 3- D,” so she has passed on watching Switched at Birth on her set. Networks so far offer very little 3- D programming, including her show. But her TV has 2- D to 3- D conversion that basically alters the signal to give it more depth. “The simulated 3- D is just as good as the broadcast signal in 3- D,” she says.

At home, the couple love AMC’S The Walking Dead (“awesome, the zombie hands reach out to you”) and American Horror Story on FX.

A lifetime as a gamer

“I’ve always been into games. My brother and I would play all the time. He was Sonic, and I was Tails,” characters in the video game Sonic the Hedgehog.

Favorite 3- D games

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception ( Naughty Dog) “blows my mind. It looks like a movie.” And Flower ( Playstation Network) “is really simple. I would recommend it to people who don’t game much. It just has two buttons, and it’s whimsical and magical.”

She and Habecost also love Gran Turismo ( Playstation Network) and Assassin’s Creed ( Ubisoft), which “are awesome.”

Bringing the ipad to auditions

Her apps of choice include Pandora, Stumbleupon, NPR, Netflix and Yelp. But as an actor, the $ 19.99 Rehearsal 2 is invaluable. “You can put in any kind of script and highlight lines. You can speak into it, and it will speak back the other actor’s lines— so as a performer, you can rehearse. I used to bring bulky binders full of scripts to work, then I realized the binder thing just wasn’t going to work. The ipad was my first splurge after I got my first paychecks. I paid off the debt, and I now bring the ipad with me to auditions.

“I get funny looks from the casting directors, but I think it’s great.”

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY