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Teresa Hill: a biography Teresa Hill grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, with three sisters and two brothers. At the age of 18, she moved to Los Angeles. She worked as a nanny for a small family at first, soon finding herself in acting and theater classes at Santa Monica Community College. Acting intrigued Teresa; it drew her in more and more until it became a focal point and an established goal. She worked odd jobs, none of which she ever allowed to conflict with pursuing her acting career. That determination finally paid off when, during a showcase with acting coach Charles Conrad, an entertainment manager saw Teresa's talent and signed with her. The first year for Teresa would bring roles in student films. These were the perfect way of enabling her to get a feel for being on camera. Soon after, upon signing with a commercial agent, she scored a national Polaroid advertisement. After Polaroid, Teresa got a main spot with Diet Pepsi opposite Ray Charles, and shortly thereafter an ad for Doritos. She kept busy, next on to small roles in the films Puppet Master IV, Puppet Master V and Raging Angels. Working alongside Shelly Winters and Diane Ladd, Teresa gained invaluable learning and experience, and higher hopes for the future. Immediately following Raging Angels, she landed a starring role opposite Barry Bostwick in the Roger Corman-produced film In the Heat of Passion II: Unfaithful. Teresa garnered a role in the highly anticipated Models, Inc., a FOX/Aaron Spelling series. Teresa debuted on national television as Linda Holden, a model in one of the world's most sought after professions. Models, Inc. would last only one season, but it has lived on in syndication worldwide. Teresa traveled to New Zealand to star in two episodes of the series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, dazzling audiences as sassy Greek goddess Nemesis. Then, in a switch from television to the big screen, Teresa co-starred alongside Pauly Shore, Stephen Baldwin and Joey Lauren Adams in Bio-Dome, the slapstick feature released in early 1996. She also guest-starred in two steamy episodes of Melrose Place as the tempting Claire Duncan. Teresa then took a summer tour of Europe, attaining yet another lifelong ambition. She was also accepted and graduated the prestigious school of Shakespearian studies in London, England, near the birthplace of Shakespeare, Stratford-Upon-Avon. Teresa has dedicated her career to her big sister, Tammy, who was killed by a drunk driver at age 16. "Through it all," says Teresa, "I realize how precious life is. My experiences both trying and triumphant keep me on my mark and undaunted in living my life to the fullest." In the late '90s and early '00s, Teresa landed guest roles on the series Pacific Blue, Silk Stalkings, Baywatch Hawaii and Law & Order. She also had roles in the films Love and Happiness, Nowhere, Circles, Twin Falls Idaho, Cruel Intentions 2, Looking for Lois, Kiss & Tell, The New Women, The Hollywood Sign, The 3 Little Wolfs, Van Wilder and The Look. In August 2002, Teresa originated the role of Eden August on the CBS daytime soap opera Guiding Light, a role that would last a little over a year. Read Teresa's January 2004 interview to learn more about her career and her feelings about it. Teresa now runs an interior design company in New York City called Teresa Hill Designs. Teresa
Hill: One "Model" with a Passion for Acting If you think that being beautiful makes everything easy — then think again. Teresa Hill, who plays dishy but naive model Linda Holden on Models, Inc., has survived abusive relationships, gratuitous Gilbert & Sullivan, and the million-to-one odds against showbiz success. The result? A career that already includes four movies, a prime-time soap, and a steadily-growing avalanche of fan mail. Hill, a thoughtful and articulate actress who is quite different from her Models, Inc. character, grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah with three sisters and two brothers. She discovered early that she had a passion for acting. "In junior high school, I was really shy," she recalled. "Acting was a way I could show a different side of myself. It was really fun." Fun, of course, has never been a reliable way to pay the rent, so it took courage for Hill to move from Utah to Los Angeles — even if becoming an actress was only in the back of her mind. "I moved to L.A. when I was 18, though not to pursue acting," she said. "Coming from Utah, you didn't 'pursue' acting. But I took an acting class [at Santa Monica Community College], was in a showcase, got a manager out of it, and started doing it seriously." Hill's family was initially skeptical about her ambitions. "At first, they were just like, 'come back home'," she said. "But now, they're totally excited, proud of me, and they think it's really great." Two of her sisters have now joined her in Los Angeles, their skepticism vanquished by her undeniable success. Her first movie roles were in the straight-to-video horror flicks Puppet Master 4 and Puppet Master 5 — "I did a lot of screaming and passing out," she recalled. More upscale assignments followed, however, and she recently completed work in Spirit [Raging Angels] with Shelley Winters, Diane Ladd, Sean Flannery and Michael Pare. She also has a starring role with Barry Bostwick in an upcoming Roger Corman movie titled The Unfaithful [In the Heat of Passion II: Unfaithful]. (Yes, almost everyone who's anyone has done a Roger Corman movie at one time or another.) Outside of acting — well, there's not much outside of acting, at least while Models, Inc. is in production. Hill enjoys reading (her current book is "The Celestine Prophecy") and music by groups such as Enya and Enigma, "music you can listen to and relax," she said. The biggest challenge for Hill on Models, Inc. has been to portray a troubled girl trapped in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, who some fans of the show have taken to calling "Scumbag Eric." "I really like the part of Linda because I've been in abusive relationships," she said. "Not as bad as her, of course. I'm sure that most women have." Hill also sees an opportunity for her character to make a difference in some viewers' lives. "People keep on saying, 'Oh, it's TV, it's all just trash.' But if people can watch it and learn something from it, if a girl can look at my character and say, 'That's like me,' and root for Linda to get out of the relationship, then maybe she can start looking at herself." "And men, too. I think it's time that both men and women say, this [spousal abuse] just isn't right. That's what I hope." In spite of the villainies inflicted on her character by Scumbag Eric, Hill was decidedly gentle when asked if she'd like to see Linda "get even" with her fictional tormentor. "I'd love to see her get away from him, and get stronger within herself." And what about Linda's revenge? "You know what I'd like to do to Eric? I'd like to throw him out the front door and lock him out," she said. Pretty bloodthirsty stuff — at least, for a nice girl from Utah who's on the fast track to stardom. "Introducing ... Teresa Hill": an interview about Guiding Light Everyone
loves a mystery and daytime newcomer Teresa Hill is sure stepping Cutting
the Cord: L.A.
Story: New
York State of Mind: Staying
Put: East
of Eden: Daytime
Speedway: "I Love Trouble": an interview from 2003 Since arriving in Springfield last year, Eden August always seems to find herself in the midst of trouble. CBS.com chatted with Teresa Hill about this intriguing character. CBS.com:
You’ve been very busy on the show. CBS.com:
It seems like Eden has her eye on Tony and is up to no good. CBS.com:
Alan and Eden had some interesting scenes a while back. CBS.com:
Eden has this romance will Bill. How do you like working with Daniel
Cosgrove? CBS.com:
What are some of the things you did before coming to the show? CBS.com:
Eden is a really driven person. What do you think it is that drives
her? CBS.com:
Was it devastating for her to learn the truth about Gus’ parentage? CBS.com:
You had fun scenes with Beth Ehlers and Liz Keifer when Harley and Blake
conducted the training class. CBS.com:
It must have been nice to work with them in scenes without animosity
for a change. CBS.com:
Do you think Eden has any true friends in Springfield? CBS.com:
So, her main goal is getting her hands on Tony. CBS.com:
What would you like to see happen with Eden? CBS.com:
Who do you think she is truly herself with? CBS.com:
Where are you from originally? CBS.com:
How long have you been in New York? CBS.com:
Wow. So, you actually moved here on September 11, 2001? CBS.com:
That was a pretty gutsy move. You must have had second thoughts about
staying here after the terrorist attacks. CBS.com:
Did you have friends here that you could stay with? CBS.com:
Did you come to New York looking for work? CBS.com:
Are you dating anyone right now? CBS.com:
Do you go back home often? CBS.com:
Do you have a big family? CBS.com:
What was it growing up with five siblings? CBS.com:
Are you very close? CBS.com:
How many boys and how many girls? CBS.com:
They’re all living on the West Coast. You must have a lot of frequent
flier miles. CBS.com:
What do you do when you’re not working? CBS.com:
Do you go online at all? "Greetings From Sardinia": a post-Guiding Light interview From Soap Opera Weekly, 9/23/03 Teresa
Hill (Eden) did not let her firing from Guiding Light impact "I'm
e-mailing you from right now from beautiful Sardinia,' she wrote Despite
the sad news, Hill is diplomatic. "I've used this time to She
admits that she'll miss playing Eden. "But my boyfriend won't," Hill
will also miss her GL co-stars. "It's an amazing production," She
won't however miss "the 7 am wakeup calls — tough for New As
previously reported, her last airdate is Sept. 18. Deborah Zoe An
interview with Teresa Hill So tell me what you’ve been up to since Guiding Light. Well, I’ve been traveling a lot. I went to Paris, went to Sardinia, Italy. And I’ve kind of been traveling around the United States a little bit, and now I’m back. I’ve just been going out on auditions. I was going to ask what’s next professionally. I hope something good! (laughs) I hope a big pilot. It’s pilot season right now – you know, where you’re trying out for all the pilots. I’ve got a big audition today. So hopefully I’ll book a big pilot. Well, I wish you the best of luck with it. Thank you. It was so nice when you were on Guiding Light to get to see you on a regular basis again. Thanks. It’s such hard work, though. Yeah, it was tough with all those lines, right? It was very tough. You work like eight, sometimes 10 hours a day, and then you have to come home and memorize sometimes up to 30 pages. So a lot of the time I just felt like I was memorizing lines. It’s not that creative as an actor because it is just so much memorizing, but it’s a good paycheck. How does working on a daytime soap compare to a prime-time soap like Models, Inc., as far as the schedule and things like that? Well, you work long hours on both of them, but on the prime-time you have more time to work on your character and your scenes. Because it takes eight days to shoot one episode of a one-hour nighttime drama, and on a soap it takes one day. So obviously you get more time to work on your part and get more creative. Something I’ve always been curious about is on a daytime soap, how long usually is in between when you shoot a scene and when that scene airs on TV? About two weeks. I never knew that timeline because things can always change very fast. It’s about two weeks. Sometimes it’s a little less and sometimes a little more, but I’d say on average about two weeks. One of the reasons I wanted to interview you is there’s relatively little information about you out there, and I know your fans are interested in learning a little more about you. OK, like what? Can you tell us a little about yourself, like what your favorite movies and music are? Things like that? Like what I’ve seen recently? Or your all-time favorites. Recently, I just watched Angels in America on HBO. That was, I thought, amazing. There’s so many things I need to catch up on, on all the Academy-nominated films. But, let’s see, all-time favorites … I love Chinatown; I thought that was great. I love Michelle Pfeiffer and Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange, pretty much anything that they’re in. I also love Kathy Bates. About Schmidt was a great film. What about music? I listen to pretty much everything. It’s kind of funny. Living in New York, you don’t hear quite as much music as you do in L.A. because you’re in your car all the time. But I love to dance, so I love dance music, the popular hip-hop and whatever is contemporary. But it’s not like I’m a big music buff and I go out and buy a lot of music and CDs. I love Madonna, I love Eminem, I love Depeche Mode, I love Sting. I like a lot of female vocalists. Do you get online much? Not really. I don’t. When you have, have you looked at fan websites and that sort of thing? Yeah, I did more when I was on the soap opera because they had a website and we’d get a lot of e-mails through the website. Is it one of your brothers who does your website? Yeah. It’s really good to see it back online. It had been gone for a couple years, and it’s nice to see an official presence there. Yeah, and he did a really good job too. But unfortunately I don’t spend a lot of time on the Internet, so for me it’s not good to have an open forum where people can write in because by the time I get to sit down and answer my own e-mail (laughs) … it’s so long, I always tell people don’t leave me e-mails because I’m not good at returning them. I’m more of a phone person. Can you believe it’s been 10 years this summer since Models, Inc. started? Oh, really, is it 10 years this summer? I looked back to make sure. I can’t believe … Amazing. That’s where I first found out about you and started watching you. It’s been a long time. It has. It seems like yesterday. Can you tell me anything about the pilots that you’re going for? It’s a lot of cop shows. … But it’s just started. I went on one audition before Christmas, and I’ve had a couple since Christmas. But yeah, they’re cop shows. Like NYPD Blue-type things? Yeah. So that’s what I’ve been going out on a lot, but there’s going to be a lot more hopefully. You never know. Now, you don’t see as many because of all the reality TV shows, but there’s a few. It’s just much stiffer competition because now so many film actors are doing TV that a lot of times they choose the people they’re going to use before they even put the pilot out. But you never know. There’s still opportunities. Are you interested in any other aspects of filmmaking besides acting, like directing or producing or anything like that? If I ever got to a point where I felt like I had some power, I would love to do that. But for right now, no. Yeah, I would love to produce something, but producing is a lot of money. (laughs) But, of course, if I had a lot of money and had someone behind me, I would love to produce a movie for myself. That would be great. Do you have any dream projects that you’d ever like to do? Did you ever think, I would love to play so-and-so in a movie? A character type, not a specific character. Strong female role models, whatever that might be. Like Julia Roberts playing Erin Brockovich – that would be an ultimate part or a type of a part to play. Do you like playing good girls or bad girls more? Because you’ve had a lot of contrast in what you’ve done. I like both. Again, it depends on what the character does. If you’re a good girl and you just let people walk all over you, or you’re just the wife or the girlfriend, that’s kind of boring. But if you’re a good girl and yet you do something good and stand up for something, that’s much more interesting. Who was more fun to play, Eden August or Linda Holden? (laughs) I don’t know. They were both fun, but I just felt like on the Models, Inc. part I just had more time to really work on each scene. But Eden August was fun too because she just was so horrible. I couldn’t even believe some of the things she would do and say. I was like, are you serious? (laughs) But they both were fun. Are you friends with any of your former co-stars from any shows or movies? Since I moved to New York, I haven’t seen a lot of people. But I usually get along with most of the people I work with, and keep in touch here and there. But no one I see on a regular basis because I’m in New York. And everybody else is in L.A.? Yeah. But it’s kind of nice when you run into them. I used to run into people all the time in Los Angeles at auditions, like Stephanie Romanov and Brian Gaskill and David Goldsmith. I’d see Carrie-Anne Moss once in a while at my yoga class. But now out here I really don’t see anyone that often. I asked a few people what they would ask you if they ever got the chance. I didn’t actually tell them I was going to be interviewing you because I wanted to make sure it was set before I told anyone. But somebody wanted to know, if money was not an issue, what would your ideal job be? Would it be a TV drama or feature films or what would it be? Feature films, definitely. Because you get three months to work on a two-hour movie. I’m always in acting class. Right now I’m in acting class. You get a month to work on a character, and you learn so much when you really have time to go into that character and every word that they’re saying and what it means. So when you have more time it’s so much better. When you go see a Broadway play, they’ve rehearsed for at least a month. And then they keep doing the same play over and over again, and when you do a play every night you learn something more about your character. So that’s definitely, I think, what most actors love to do. What have been some of your favorite movie experiences? Probably my favorite was Twin Falls Idaho. I really liked that movie. It was a really good film. Yeah, me too. It was a lot of fun. It was a great film. We just got to have fun. The directors just let us have fun, and I wasn’t worried about what I was looking like because they made me look really trashy. So it was a lot of fun. But I wish it would have been a bigger part, a juicier part. But it was still, I think, the closest to the most creative part I feel like I’ve done. Watching that, the only thing I wished is that you had been in the lead female role. I know, me too. (laughs) Are there any particular actors or directors that you’d like to work with? Oh yeah – all the actresses I mentioned previously. Also, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt and Guy Pearce. I'd love to work with Guy; I think he's a great actor. Any of the great directors would, of course, be amazing to work with, especially Christopher Nolan, director of Memento. Do you read any? I read a lot of scripts, a lot of bad scripts. (laughs) Does it leave much time for any other reading? I read plays too, for my acting class. I don’t read a lot of books. I read acting books and things like that. Between jobs, like right now, is your focus pretty much on more acting classes and auditions? Yeah, that’s taking up all my time. I’ve been rehearsing every day for my scene in my acting class. And in between going on auditions – I have to go on commercial auditions – so that keeps me pretty busy. And then trying to live my life. So what do you do when you do have some free time and you want to get away from everything that has to do with acting? What do you do for fun? I love to go to museums. I love going to different restaurants in the city, just going to different places in New York. It’s got so much to offer. There’s always a gallery opening or some type of show, a music show or a play. There’s just so many things going on in New York. I love just walking around the city too and just seeing people, watching people. I read online that your birth name is Tricia Hill. Is that right? No, it’s not. Is that just a rumor, is that just totally a lie? I guess so. Yeah. I always wonder about some of these things that you see online. You never know how authentic it is. Yeah, it’s weird. It’s like, where did they get that from? It’s Teresa. You can’t believe everything you read. Yeah, I’m disinclined to believe some of these things, so that’s why I ask when I get the chance. Well, anything else you’d like to tell your fans about yourself? I know that’s a very open question. Just that I love the career I’ve chosen. I’ve always wanted to be an actress ever since I was a little girl. It’s a lifestyle and a lifelong pursuit. And I hope I’m acting until I’m 106. That’s pretty old. Yeah. Something I just love. I’ll always do it. Whether I get paid or not, I will always be an actor. (laughs) But I’ve been pretty lucky so far, so knock on wood … I was going to say, how do you feel about your career so far? I haven’t gotten to the point where I wish I was, but I feel very fortunate that I’ve made a living. I love acting. You have to love it to stay in this business as long as I have because it is just so hard. And it’s not always about how talented you are. There’s a lot of other factors. But I do, I love it. And so I take my acting classes – because I want to do something that’s creative and fulfilling, and you don’t always do creative and fulfilling parts on TV. … And I hope my fans will be fans when I’m 106! (laughs) |
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