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)