Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, Wisconsin • 140

BY JAMES BRADY IN STEP WITH: KAREN SILLAS mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm IbBV 'I Wm Jts Eh El I Brady's Bits I asked Karen about those small, independent films she made that were so good, like Risk and What Happened Did she make any money on them? "No," she said. "I worked on deferred pay on both films. But it comes back a hundredfold." Much as she likes Portland, where Under Suspicion is shot, Karen who was born in Brooklyn and went to school under the Brooklyn Bridge admits: "I miss New York." How has CBS been treating the show? "Ratings are pretty good," she said, "but CBS took us off the air in December for ail those Christmas specials, and when we came back on, it was, 'Hello, where have you People forget when you're not on. But then the ratings started coming back." The New York Times praised the show for its cast and writing but ended up by saying, "It is her character of Phil and the physical and emotional heft of Ms. Sillas that is the show's special anchor." And speaking of emotion and of anchors, I asked Karen if she was married or ever had been.

"I don't like to talk about things like that," she said. It's odd, but no one ever asked me that before." Well, I said, when you don't answer, that just increases the mystery, doesn't it? 1 guess so," she said, "but is it a bad thing to be a little mysterious?" FOR A TIME THERE, IT seemed as if Karen Sillas was doomed to be the favorite young actress of brilliantly creative (but poverty-stricken) independent filmmakers always getting great reviews in movies the critics loved but which ordinary moviegoers almost never got to see. Then, in January 1994 at the Sundance Film Festival (Robert Redford's annual event in Utah), the head of CBS casting saw Ms. Sillas in an obscure little film called What Happened The film cost only $100,000 to make but would win the festival's major awards. It was then that good things began to happen.

CBS had a new cop series called Under Suspicion on the back burner because the network hadn't been able to find the right actress to play the tough female detective. Suddenly, there was Karen Sillas. (It's pronounced with a long as in Silas Marner. But let her tell it: 'They'd tried for a long time to find 'Phil' her character on the show. Then the head of CBS casting went to Sundance and said, 'We've got to get this It was only the second time I'd ever been to L.

and I went down there to do an audition with just this small bag, and I did the audition and got the role, and we started shooting the pilot right away, and I never went back to Brooklyn." Well, not for a long time, at least. The Brooklyn-born Sillas (her mother is Swedish, her father Greek) may be working elsewhere, but she still has a Brooklyn residence. When we spoke, though, she was in her rented "farmhouse" in Cornelia, about 20 miles outside Portland, where they film Under Suspicion. It was a Sunday, and she had been late calling me. "You're bad," I said.

"I know I'm soooo bad," she answered. She had been working on rewrites. Was that normal procedure on a Sunday? There's no rest," she said. "We film every day, five days a week. 14 hours a day.

Sometimes more." When we spoke, CBS hadn't yet committed to a second season for the show, but things were looking good. "Portland is a great town," Karen said, "beautiful and clean and on the water. Very Northwest cool and trendy, with lots of little shops and boutiques and coffee bars. And there's a nice feel on the show. A lot of us are from New York, and we get on well." As the show's star, does Karen have any creative input, or does she just do mm mm he's tough Born: June 5, 1965, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Personal: Single. Films: Include Trust, 1990; Simple Men, 1992; What Happened 1994; Risk, 1994. Television: Under Suspicion, 1994-. what they tell her? "They listen," Karen said, "and 'they' really means 'she' "she" being the show's creator, Jacqueline Zambrano, on whom Ms. Sillas clearly dotes.

She is the queen, and I guess I'm the princess. She takes some of my ideas. We create some characters with her. But she's not there all the time, and especially when a guest director comes in, you have to be sure you stick to the original theme. My director of photography is really the main guy.

He keeps the look of the show." That look, of course, includes Karen blond, high cheekbones, curves and all, which make her by far the most appealing detective on TV. What's next? "I've got a couple of scripts," she said, "but I won't rush into it. I know I'm a 'hot property' now, but I've never taken jobs unless I thought them right." and terrific and just a bit mysterious. And, in Under Suspicion, Karen Sillas may be the best female cop on television. PAGE 12 APRIL 2.

1995 PARADE MAGAZINE.