April 2002

Watch out Los Angeles, there's a new girl in town! B&B welcomes COURTNEE DRAPER to the cast as Erica Lovejoy, a teen who has followed the life and career of Amber Forrester and is her biggest fan. Courtnee may play the new girl in town but surely isn't new to the Hollywood scene. CBS.com sat down with Courtnee to chat about how she got her start in the "biz."

CBS.com: How has it been so far at B&B?
COURTNEE DRAPER: Good. It's really exciting. It is [very] different than anything I'm used to, but it is a really good opportunity for me. I actually used to watch the show, and The Young and the Restless. Those are the only two soaps I used to watch. It's cool to now be on that show.

CBS.com: You were saying it's so different. What makes it different?
COURTNEE DRAPER: It is a lot more pressure. It is a lot harder to do. There's a lot less time to get things done. It's very fast-paced. [You] just push it all out there and you can't dawdle. You have to make the most of the time you're in front of the camera because you don't have much time.

CBS.com: What has it been like making those adjustments?
COURTNEE DRAPER: [The producers and directors] do adjustments over a loudspeaker, the "voice of God" thing. At first, it's a little embarrassing because the director is giving you acting tips over a loudspeaker so everybody can hear, but you get used to it. I like the fact that [daytime] is more fast-paced. It allows me to make adjustments and keep them in my head. Usually [directors] give you an adjustment and it's a good twenty to thirty minutes before you actually act again on a regular set because of lighting adjustments, et cetera. This way you're able to adjust a lot better because you have things fresh in your mind.

CBS.com: How did your casting come about?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I got a script and I auditioned more or less a month ago. Surprisingly, I didn't think I would get a callback. I didn't think the casting director liked me. [Laughs] Then I ended up getting a callback and I was very excited. At the screen test they just cast me right away.

CBS.com: Were you looking to get into daytime?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I actually wanted to do film. I just got out of working on 65 [episodes] for a Disney show in April and I wanted to move onto film. I was auditioning for a lot of new series and then [B&B] came along. I figured, "Hey, it could be good practice." I didn't think anything [would] come of it and here I am.

CBS.com: When did you know you wanted to be an actress?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I kind of always had the dream since I was a little girl. I remember doing Steve Urkel impressions on my mom's bed with the glasses and suspenders. I always wanted to be the center of attention. I sing, too. I've done musical theater since I was about nine years old. It's something I have [always] been interested in and I was lucky enough to have my mom who supported me through it and gave me the funds to go about making my dream come true. I'm very lucky.

CBS.com: When you started out acting, were you living in Los Angeles?
COURTNEE DRAPER: At first, I started singing. My mom is in the military. I was born in Orlando, [Florida], moved to Rhode Island, moved back to Florida, and then I lived in Japan for three years. [It was] through karaoke that I actually started singing. Then, when we transferred back to the United States in 1993, I started doing theater and from that my voice coach, who had been acting in both film and television, took me on as her protégé. I got headshots done, an agent and manager, and it just blossomed from there. I was nine when I started theater. I'm almost seventeen, so it's been eight years.

CBS.com: What made you pursue acting and not singing?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I'm very passionate about both, but something just drew me more to acting. I always liked reading when I was little. I liked escaping into characters and taking over their life for a while and kind of forgetting mine. It's a healthy high for me, a legal one. [Laughs] I'm lucky, I don't have to go through other means to have fun. Acting is hard to describe to somebody who is not into acting. It's something you have to experience to know what it feels like. To nail a scene and not have to push emotion, just let it come and have everything flow, it's the most amazing, euphoric feeling. I've loved it ever since I was little. And singing, I get the same high from being on stage in front of people. I'm also interested in that, but I had to pick one and I was moving further along in acting than I was in singing. Singing is also a very difficult [business] to get into.

CBS.com: I'm sure you know B&B showcases singers as well.
COURTNEE DRAPER: When I came on the set, I saw that they showcased singers like Amber [Adrienne Frantz] and they heard that I had made a CD. They heard it and they came up to me yesterday, my first day, and they said, "We want you to sing on the show." I'm incredibly excited because I get to incorporate both worlds. I'm very blessed. I'm very lucky that this has come along.

CBS.com: Tell me about your character.
COURTNEE DRAPER: My character's name is Erica and basically she idolizes Amber Forrester. She sings, just like [Amber's] character does. She's very into fashion [and] she lives in Mystic, Connecticut. In the first episode, [Erica] realizes Amber is going through difficulty, she's in the hospital and [Erica] takes it upon herself to go to help her. The second episode shows [Erica] leaving home. She goes off, ventures to Los Angeles and then I'm not sure where it's going from there. They haven't really filled me in, but they assured me there would be lots of fun, suspense and surprises. So, I'm pretty excited. Hopefully, I'll get to play a little bit of a bad girl. That's what I really like doing. I like playing edgy characters.

CBS.com: Fans tend to latch onto the bad girl characters because it's those characters that you really love to hate.
COURTNEE DRAPER: Yes. [With] the goody-two-shoes [characters], anybody can love that, but people like to live vicariously through characters in soap operas. They like to go, "Oh, I wish I could do that. I wish I could say that to that person." People in soap operas have no fears, nothing holds them back, no inhibitions. They say what they want to say and they don't care. They just do it. A lot of people wish they were brave. Hopefully, I get to do that.

CBS.com: How do you think the fans are going to respond to your character?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I really don't know where they're taking it, so I'm not sure how [the fans] are really going to respond. I do know that people latch onto [characters]. When I did the series [The Jersey], I was the goody-two-shoes. I was the tomboy. People thought I could really play sports; that I had this magical jersey that could [transport] me into the lives of other people. It's interesting how people do latch onto that and they can't separate television from the real world. Hopefully, if I do become a bad girl, people won't come up to me and start yelling at me. I'm excited because my audience, this time, is from teenagers all the way up to...I mean, my aunt watches the show and she's 50 years old. I'm going to have a much different, more mature audience. I'm excited to see my elders admiring what I'm doing - hopefully admiring what I'm doing.

CBS.com: A lot of your work was done with Disney. How did you hook up with them?
COURTNEE DRAPER: The first thing I did was called Ring and Sing for a Leann Rimes sweepstakes contest. I sang on a couple of their promos and then I did a film when I was thirteen called The Duke and that was what set off my career. I eventually ended up going to Disney last year and I did a couple movies of the week and one in San Pedro and one in Australia. It wasn't so much that I had a contract and they kept booking me; it was just I was going in for stuff they were doing. Just like with daytime television, Disney is a specific kind of acting and once you get into the swing of things, you can just pick up any kind of Disney material and know exactly how to play it and know what they're looking for. I think I was at the right place at the right time, too. They just kept hiring me for various things. I want to move onto something a little more risqué. You can only be so bad on Disney. I'm excited about doing a soap - lots of melodramatic material!

CBS.com: Have you gotten to meet any of the other cast members?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I met John [McCook, Eric], Justin [Torkildsen, Rick], Adrienne [Franz, Amber], and I met Ronn [Moss] who plays Ridge. There are so many people. John was amazing. I wasn't on set for ten minutes and he and [Jennifer Finnigan] came up to me and they introduced themselves. [They're] just full of so much energy and it made me [feel good]. I was nervous walking onto somebody else's territory and they totally put my mind at ease. They made me feel very comfortable.

CBS.com: Starting so young, did you get to go to a public high school?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I went to public school through sixth grade. Then from almost the end of sixth to eighth, I did independent study. Then I went to high school. I was at a performing arts school for the first year and a half. I was in and out my freshman year. Then sophomore year, [I attended] just the first 3 weeks and then I did independent study because I was working on The Jersey. I did independent study for my sophomore and junior year and then senior year I was doing independent study, but then decided I wanted to go back to school. As soon as I turned sixteen, I became high school proficient. I took the test. I'm a year ahead. I skipped a grade, so I'm a senior at sixteen. I decided because I wanted to go to college, I wanted to actually get my diploma. I mostly did that for acting. I got my high school diploma and I'm back in school now. I'm doing a continuation thing because I get out at 12:30 PM. I was only there for two weeks and then I got this job. I want to work hard to stay in school so the days I'm not working, I can go back there.

CBS.com: Do you feel like you've missed out on teen life?
COURTNEE DRAPER: You know, everything has sacrifices. You have to decide what's more important to you and for me, it's acting. You have to seize the opportunity because only a few people book jobs. I just felt like if I'm the girl of the moment for Disney right now I might as well take that and grab a hold of it and ride it for as long as I can. It just happened to interfere with my high school, but I'm an honor student. I have a very high average. From being in and out of school, I have a 3.8, 4.0 [grade point average]. You have to work a lot harder. Independent study is a lot harder than most people think because I'm lazy and procrastinate a lot. It's hard for me to motivate myself when I'm not around my peers. In a sense, I feel like I've missed out, but I have enough friends that are still in high school that I can still go to prom and winter formals, which are what I miss the most, the dances and the socializing spirit. But you have to sacrifice for things. You know, school is only a few years and acting is something I could do for the rest of my life so if something comes up, I'm going to take it.

CBS.com: Were you living here or did you move here for B&B?
Actually, I live in Orange County, [California] and I commute up [to Los Angeles] all the time. I'm probably going to move here when I turn eighteen. I like being out of the L.A. scene a little bit because San Diego is really relaxed, really mellow. L.A. is very high strung. Orange County is just in the middle. I like being able to escape. The thing is, I was talking to the casting director and I told her it takes me forty-five minutes to get to work every morning, maybe a little bit more and she said, "Well, I live eleven miles away and it takes me half an hour." I eventually would like to move out here, especially if I'm still working on the show. But right now, I'm happy where I am.

CBS.com: What do your friends think of you being on B&B?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I told a lot of people who have watched my career. A lot of people were just shocked, "No way! You got on The Bold and the Beautiful?" My boyfriend was really excited. He's supported me a lot. All my friends were just shocked. Some guys were like, "The Bold and the Beautiful? What's that?" This guy at school was like, “Is that a new show?" I said, "It's been on fifteen years!" You know, guys don't watch soap operas, but all the girls know. They know what's happening. They're like, "Oh, my gosh. You get to be so pretty on the show." I think soaps are the epitome of Hollywood glamour.

CBS.com: How did your mom feel when you booked B&B?
COURTNEE DRAPER: She was excited. My manager kind of played it off. She called my mom and said, "Yeah, Courtney's not testing." My mom [said], "What? What are you talking about?" It was like the third time I was supposed to test and I ended up not. Then my manager [said], "No, she got it!" I was at school and they didn't tell me and my mom said, "Yeah, you're not testing." Of course, I was upset because I had been looking forward to it for two weeks. She was like, "Yeah, you got the job!" I'm in the middle of an intersection walking home from school and I start jumping up and down. All these people in cars at the stoplights were just staring at me. [They were] like, "That girl has lost her mind." I was going crazy. I started three days later. It was so exciting. I ran home [and started] calling friends. I was out of breath and all my messages were, "Oh, my gosh! I just got The Bold and the Beautiful!"

CBS.com:So, tell me what do you do in you spare time?
COURTNEE DRAPER: I sing. I like to dance. Because I am so busy, I mostly like to kick back. I don't necessarily have to be out somewhere. I'm just happy hanging at home with my friends watching movies, relaxing, being able to take a couple of breaths and clear my mind. I go to the beach a lot. I shop a lot, typical teenager stuff. I talk on the phone all the time. I just started snowboarding. I like doing that; it's pretty exciting.

CBS.com: It must also be nice to have a regular schedule.
COURTNEE DRAPER: I'm out by three o'clock. By the time my friends are getting out [of school], I'm leaving the set. They're doing their homework [and] I'm driving home. We both get done at the same time. The hours are very nice!

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