JUST THE FACTS
Birthday: January 29
Height: 5-feet-7
Siblings: Chris, 23, Karla, 25, Joey, 27
Hand Me Down: “My dad’s name is Donald Jo, my grandma is Peggy Jo, I’m Heidi Jo.”
Munch A Bunch: “My favorite potato chips, Husman’s BarB-Q Potato Chips, aren’t [in California]; they’re in Ohio. They are the greatest chips ever.”
Going Country: “I love my stepdad, Jeff. My mom has been married to him for, like, 10 years. He’s so country. He just fits my mom; she’s real country and they live in a log cabin.”
“I like to keep moving,” an energetic Heidi Mueller explains almost apologetically to photographer Robert Sebree as she strikes myriad poses at her first Digest photo shoot. Compared to some soap newcomers, this fresh face is incredibly comfortable in front of the lens — as she should be.The striking, long-legged brunette began modeling in her hometown of Cincinnati at the age of 16, and landed a contract last summer with the renowned Wilhelmina Models management company. “I’ve never been shy in front of a camera,” Mueller admitted in August during her first interview with Digest, shortly after snagging the part of PASSIONS’s desperate, devious Kay.Despite her modeling experience, it took some coaxing to get the Liberty University student to try TV. Early this year, Mueller’s sister, Karla, talked her into attending an open casting call for a new dating show, RICH GUY, POOR GUY. Mueller’s motivation? “I thought, ‘I’ll just meet the casting people; no casting people come to Cincinnati!’ ” Though she declined the offer to participate in the show — “There was no way that I was going to try to get some guy to go out with me” — Mueller became pals with “the casting guy.” And before the then-college junior knew it, her new friend approached her family about starring in the Peacock Network’s reality show, WHO WANTS TO MARRY MY DAD? The premise: Mueller and her three siblings would find a woman for their single father to potentially wed (see sidebar).”Within 16 days, they brought us out to L.A. and we shot the show,” recalls Mueller, whose parents, Don and Pam, divorced when she was 8, but remain best friends. A self-proclaimed “reality-show junkie” — “I watched all of them” — this gig was right up her alley. Sure, she didn’t want to be the one vying for attention on the never-aired RICH GUY, POOR GUY, but Mueller was in favor of her dad being in the dating spotlight.Once taping was completed, the Mueller clan returned to Ohio, where the psychology major planned to continue her education, this time off-campus in the school’s External Degree Program. “You watch your lecture on a DVD. Then, you take the test and it’s just like going to class,” she explains, adding that she plans to resume her studies in January in order to graduate.While attending a network party last summer, Mueller chatted with President, NBC Entertainment Jeff Zucker and NBC Senior Vice President of Daytime Programming Sheraton Kalouria, who asked the reality show alum to screen-test for PASSIONS’s Kay, a role that Deanna Wright decided to leave in June when her contract expired. (Wright’s final air date was on October 6.)Mueller got the part and relocated to Studio City, CA, where the soap tapes.Since then, the daytime newbie has been studying with PASSIONS’s acting coach, Maria O’Brien, because other than performing in a musical at her high school (size of graduating class: 21), Mueller has zero acting experience. She candidly confesses, “I got cut from every college play I auditioned for.” After viewing a few minutes of her first episode in late October, the actress was cringing: ” ‘I just can’t watch it.’ You sit there and pick yourself apart. I was like, ‘Act! You sound so bad!’ But now I’m working hard and learning. I think I’ll be able to watch the scenes that are airing now.”Ready to slip into a short denim skirt, sexy red top and return to the flashing bulbs that she is so comfortable posing in front of, Mueller is asked one last question: Has all this become a reality for her? “I don’t know if it will ever become a reality,” she muses. “It’s definitely surreal. I’ve had fun and it’s hard work; that’s real. There are so many people out there who would love to be in this situation and have the job that I have. And I’m sure they can do a better job than me, so I’m very lucky.”
