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PROFILE

Star of the Week

As Seen in Weekly, Dec. 24, 2002

— CBS

Catching up with...OLTL's Jessica Tuck

— By Kathryn Walsh

Some people never change. When Jessica Tuck starred on ONE LIFE TO LIVE as Megan Gordon Harrison from 1988-'92 she was known as a practical joker. Although she's 10 years more "mature," the actress -- who now plays Gillian Gray on Judging Amy -- is still up to her old tricks.

"We used to have fun," Tuck says about her time on OLTL. "We took the work very seriously, but at the same time, because we had such long hours, you had to play and have a good time. We used to do these primal screams: On the count of three, everybody would scream as loud as they could. It feels good. We got the cast and the crew doing it, just to get the blood going again."

And what did then-executive producer Paul Rauch, who isn't exactly known for his levity, think of all of this? "He was fairly well-tempered about it," she recalls. "I think he didn't particularly like the interruption, but..."

Tuck, who credits her wacky sense of humor to growing up with five brothers, says she can't help herself. "On the Judging Amy set, if there's a bizarre interruption, they blame it on me right away. Which nine times out of 10 is true," she laughs. "It's not too bad. I mean, they're not huge things; it's not like I'm destroying sets. I'm just having a little fun. It's a good thing I don't work all the time."

Gillian, Amy's (Amy Brenneman) sister-in-law, started out as a recurring role but turned into a contract gig once the pilot was picked up. "My character is certainly not the focus by any means," Tuck explains, "but every once in a while I get a spurt of action. It's nice because it's the first time in a long time that I have been employed and actually could have a life as well. If I'm in an episode I might work two or four of the eight (shooting) days. For the last four seasons I've had a job and a life, and I'm feeling very lucky."

One of the projects Tuck was working on in real life was getting pregnant, a goal she and fiance Robert Koseff accomplished this year. "I'll be 40 in February and I have wanted a child forever," she says.

Tuck's Judging Amy character adopted a child and is now pregnant -- as is the actress.
— CBS

In an ironic twist, Gillian -- who thought she couldn't have children -- is pregnant now, too. "Bizarrely enough, they wrote my character as pregnant before they knew that I was pregnant. The day I was going to tell them was the day we did the table reading of the script in which Gillian discovers she is pregnant. So it worked out quite nicely. I'm due at the end of March and our season ends at the end of April, so I suspect we're due pretty much at the same time," she laughs.

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