Fresh off her run as the young star of Telemundo's AMOR DESCARADO, Silvana Arias is pulling up stakes in Miami and relocating to Los Angeles. There she'll soon begin taping her first scenes as PASSIONS' Paloma, the fiery youngest child of the Lopez-Fitzgerald brood. "This is something I've been wanting my whole life. I've always wanted to do American soap operas. There's magic in the stories," enthuses Arias. "When I was little my father worked on a soap opera in Peru. Since then I was always was telling my family, 'I'm going to do soap operas!'"

The Peruvian-born actress got her feet wet in the Latin telenovelas, which are similar to soaps but closed-ended. "What I like about American soap operas is that you live with those characters." Arias screentested with Lindsay Korman (Theresa) and Eva Tamargo (Pilar). "Eva's Cuban, and I love Cuban history, Cuban music, Cuban food." Sounds like mother and daughter have hit it off off-screen. What about on? "Paloma is full of Latin fire, so she definitely speaks her mind," warns Arias. "But she's also going to be funny, and she's going to be bilingual. And full of surprises!"

Arias has got the Lopez part down pat. What about the Fitzgerald half? "When they told me that Paloma was Latin-Irish I was like, 'Wow, that's gonna be fun!' Now I have to work with the Irish part. I want to know everything about Ireland and the Irish people, Irish food. But I like that Paloma is very Latin at the same time. I want to show everybody who doesn't know a lot about Latin people who we are, how we express ourselves, how we live, and how we feel about being Latin." Watch for Arias' debut on May 17.