SOD Feb. 12, 2001
All About Eve

Once you've been a prostitute, slept with a father and son (DV and Scott) and traveled back in time, there's really nowhere to go but up.
    "I'm chief resident now," boasts Julie Pinson in character as PORT CHARLES's loop but lovable Eve. "It's my turn. I think they've gone through just about everybody, so now it's my turn. Everybody else is gone!"
    She not kidding since PC debuted in June, 1997 as a show built around GENERAL HOSPITAL's Lynn Herring (Lucy) and Jon Lindstrom (Kevin) - and introducing "the interns" - only Pinson and cast mate Nolan North (Chris) are left form the earnest, scrubs-wearing bunch.
    "I love working with Nolan," says Pinson, thinking back to the good old days when Eve and Chris would guzzle martinis and have sex on the couch. "we have good chemistry - our scenes together are easy. Did you see the shows with Chris being a liar? They were brilliant. Nolan is so good at that stuff. Personally, I'd write the whole show around Chris Ramsey because I think he's fun to watch."
        Don't get her wrong, Pinson want to be front-burner, too. She's just not convinced that Eve's evolution from hooker to home-body had to take away the character's edge. "sometimes, they write her like, 'Oh, I'm so in love, I'll do anything,' and I hate that. Every time I try and get some [guts] for Eve, they say, 'But you love him, and you can't be mean.' Personally, I think that Eve should have gone over and kicked Lucy's ass for sleeping with her husband, but Eve is a 'nice person' now, and she can't do that. "I'm sure that the fans are going, 'What happened to Eve?' I miss the old Eve. I hope that being chief resident brings that side of her out again - if she's the boss, she'll have to be mean."
    Not many actresses walk around wishing that their characters were mean, but Pinson isn't most actresses. In fact, rather than run out and blow her fist paycheck - first year of paychecks - she scrupulously saved her money and only recently bought her first home.
    "The house in 1930s Spanish style, one floor," she describes enthusiastically. "It's open inside with arched doorways and little details that make older houses so charming -built-in bookshelves and sconces on the wall. And I have a lemon tree, a pool and a jacuzzi! I wasn't looking for that. I didn't even know this place had a pool until I came to look at it. It was added bonus."
    Pinson is now in the process of decorating her new house with the help of familiar person: PC/GH star Susan Brown (Gail). "I see her now more than I ever did on the show," laughs Pinson. "Her tastes and my tastes are similar, so I'm glad I hired her. I want my house to look like hers, so it's great. I trust her taste 100 percent."
    "It's a darling house," pronounces Brown. "We're trying to be true to the period, but with modernization."
    "It's been fun," continues Pinson, "but the moving-in process was the most stressful thing I've ever done. I've always heard that buying your first house, having your first baby and getting married are all very stressful. But you don't understand what people are talking about until you through it yourself. I thought, 'I can do it all myself, I'm Wonder Woman,' but honestly, this is the first time in my life that I wished I had a husband or a guy in my life to help me with all these decisions. When you're a single female. I think you get taken advantage of. When there's a man around, that's less likely."
    Problem solved - by her TV husbands. "I've been renting Jon Lindstrom and Thorsten Kaye [Ian] - they've been great," she laughs. "Jon was with me the day I moved because I didn't want the movers to take their time and charge me more. Thank God he was there because the moving company completely [messed] up. They were supposed to send me three professional movers, and they only sent one, so Jon ended up moving half of my stuff. Poor Jon - his back was all out of whack, so I gave him a gift certificate to a spa for a nice massage, a wrap and a facial. I owe him so much for helping me that day."
    What about her "new" husband?" "Thorsten helped me buy my antique stove. He helped me barter with the guy," she responds. "He was great. But I put the Christmas lights up on the outside of my house all by myself. I went to Home Depot and got an eight-foot ladder. It took me three hours, but it looked fantastic. It's little things like that that make me very proud of myself. I can do it by myself."
    Pinson will have plenty of time to fix up her hose with PC's new shooting schedule. "I personally, selfishly love it because I'll have to do other projects," she enthuses. "You'll have to remind me what the storyline is when we do interviews: 'What storyline? What did I do? What happened?' I absolutely love my job but I've been playing Eve for four years, and I would love to be somebody else for a while. That's why I became an actor -to pretend to be all kinds of different people. Hopefully, I'll be able to go out there and maybe do an independent [film], or play a female spy. I see myself on a sitcom someday because I think I'm funny. Not everybody does, but I think I'm funny. Or, I could be that chick on ALIAS. Maybe I could play a prostitute with a baby in a Lifetime move. No, wait, never mind -that's Eve!"