''I'm a little stressed. Life continues while I'm doing this friggin' series,'' sighs Karen Sillas on a mobile phone from the Portland, Ore., set of Under Suspicion, the new CBS cop drama in which the heretofore-little-known actress stars. ''I'm trying to pay bills. I'm literally writing checks right now.'' You can't blame her for feeling overwhelmed. With a decade of indie movies and stage work under her belt, the Brooklyn-bred Sillas landed her first mainstream lead in Suspicion last February after producers saw her in the award-winning film What Happened Was (now in art-house release). ''It was my second time in L.A. ever. I read for CBS and Warner Bros., and within an hour they started shaking my hand,'' she recalls. ''I went out dancing that night and drank some wine. I woke up in the morning and said, 'What's wrong with this picture?' '' Three days later, Sillas started filming the pilot, which has brought much attention to her acting-and her wardrobe. ''The stylist looked at the femininity and voluptuousness of my body and said, 'Look, we want to use this,' '' says the 30ish Sillas. ''When you put a very nicely fitted jacket or skirt and heels with that-which real female detectives do-people are like, 'Whoa, that's intense!' '' Even more intense is Suspicion's 12-hour-a-day shooting schedule, but certain things make it worthwhile. ''This morning (creator) Jacqui Zambrano and I watched the main title sequence, designed by Saul Bass, who's done Scorsese and Hitchcock films. Seeing our names was so f -- -ing amazing!'' she shrieks. ''We were crying. We said, 'F -- -, now we know why we're doing this.' ''
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