Margaret Colin

Brash, brainy, and a wisecracker of a comedian, Margaret Colin could be the model for Audie, the spirited sister she plays to critical acclaim on ABC's irreverent comedy Sibs. Just don't tell her she's feisty. ''I hate that word,'' says the 32-year-old actress. ''When a woman is angry, people have to call it 'feisty' because that means she can still be attractive.''

While Audie, an unemployed 12-step-program junkie, might have much to be angry about, Colin has few complaints. The Long Island-raised daughter of a cop dropped out of Hofstra University in 1979 to take a role on ABC's The Edge of Night. She later switched to CBS' As the World Turns, where she played opposite and in 1988 married costar Justin Deas. She's had steady work ever since the soaps, including the lead in CBS' 1985 courtroom series Foley Square and parts in the films Something Wild and The Butcher's Wife.

With Sibs shooting completed for the season, Colin, Deas, and their son, Sam, 2, will spend the summer in Wilmington, N.C., where she and Nicolas Cage are filming Amos & Andrew — a comedy about racism that sounds, dare we say it, feisty. ''It takes swipes at the current political correctness of everything,'' Colin says. ''I like that — we get to slap everyone's hands.''