Actress gives comedy a try on Fox show Published Monday, March 20, 2000, in the Akron Beacon Journal. Actress gives comedy a try on Fox show Former soap star Cynthia Watros tackles role in new sitcom `Titus' Cynthia Watros stops short of declaring anything in her acting career a big break. Not co-starring on the Fox sitcom Titus, which premieres at 8:30 tonight. Nor playing Annie Dutton Lewis on the soap opera Guiding Light. Nor parlaying that role into a daytime Emmy in 1998. (Watros' win was Susan Lucci's 18th straight loss before she finally won last year.) ``I don't know what a big break is,'' Watros said during a recent visit to Cleveland. ``My mom thought my big break was when I got a Nutri-Grain commercial. She was, `I saw you in a Nutri-Grain commercial! Wow, you're big!' And I was like, `Mom, what about the soap?' And she said, `But I see the commercial a lot. And my friends are eating Nutri-Grain bars because of you.' '' That's Watros, amiable, talkative and brimming with enthusiasm in an interview at Fox-owned WJW (Channel 8). Former Akron resident and Guiding Light player Frank DiCopoulos is ``a swee-tie,'' she said. As for Akron's Melina Kanakaredes, a former Guiding Light star: ``Love her. She was there like a month when I first started. But we talked. She just has this energy. . . . She just has this really wonderful personality. It's giving and kind and I'm so happy for her.'' That gives a hint of the flair Watros is Please see Watros, C10 Watros At its worst, new show is crude and unfunny Continued from Page C6 bringing to Titus, a strange sitcom based on the real life of its star, Christopher Titus. Using both monologues to the camera and standard play-acting, the show follows Titus in dealing with his family -- notably his much-married, hard-drinking father, played by Stacy Keach -- and trying to develop a real relationship with his girlfriend Erin, played by Watros. At its worst, it is crude and unfunny. And at its best, it's startling and affecting, as when Titus somberly declares: ``My father never missed a drink, or a joint, or a party . . . in his life. But he also never missed a day of work, or a house payment, or a car payment.'' There's more bad than good in the three episodes available for preview. There's also a hint of a show groping toward something akin to a grown-up Malcolm in the Middle, also on Fox, where people's individual mistakes don't keep them from trying to do right by themselves and their families. As Titus says in one episode, ``Normal people terrify me because they haven't had enough problems in their lives to know how to handle problems when they come up. Something little happens, they just snap.'' It's a strange landscape for Watros to enter, one where Erin is the only woman regularly seen. And at first blush, she looks like the only sane character. (It turns out her own character is Titus-like.) But as you see all the edges on Titus, you may wonder how Erin manages to love him. Titus is ``someone that makes you laugh, and keeps you on your toes, and is funny, entertaining,'' Watros said. ``And he's smart, he's caring. I mean, he really loves `me,' and he has a good heart. He does crazy things, and he gets in a lot of trouble, but he's exciting. She doesn't really have the most exciting life in the world, so Christopher adds all this spice to it. . . . They understand each other, and they balance each other.'' The real Christopher Titus is a very nice guy, Watros said. ``It's incredible that he's come out of all that being such a nice guy. You'd think he would be in an institution somewhere.'' But she thinks viewers can find something recognizable in Titus' struggles. ``I've had my challenges growing up,'' said Watros, who hails from Lake Orion, Mich., the daughter of auto assembly-line workers. ``We all have some dysfunction in our families. . . . I used to hide under the bed a lot. And I always wondered why my family didn't take me to see someone, because I don't think it's normal to hide under the bed. . . . I really liked it there. I liked lying there and not having anyone see me, and having little dialogues with myself. . . . My mom used to feed me there.'' She caught the acting bug while attending community college in Mount Clemens, Mich. ``I was just trying to pass my classes, and I saw a poster for auditions,'' she said. ``And I wanted to meet people, so I went in . . . and the woman who headed the program gave me a part, and gave me a scholarship -- and then she told me . . . I needed to go to conservatory.'' That sent her to Boston University, after which she got a $15,000 fellowship to help start her career in New York City. ``I got some really cool furniture,'' she said with a smile. ``I blew it all. I'm sure that's not what they had in mind when they gave me the $15,000.'' The acting jobs didn't come right away, and she did wonder whether she would succeed. ``If you love it enough, you just find a way,'' she said. ``You persevere because you can't see yourself doing anything else. . . . It's terrible, I think, when you work at a profession you don't like. You spend more time at work than you do eating and sleeping and spending time with your spouse.'' R.D. Heldenfels writes about television for the Beacon Journal. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com. MOVIES | DINING | MUSIC | ONSTAGE | THINGS TO DO SHOW TIMES | MOVIE THEATERS | DINING GUIDE | CONCERTS | PERFORMANCES MOVIE NEWS | DINING NEWS | MUSIC NEWS | ONSTAGE NEWS | TV NEWS HOME Copyright © 2000 The Beacon Journal Publishing Company Primary content and graphics © 2000 Knight Ridder New Media, Inc. Technology and portions of the content and graphics © 2000 Zip2 Corp. Information deemed reliable but is not guaranteed. 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