PASADENA, Calif. — Tammy Blanchard is excited. She thinks she's spotted a famous singer on the patio of an elegant hotel. It's a case of mistaken identity, but it provided a bit of fun on a sunny afternoon.

        It was perhaps a reminder that Ms. Blanchard is somewhat new to stardom. Just last year, she won a supporting-actress Emmy as the young Judy Garland in the ABC miniseries Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows. Her co-star Judy Davis won a best-actress Emmy as the grown-up Ms. Garland.

        Much has been made of Ms. Blanchard's longtime enthusiasm for Ms. Garland. Her first school play was The Wizard of Oz, and her first solo was Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

        “It was so amazing — I couldn't have been more than 8,” she recalled. “I had this uncanny desire that I had to get the part and I stood up to the piano and I sang it and from then on I just always wanted to perform, sing and dance, act.”

        Part of that desire was because her family life was fractured, but when she sang onstage, “they were happy, like everything was OK, everyone was proud, everybody celebrating.”

        Ms. Blanchard, 25, brings her Christian faith into the conversation almost immediately, as she explains her quick attraction to We Were the Mulvaneys (9 p.m. today, Lifetime), an adaptation of the Joyce Carol Oates' novel. She plays devoutly religious Marianne, whose date rape shatters the bonds of a loving rural family.

        “I cried when I was reading the script,” she said. “It was very touching to me how this family went through so much pain and suffering and in the end came together again and survived.

        “I was very inspired by her strength — the worst violation in the world I think is rape. To see this little girl use her faith, which I also have, to get her by and to stand strong affected me so much.”

        She pauses for a long moment before describing how she was able to deal with the rape sequence. “I thought to myself, "OK, this is important because there are girls out there who went through this, so I can't fake this. I really have to feel this, I really have to feel like I am being violated at that point.' ”

        Ms. Blanchard says it was also very difficult for Shawn Roberts, who plays the high-school football player who assaults Marianne.

        “After we did the scene, he was so upset himself he was almost crying,” she said, crediting Peter Werner for directing in a way that made her feel “very protected.”

        Despite the dark story line, she believes viewers will get “a sense of how powerful they can be no matter what happens to them. I think they will realize, which I believe, young girls have the strongest spirits in the world.”

        Ms. Blanchard found Marianne a more uplifting role than that of playing the emotionally troubled Ms. Garland. “I loved her so much growing up and I never really knew her whole story.

        “Playing the beginning of her life filled with so much hope and dreams and energy, and to slowly see her come down, insecure and ramrodded by this business, was depressing to me,” she said.

        Ms. Blanchard, who has purchased a home in her native New Jersey, doesn't plan to move to Hollywood.

        “If I could act and no one would know about me but for the

        few short times that they see me on the screen, it would be great,” she said. “If the publicity wasn't so great on your personal life and what you do, that would be just as fine with me. But I'm prepared. God is preparing me.”

        No Sex: HBO will shut down production of Sex and the City Wednesday because the star, former Cincinnati resident Sarah Jessica Parker, is pregnant.

        Sex and the City, originally set to begin its new seasonin June, has been pushed back tentatively until July, says Carolyn Strauss, HBO senior vice president for original programming.

        Ms. Parker, wife of actor Matthew Broderick, plays Carrie Bradshaw, who writes about the Manhattan dating scene. The sitcom won the Emmy for best comedy series last September.

        Ms. Parker lived in Cincinnati from 1969 to 1977, then moved to New York. She starred in Annie on Broadway in 1979.

        Letterman guest: U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has agreed to appear on CBS' Late Show Tuesday (11:35 p.m., Channels 12, 7). For weeks David Letterman has been airing video of Mr. Ashcroft singing at a North Carolina seminary.

        Life after Bryant: These names have surfaced as possible replacements for Bryant Gumbel, who announced Thursday he's quitting CBS' The Early Show: ABC's Jack Ford; CBS's Russ Mitchell, Jim Nantz and John Roberts; former Good Morning America news reader Antonio Mora; and game-show host Tom Bergeron.
       

        John Kiesewetter contributed to this report.
       

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