Frank Ockenfels Holly Hunter -- "I loved going to Carnegie Mellon. I've got to get back." Click photo for larger image. Listen In Hear excerpts from Holly Hunter???s conversation with Patricia Sheridan. To download the file to your computer, right click on the above link and select "Save Target As ..." After the file has finished downloading, double-click on the file to listen to the audio.

Oscar- and Emmy Award-winning actress Holly Hunter once roomed with Monessen's Frances McDormand in New York City after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University. The 47-year-old actress is the mother of twin boys with her boyfriend, actor Gordon MacDonald. The TV series "Saving Grace," starring Hunter as a hard-driving, angel-fighting detective, premieres at 10 p.m. next Monday on TNT.

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Q. Would you say "Saving Grace" is a little like Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"? God's doing the taming?

A. Any comparison with Shakespeare I can only take as a compliment [laughs]. You know, Kate, Kate is a very interesting character. One of Shakespeare's great females. I think that Kate in "Taming of the Shrew" is a little bit of a character of the moon, you know? She's a character who revels in the night. I think Grace definitely is a character of the moon, as well. She is a creature of the night with a lot of darkness inside her. I also think she is a woman of daylight, too. Both women loom large.

Q. So, Holly, there are lot of semi-nude scenes. Is it you or a body double?

A. Oh, no, no, no. That's me. You know, the sexuality of Grace was something I was very, very excited to talk about as a woman, as an actress, as myself. The sexuality of Grace was very appealing to me. It was a great chance for me to get to play a woman who is not married.

This is not a story about her diminishing relationship with her husband. There's nothing really domestic about Grace. She doesn't have children. She doesn't have a housekeeper. The confines are much larger for her. It is her in the world, her in this world that she lives in.

I mean, Grace's world is a big one. It doesn't involve the traditional trappings that many of us have, many of us have built around our lives by the time we hit the age of 40.

I love the unorthodox life that can come from that, and a great part of that is her sexual expression.

Q. I am still totally impressed that you look so good after having twins in real life.

A. You know, I can only thank my mother for that. I was blessed with the genes that I have.

So I have my mother and my father to thank, I guess.

Q. You generate such a big screen presence, for such a petite person. Was it something you learned at Carnegie Mellon or is it innate in you?

A. I can only say thank you [laughs]. I loved going to Carnegie Mellon. I've got to get back. I have to get back to Carnegie to talk to the students. I learned so much there, and so much has been useful to me throughout the years. That has been a huge benefit for me in my career. To be able to work, to be able to take a script and take it apart in purely technical terms, to use a script and learn about a character using this very pragmatic tool. That's where I learned it, at that conservatory, and it's been incredibly beneficial to me.

Q. Does playing Grace affect your own faith or lack of it?

A. You know, no. For me, Grace is a work of fiction. This is the landscape of the character. So, like all other fiction that I've read that I've loved, that I've been affected by, Grace has also affected [me]. But in terms of faith, my own personal faith, [is] a kind of collective unconscious that I've always believed in -- grown to believe in, in my life. In terms of these organized religions that's not part of my life. But in terms of spirituality, about humanity, I've always had a connection to that myself. Grace is a great work of fiction for me. This whole discussion I get to have once a week on screen about her has definitely affected me.

Q. The whole idea of an angel talking to Grace, did you find it unbelievable when you first read the script?

A. I found it enthralling. I love the relationship between Grace and the angel. Once again, I believe it all, utterly. It is what I love best about my job. These are stories that I get to be part of telling, and in this case I get to tell a new story once a week. My whole life has always been about telling stories whether they were plays when I was 15, all the musicals I did in high school, all the movies that I've done, it's all about works of fiction. So, no, I don't have any problems believing this world this woman lives in.