Since her small screen debut on the hit TV show Popular, actress Carly Pope's been maintaining ratings and heating up chat room conversations over her burning looks and oh so sexy smile. After getting contributing editor Tony Romando to stop salivating, and giving him a strict guidebook on interview etiquette, A&F unleashed him (alone!) on the sexy Canadian actress for four hours in a suite at the Chateau Marmont, a celebrity haunt hotel in the Hollywood Hills. We prayed he wouldn't embarrass us. He didnt. And Carly's even kept her promise and calls us when she's in town. Here's their story.

It's the day before Valentine's Day, and the weather sucks. It's been raining for three days straight, and Im thousands of miles from my girlfriend. Things could be worse I guess. While I've been sitting in my hotel room watching TV, Carly has been stuck standing in the rain for eight hours having her picture taken. But apart from the terrible cold she's caught, things are looking good for Carly, particularly with the success of her show Popular. When I open the door to let her in, her ear to ear smile and drenched little frame instantly make everything OK. The sun may have eluded me, but right now...well, things ain't so bad. I don't know what to call Carly. A lady? She's only 19. A girl? She packed her bags and left her family and home in Vancouver on a whim. A friend? Hardly. The last journalist who claimed to be her friend misquoted her. After her words were taken completely out of context and she was made to sound like a 12 year old, Carly was reluctant to do another interview. Let alone with a stranger. "I feel really betrayed," she says of writers and interviewers in the same breath. "I've tried to open up and show a side of me that isnt one dimensional, but writers ultimately make it one dimensional." I can't say I blame her for opening up. For the past few months, shes been taping the show 14 hours a day, six days a week. With such a heavy workload, it's been hard making new friends. All of her real friends ar back home shoveling their driveways in Canada. And after 2 years, she recently broke up with her boyfriend (webmaster's note: this was from an interview in feb 2000) , leaving her single on Valentine's Day. I ask her if she's upset being alone or if she's happy to be free.

"I say, instead of letting yourself get screwed f**k having a partner...Half the time your partner doesnt know how to please you anyway, and I've found I should just do it myself," she says. If she's uncovered that truth by 19, she's well past a point most women dont reach until they're 40. Should I test her? Try to find out if she's more child or adult? If you ask a cool kid what they were like in highschool and they're older and feeling ashamed of being cool, they'll say they were nerds. It's the PC thing to say. If they say they were cool and it was a breeze, then they're arrogant. Its a potentially dangerous question for an up and coming star. "I always get the question, 'In highschool, were you popular or unpopular?' I thinks its the most arbitrary and ridiculous question ever," she replies. So were you? I ask. She smiles playfully before answering. "I didnt think about it when I was in school. Im not gonna say it was hard, But it wasnt a breeze." If this were anyone else, Id say she was dodging an easy question - a loaded question. But she hasnt been doing this long enough to lie. She may have been dumbed down to sound "neato" on some girlie teen magazines, but she hasnt been taken at face value yet. As Carly sniffles and coughs her way through a cold, I run through a million questions in my head that are sure to catch her off guard and give me something juicy, like, "Do you and Leslie Bibb really hate each other?" But I hesitate as I watch her yawn and stretch out across the couch. She's sick and has been on her feet for the last eight hours.

It's Sunday, the one day she has to herself, and she chose to spend it with us. After a few minutes of laughing at how ridiclous the people in L.A. are, we switch to laughing at Canadians. Not the usual suspects like Alanis Morissette and Bryan Adams, but at the common folk. They say Canadians are all drunks. Carly hasnt been in a bar in months. People say Canadian girls are easy. "I've heard that too, but I think it's a ploy," she says. "That way, if American guys say Canadian girls are easy, they can also say that they got with one of them and the girl is gone. So they cant defend themselves." Another good answer. Shes got brains. What is it you want to accomplish, Carly? " I just wanna act and cultivate every part of my life. Ive learned so much from being down here on my own, being away from my family." The words resonate. Its hard to remember what that first times like, the first time you're away from home and using your own guides to define yourself. Imagine trying to do that in Hollywood, where public scrutiny magnifies everything you do and say to the point of absurdity. Where one day you're super hot, and the next people barely remember who you are. Sometimes it's hard to get to the bottom of a personality in an hour. It's hard to pass judgement on a person when they're exhausted, sick and tired. Or maybe not. I do it all the time. In fact, sometimes Ive got the story written before I even turn on my tape recorder.

So after I turn my recorder off and say goodbye to Carly, she springs up and puts her coat on. She unwraps a cough drop and attempts to popo it in her mouth befire it drops right onto the dirty hotel carpet. For a moment we stare at each other, like 2 pistoleros facing off. What's it gonna be? She sizes me up, shrugs and pops it into her mouth. Then she smiles. says "Thanks for a fun time" and splits. Standing in the doorway, I sctratch my head and wonder what that says about her. Does it make her a kid with no cares, or a woman who's not to be embarrassed by what I write about her? This one's a tossup. Im sick of passing judgement. Are you?