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Read the cutest Darcy related interviews and articles

— By Naomi Rabinowitz

Soap Opera Digest: Hello, Darcy Rose! Did you have a good holiday?
Darcy Rose Byrnes: Yes, I did. We stayed in and had fun. We built my Victorian dollhouse all day.

Digest: What are some other gifts you got?
Byrnes: There's this one thing I got for Little Christmas — a rat!

Digest: A real, live rat?
Byrnes (laughs): Yep.

Digest: Why didn't you just get a cat or a dog?
Byrnes: Rats are smarter and they don't bite like dogs and cats might ... they only nibble. I didn't pick her; she picked me. She was looking at me [in the pet store] like, "I want you! Get me out of here!" I have this backpack and she goes in it and sleeps.

Digest: I have a cat, so I could never get a rat.
Byrnes: We have a bird. He's a parrot. Mr. Green Bird.

Digest: Does he talk?
Byrnes: Yes! When I sing, he sings along, and when I cry, he copies me.

Digest: Are you in school or do you study privately?
Byrnes: I just started homeschooling.

Digest: What grade are you in?
Byrnes: I used to be in second grade, but they put me in third grade, and second-grade math.

Digest: What's your favorite subject?
Byrnes: Art.

Digest: Are you good at drawing?
Byrnes: I think so. But I did a self-portrait of myself and it didn't come out good.

Digest: It's hard to draw yourself. What else do you like to draw pictures of?
Byrnes: I like abstract art.

Digest: Wow.
Byrnes: I get to do a lot of art in homeschooling. I get to look at portraits that people did.

Digest: Do you get to go to museums and stuff like that?
Byrnes: Yes. There's this program [for homeschooled children] where we get to go to museums and field trips.

Digest: How old are you?
Byrnes: 7.

Digest: I thought you were older. You seem older.
Byrnes: Abby's also 7.

Digest: Well, Abby's a very grown-up little girl.
Byrnes: Exactly! Once, they said I was 8, and then they went back to 7, and I was like, "Make up your mind! How old am I? I need an age!" It was so funny.

Digest: Are you anything like Abby?
Byrnes: No, I like to sing. And I'm not that serious. She's not that silly, but I am. [Uses a "sad" voice] She's sad all the time. [Uses a high-pitched,"happy" voice] I'm happy all the time [laughs]!

Digest: Do you hang out with the other actors on set?
Byrnes: Yes. One time, Don [Diamont, Brad] ... Don, Amelia [Heinle, Victoria] and me ... we were all sitting at the table and then we were running lines, we weren't actually shooting it. I'm already gone, but I'm not walking out, so I'm seeing what they're doing. And Don is eating, even though he's not supposed to be eating. And, like, I heard her say, "Give him the full plate, he'll clean it off." So he's gonna leave and so he ate like so much, and Amelia's like, "Ewww!" So he holds up the script and is like, "See, it says here, 'Brad gives a slight, sweet garlic breath on Victoria.' " So I'm going to see if it's true and she's laughing hysterically and I'm like, "Oh, it's not true."

Digest: That's funny.
Byrnes: Eric [Braeden, Victor] is also funny and he's always telling me about his little granddaughter. Once he said that he'll bring her to the set and I'll be able to see her sometime. I've heard great stories about her. She's younger than me.

Digest: What's the best thing about being on a TV show?
Byrnes: You get to make your own character up. You can be a person you never got to be. You hear people from movies who were bad characters and they say [uses deep, "villainous" voice], "I love playing bad characters because you get to play people that your mother and father would never let you be!" You can be an entirely new person.

Digest: Do you want to be an actress when you grow up?
Byrnes: Yes. An actress-slash-singer, kind of like from Beaches ... Bette Midler. Like the role she had, that's the kind of roles I want to have.

Digest: What kind of music do you like?
Byrnes: Bernadette Peters.

Digest: So you like Broadway?
Byrnes (gets very excited): Wicked [the musical]! Now I have the CD to it and I sing it out and once I sang it in public and they were like, "Bravo, little girl." I was like, "Didn't you ever hear a girl sing before?"

Digest: Would you want to do a musical?
Byrnes: I do them already. None on Broadway, though.

Digest: Which ones?
Byrnes: Annie, Into The Woods. In Into The Woods, I played a bad character. It was a junior version with little kids like me. I played the bad girl [the Queen from Snow White] and got to say, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall ... who's the fairest of them all?" In Annie, I did Molly. I was in it twice, actually. Now they're doing Oliver, but I'm not in that.

Digest: That's more of a boy musical.
Byrnes: Yeah. In Annie, I sang "Tomorrow." At the end, when everyone's clapping, I would be belting it out and everyone would be looking at me. I'd be like, "What, get back to your singing." I wasn't supposed to be singing that loud, but I was.

Digest: What else do you like to do for fun?
Byrnes: Piano, dance, sing, draw. I do puzzles, too. Crosswords, jigsaw puzzles. I like the piano, it's great. Sometimes my dad and I play games. We make up silly songs. Give me a topic.

Digest: Um, how about your family?
Byrnes (starts singing): When I'm with my family, I'm happy because they're the best friends I could ever have ... I could go on forever.

Digest: That's really good. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Byrnes: No. Well, I have one brother ... Green Bird. He's an evil bird, brother!

Digest: Why is he evil?
Byrnes: Every time I cry, he copies me. Let's do it. [Fake cries]. Waahhh! (The bird starts crowing in the background, and sure enough, starts crying along with her.)

Digest: I hear him! That's a great trick.

From: Soap Opera Digest