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+ + + USA TODAY :: October 6, 2003

Hilarie Burton is 21 and living a fairy tale.

A ham since she was 5, she now anxiously is waiting to see if her first real job as an actress will take off.

Fans of MTV know her as a VJ on Total Request Live.

Viewers of One Tree Hill, airing tonight on WB (9 ET/PT), are getting to know her as smart, beautiful Peyton Sawyer, who is torn between two brothers, played by Chad Michael Murray of Dawson's Creek and newcomer James Lafferty.

"It's unnerving. No longer am I being criticized for being a goofy MTV VJ. Now it's what I've dreamed about since I was a little girl."

Burton, who has had an agent since she was in eighth grade, grew up in Loudon County, Virginia, and it was inevitable that she would go to New York for college. She enrolled at Fordham in Manhattan.

Her big break: Her college roommate suggested that they enter an MTV contest, and Burton won.

First prize was a chance to be on the red carpet at a star-studded event. Next thing she knew, MTV had offered her a job, and suddenly she was interviewing people like Jennifer Lopez and Justin Timberlake.

For the aspiring actress, "it was a little bit hard," she says with a laugh. "I had to be myself."

Favorite star: Angelina Jolie. Burton got so excited when she heard she would be interviewing Jolie that she "broke down crying. Carson (Daly) was just laughing at me."

Daly says Burton is "a natural. The sky's the limit for her future."

The gig proved to be a door-opener. "Before MTV, I'd never flown on an airplane. Now I'm flying all over and meeting famous people. It's kind of a warped way to come into your own."

Even though she had the MTV job, she still wanted to act, so she auditioned for the part of Ed Harris' daughter in the upcoming Radio. Callback after callback encouraged her, but she didn't land the role.

The casting folks remembered her and asked her to send an audition tape for One Tree Hill Producers promised her a character that she could sink her teeth into. Or as Burton says: "She's got a lot of qualities that make you hate her guts."

The show tapes in Wilmington, N.C., where Hurricane Isabel just missed them. Already, Burton has had to do a major kissing scene with Murray, and it was "weird," she says. After all, she's engaged to a guy (she doesn't want to name him) she has been seeing for three years.

Reviews and ratings for One Tree Hill haven't been great. After a weak opening of 2.7 million viewers on Sept. 23, the show drew an improved but still middling 3.3 million last week. But Burton is undaunted, and she still has her MTV job.

"I'm a big believer in fate and faith. If things are supposed to happen for you, they will."