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The movie or the pageant? Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Katie O�Grady, with the help of seamstress Susan Silva, gets fitted Friday for her role as emcee of the Miss Rogue Valley Pageant tonight. The former Miss Rogue Valley has landed herself another, bigger role: as a supporting actress in a new Tommy Lee Jones movie. By Bill Varble Here�s the plot: Former small-town beauty pageant winner signs on as emcee of same pageant, lands role in big Hollywood movie, has first day of location shooting 300 miles away, and it�s on day of pageant! Will she make the movie? Will she make the pageant? Will she live happily ever after? And that is where Katie O�Grady finds herself today. O�Grady, 26, formerly of Medford, was Miss Rogue Valley of 1993. So when pageant director Jakki Wright asked her to host this year�s pageant tonight at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford, she jumped at the chance. But in the meantime, O�Grady, who now lives in Portland, went out and got herself a role in "The Hunted," directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro. Her first scene � ever � is scheduled for shooting today at Portland�s Hawthorne Bridge. Which is why O�Grady is being fitted Friday morning in a Medford shop for an elegant black skirt with an intricately beaded halter top before flying back to Portland and, she hopes, then back to Medford. The plan is, she�ll report for hair and makeup call at 6 a.m., do the scene all day, fly to Medford at 4:30 this afternoon and host the pageant. What if the shoot goes on all day? "Plan B," she says. "Jakki can step in and emcee." O�Grady is a graduate of North Medford High School and Southern Oregon University whose parents still live here. She and her husband, Brooks Newsom, are the parents of two, a boy and a girl. In her day job, O�Grady reviews movies for KPTV Channel 12 in Portland. She�s traveled to Hollywood to interview the likes of Martin Short, Liv Tyler, Heath Ledger. What she does not have is professional acting experience. So how did she get the role? She saw an ad inviting actors to send pictures to a casting group. Hers was among thousands that came in, dozens that got called. She made the cut for auditions in Vancouver, Wash., easily, and a second round in Portland with a Hollywood casting crew ("much more nerve-wracking"). Friedkin, the director of "The Exorcist," chose her from her film clip. "It�s a supporting role," she says. "It�s quite an honor for somebody who doesn�t have any experience." "The Hunted" teams Oscar winners Friedkin, Jones and Del Toro, who just won for "Traffic," with Connie Nielsen, who just appeared in "Gladiator." Filming is expected to take 10 weeks, with much of the picture shot in Silver Falls State Park east of Salem. Jones plays an FBI tracker who chases the character played by Del Toro, who makes a sport of hunting deer hunters in the woods. Jones and Nielsen must hunt down the assassin before he gets them. The movie was set in Seattle, but Paramount rewrote the script after producers fell in love with Portland and Silver Falls. O�Grady plays a mother whose young son is kidnapped by Del Toro. "I�m not sure I�m supposed to say exactly what happens," she says. "I beg him not to take him, and we have a tug-of-war. Then of course I cry." O�Grady thinks acting is in part natural. "As a mother, the idea of anybody taking a child, I don�t need any help," she says. "I think I got the role by not overdoing it." She�s on the books for 19 days of production, earning the union wage of $660 a day. She�ll keep her movie-review gig. Several agents have approached her, but she�s not interested in talking to anybody just yet. "I just want to enjoy it," she says. "It could be my once-in-a-lifetime." She�ll attend a red carpet premiere in L.A., but don�t look for her to go Hollywood. "I�m a mom first," she says. "I still feel like a stay-home mom." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.