Article New York Post

On the CW's new "90210," Shenae Grimes plays Annie Wilson, the naive Beverly Hills transplant who echoes the original's Brenda Walsh. So when Grimes found herself caught in Hollywood's tabloid meat grinder, she turned to the one person who could relate.

"The National Enquirer wrote a story about how I was screaming about how horrible Shannen [Doherty] was," Grimes says of the actress who played Walsh on both the original and the show's current reincarnation.

"I ran to her trailer shaking, with tears in my eyes, like, 'Oh my God, Shannen, you know it's not true.' And she was laughing, like, 'OK. This is how we handle it.'"

Doherty, a grand master of navigating the gossip world's nastiest trenches, laid out a game plan for Grimes' long term survival as the new "it" girl of Beverly Hills.

"I hadn't even thought about getting a publicist before talking to her. I didn't know what that was all about," says Grimes. "She hooked me up with a publicist, and sat with me for half hour, like, 'You can't let it slide, but you can't fight back too hard, and don't put focus on it. Focus on what you're here to do. You're here to do your job, and this is not part of your job. Don't make your world about that stuff.' That was a huge day for me; my revelation about Hollywood and the press.

"At this point, Grimes' life parallels both Doherty's, and her own character's. Toronto-native Grimes, 19, co-starred on one of Canada's most popular shows, "Degrassi: The Next Generation." But she never glimpsed anything like the media scrutiny stars face in the U.S.

"In Canada, I was a normal kid. There's really no such thing as celebrity there," says Grimes.

"We look at Hollywood and we're intrigued, but for actors on Canadian shows, no one [pays us] much mind."As such, becoming paparazzi fodder - recent "candid" media shots included her buying coffee at Starbucks - has been a challenge.

"It's like, 'Look at that man following us. This is weird,'" says Grimes, her speech quickening nervously as she describes this. "When I'm by myself, my instinct is to run. Because you've got five people coming at you, and you're like, 'Oh my God. So I run, right?'"

Grimes has also battled media reports about her supposedly tormenting her co-stars, and her [and co-star Jessica Stroup's] dangerously low body weight. She dismisses them all, but says certain rumors can still devastate.

"The diva thing was hurtful, because it's so far from the way I like to project myself," she says."The thin thing? At 5'2", I'm fully in proportion. But it's funny, because it's the same story that's been written about every girl in Hollywood. They've just taken our names and plopped them in where Lindsay [Lohan]'s and Mischa [Barton]'s used to be. It is what it is, and it's very boring.

"When asked if she ever wishes she was back in Canada, she blurts out an emphatic "heck, yes!" "You have no idea how badly I wanna be home," she says. "I am dying to go home, because I didn't want 'famous.' That was never a goal of mine. My goal was to act and to be successful, and by successful, I mean stable. That's all I want.

"And stable she is, for now. Despite the paparazzi-love, Grimes - who says she's too busy to date - lives a very non-"Cribs" lifestyle, sharing a small apartment with her best friend from Toronto, and throwing quiet dinner parties. "I've been staying in a lot," she says. "It took me awhile to make friends, but the only real hangouts are clubs, and I'm very illegal here. So I've been staying home. It's a different kind of fun, but I'm liking it."

She hopes to eventually take on darker roles - Ellen Page and Johnny Depp are role models, and she says that "drug addiction is a huge fascination of mine" - and also plans to follow another of her passions one day and start her own fashion line."

I'd love to have a long-term career in fashion. I can see myself doing it after people get sick of my face on the screen," Grimes says. She recently served as an intern for the Canadian channel Fashion Television.

"So much of the time, people become a 'celebrity' and are handed offers, but they're a flash in the pan. You never remember them as a fashion designer. I wanna do a line separate from my name, separate from '90210,' and I want it to be real quality, high-fashion clothing that people will respond to for years."

Grimes doesn't divulge too many details, but says her line takes inspiration from vintage and men's clothing. "It's something that I don't think a lot of people have touched on," she says. "It's something that's very personal to me, so I'm hoping the rest of the world responds. Honestly, I just wanna do a line of clothes that I have up there in my head that I wanna wear, but that I can't find."

But for now, Grimes' fashion dreams are on hold, as she focuses solely on "90210," and adapts to this crazy Hollywood life both on-screen and off.

"I was just a dorky kid in Toronto. Nobody cared about me," she says. "Here, you're given a whole different kind of attention. It can be a good or bad thing. You [just have to] know how to handle it."

...