From: dishthis.com

Majandra Delfino is a little late.

She was serving Unidentified Fried Objects and Alien Blast Shakes at the
Crashdown Cafe. And, oh yeah, on top of that, she had to help a trio of teen
aliens keep police from knowing their out-of-this-world secret.

Now the 19-year-old can catch her breath on some down time -- a rarity these
days for the rising star on the Hollywood horizon. Delfino stars in the WB's
sci-fi drama "Roswell," a show that has found critics' praise as well as a
cult following.

But what "Roswell" hasn't found is its desired ratings niche. To bolster
tepid numbers, the WB network moved the show -- based on the "Roswell High"
book series by Melinda Metz regarding the fabled 1947 spaceship crash near
the town of Roswell, N.M. -- from its Wednesday night slot to Mondays, where
it will remain next season. But among the teen sci-fi set, the show is as hot
as Tabasco sauce.

To keep "Roswell" from slipping into a ratings black hole, fans recently
shipped the WB network more than 3,000 bottles of the condiment -- a food
fetish among the show's teen alien characters, Isabel, Max and Michael.

Diehard viewers have launched dozens of Web sites to chat about the
characters' out-of-this-world good looks and the program's alien mythology
and conspiracy.

"The show attracts a different sort of fan base, the real science fiction
fan, the REAL devotees," said Delfino from the set in Los Angeles where
"Roswell" recently wrapped up the season. With its mix of teens and aliens,
the drama has been dubbed by critics as a cross among "X-Files," "My So
Called Life" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." "Roswell" uses teen aliens as a
metaphor for youthful alienation the same way "Buffy" uses vampires as
stand-ins for the horrors of adolescence.

"It's more about the characters evolving and finding who they are than more
dramatic things like prom," Delfino says.

The show's appeal is the aliens' fear of being discovered by authorities, the
teen-agers' search for their roots and their relationship with human friends.

Delfino plays one of these friends -- Maria DeLuca, the spacey, nervous and
hyper Crashdown Cafe waitress and best friend of Liz Parker, another human
character on the show.

As DeLuca, Delfino brightens the brooding show about orphaned aliens.

She provides the show's comic relief with wisecracks and pouts.

It's all in a day's work of helping friends cloak their inner selves from the
FBI.

"She is so into Liz and that is her whole life," says Delfino of her
character, before delineating the differences between herself and her
character. "I'm more of a flighty person and I didn't come from a small town."

Hardly. In fact, she was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and moved to Miami when
she was 3.

From a young age, the girl, whose first name is pronounced ma-han-dra, had
stars in her eyes.

She spent three years of ballet in productions like "The Nutcracker." Then
there were the 10 years of playing the piano and singing in a band with best
friend Samantha Gibb and brother Adam (children of Bee Gee Maurice Gibb).

Then came acting -- a discovery Delfino made during her musical theater
audition for the New World School of the Arts school in Miami.

"I was really against it. It's not an easy thing to get into," says her mom
Mary Hellmund. "But people always told us she would make a wonderful actress
because she has a lot of personality and that comes through in the acting.
She wanted to try it."

So mom gave Delfino six months to get the theatrical bug out of her system.

She didn't.

Within 60 days, Delfino secured an agent and got her first movie role
opposite Kathleen Quinlan in "Zeus and Roxanne." A few months later, she
landed her first TV gig -- playing Tony Danza's daughter in his short-lived
1997 NBC sitcom, "The Tony Danza Show."

To support her career, the family moved to Los Angeles where she finished
high school last year.

"We were bicoastal for a while," Delfino recalls of her every-three-weeks
visits to Florida to see her grandmother, aunts and friends.

But her trips have been rare these days.

Delfino put in 12- to 16-hour days on the "Roswell" set at Paramount Studios
during tapings. Even if "Roswell" disappears someday into deep space, Delfino
has found steady work.

She starred in "The Secret Life of Girls" with Linda Hamilton ("The
Terminator"). And she will star this summer in the spoof, "I Know What You
Screamed Last Summer." According to her mom, Delfino was recently cast in the
movie "Traffic" with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. All that
aside, does Delfino believe in, you know, aliens?

Her response, as if from her character Maria DeLuca, is deadpan. "They ARE
out there."

By Johnny Diaz, KRT