What's a nice girl like Tracey Ullman doing in the music business? First we have to clear up several pieces of information that are rather misleading: Tracey Ullman is not really a pop star; Tracey Ullman is most certainly not England's answer to Cyndi Lauper; and, although Ullman is most popularly known in the U.K. as a result of a successful comedy series, she does not consider herself to be, nor does she particularly want to be considered, a comedienne.

In her current, albeit ultimately transient, incarnation as a pop star, Ullman is this very minute cavorting across my TV screen in her video for the song "They Don't Know," from her debut album You Broke My Heart In 17 Places. The video is fun, smooth, wry and humorous in a heartfelt way, marked by the attention to detail that distinguishes all of Ullman's work. She could easily be taken for a comedienne—though what she is is a fine character actress with a talent for comedy.

Ullman is taking time to squeeze in some interviews during a week-long stint as a substitute VJ on MTV (a feat never before undertaken; Our Trace is a professional, however, someone so pleasant to work with that by the end of the week the hardened crew, in tribute, all wore big bows in their hair a la Ullman). She is down-to-earth, honestly friendly, and years away from the various zanies and kooks she has created for public consumption.

Any talk about her pop career (which started when she met Stiff boss Dave Robinson's wife at the hairdressers) inevitably leads back to acting, Ullman's first and truest love. Pop music is, for now, an extension of Ullman's acting ability, for which she has been trained since she was 12, first in stage school, then in dance companies, repertory theatre throughout the U.K. and West End plays. She's now 24 and selfassured without being arrogant; confident but not cocky.

"Pop music is a bugger of a business," Ullman says cheerfully as we play squatter in some MTV'ers vacant office, "but it's been good fun so far, and I've got something to fall back on—my acting, which is most important to me, really. I've got work as an actress for the next two years, and if the pop thing suddenly stops—and I don't expect it to last—it's not going to break my heart.

"They go mad about women in England," she continues with a sigh. "I'm not a comedienne, I don't tell jokes. If I say something amusing, that's great, but they've latched onto me like they latched onto Pamela Stephenson from Not The Nine O'Clock News. They just love to build you up and then knock you right down in the British press if you're a woman, because it's unusual, you see, for a woman to be amusing in England. They call me the national pet and all this, and as soon as you don't give them an interview they say, 'What's happened to her?' and they start printing awful things."

"It's a bloody hoot—dressing up in silly frocks and getting paid for it."

Though Ullman has received critical acclaim for her dramatic performances in the theatre, it was her appearance in an English comedy series, Three Of A Kind, and the characters she created in it, that won her both mass celebrity and mass adoption, as it were. Her characters included Roz, a Sloane Ranger (sort of a British cross between a Valley Girl and a Preppie); Betty Tomlinson, who iives in a fungus-infested flat with two unmanageable kids (she's also pregnant), a husband in jail, and no hope (yes, it's funny); and the various eccentrics Ullman has observed on the street. Life study, however, does have its problems.

"There's a woman I do that's based on this girl that works in a food hall in London. I bought so much food from that place 'cause she used to make me laugh so much." Ullman doesn't shop there anymore, though, because "she sussed me out and told me off."

Upcoming for Ullman is the release of Paul McCartney's movie Give My Regards To Broad Street (Macca also had a cameo role in the "They Don't Know" video), in which she is featured.

"I haven't got a very big part in it, really. I play a very working-class girl. I look terrible all the way through, and I cry all the way through it, and that's basically it. I think it's going to be a good film. It was lovely working with Paul."

But Ullman doesn't have her eyes on the stars. She loves what she is doing, that is, creating characters, and wants to continue to do so.

"It's a bloody hoot, isn't it? Dressing up in silly frocks and getting paid for it. If someone offered me the part of Cinderella, I'd say 'ugggh!'," Ullman says. "I don't want to be a goody-goody girl and get the nice guy at the end of the story. I want to be the wicked witch. To be someone with a problem is much more fun than being somebody without a problem.

"When I become a Dame," Ullman continues, smiling, "when I'm about 60, people will remember me as a good character actress who was an allrounder, and how I had that wonderful time when I collected my O.B.E. and was really cheeky to Margarpt Thatcher."