SHORT TAKES : Dana Delany Ready for Change

Dana Delany says she has a lot in common with Colleen McMurphy, her character on “China Beach,” but she still wants to get away from the role. Delany says reading her first “China Beach” script was like reading her own diaries. “I felt like the character was me,” she told Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine.

But now the Emmy winner, whose boyfriend is “China Beach” co-creator John Sacret Young, wants to extend herself. “I want to play different characters,” Delany says. “I want to do comedy, somebody who’s not so heroic, somebody who’s bad.”