Paige Turco Moves From a Soap to Become the Ninja Turtles’ Friend

C owabunga!

Paige Turco has gone from Pine Valley to the sewers.

Fans of ABC’s daytime soap “All My Children” know the 25-year-old Turco as the goody-goody Pine Valley resident Melanie Corlandt. But to millions of kids, she’ll be known forever as intrepid television reporter April O’Neil, thanks to the new action-comedy “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze,” the sequel to last year’s bodacious box-office hit.

In the latest chapter in the saga of the Turtles, Turco’s April provides a haven for those wild and crazy pizza-loving sewer residents: Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello, and their brilliant master, the rat Splinter. She helps her new friends discover the origins of the green ooze that caused their mutation 15 years ago.

And just what was it like working with the four hottest leading tortoises in movie history?

“It was different,” Turco replies. A former ballet dancer, Turco turned to acting when an ankle injury ended that career. “I knew there was enough child in me so I was ready to jump right into the part.”

April functions as the Turtles’ link to the outside world. “It’s a great thing to be the human kids identify with and can live through to relate with the Turtles,” Turco says. “I tried to bring a certain amount of reality to her. She also has to be able to have some quirkiness to be able to accept the absurd--living with these Turtles.”

Turco reports the phenomenal success of the first “Turtles” movie didn’t go to the heads of her co-stars. “They are charming,” she gushes. “I know I sound like an idiot a lot of the time when I am talking about these Turtles, but they are charming. I remember on the first day in rehearsal, I felt like I was 5 years old in Disneyworld. I grew to love these Turtles. They are my buddies.”

But, Turco adds with a smile: “I want to make my next film with humans.”