WITH AN EYE ON... : Sitcom actress Lori Loughlin pursues a full agenda

Lori Loughlin, who plays fashion-plate and career-woman Rebecca on “Full House,” went to visit a friend the other day.

“I was wearing jeans with holes in them and my hair was all stringy and my friend’s whole family was visiting from New York,” she says laughing. “I walked in the door and they stared and said, ‘Wow, you look really different than you do on TV!’ ”

Loughlin gets all kinds of reactions from fans who recognize her from the popular ABC sitcom, as well as many features and TV movies.

“I hear a lot of, ‘I thought you were taller’ (she’s 5 foot 5). By far the nicest compliments are from parents who see Rebecca as a role model. Little kids often ask where the twins are,” she says. “But the funniest thing they ask is how I got out of the TV box!”

Loughlin got out of the TV box during her recent hiatus, to star, along with Kate Jackson, in the ABC movie “Empty Cradle” airing Sunday. And on Oct. 24 she stars in the ABC movie “Sidney Sheldon’s A Stranger in the Mirror.”

Long Island native Loughlin began her career at 11 as a print model before getting her first part on the TV movie “Too Far to Go.” “I loved what I was doing and everyone I was working with, even if it wasn’t a traditional way of growing up,” she says.

A few years later, 15-year-old Loughlin got the role of an 18-year-old in the soap “The Edge of Night.”

“It wasn’t a typical soap, it was more of a murder-mystery kind of show,” she recalls. “My character was good, but always in trouble. The running gag was that in the three years I was on it, I was kidnaped seven times!”

She commuted by train between Manhattan, where the soap was shot, and Long Island where she was tutored at night.

Loughlin decided to leave the soap to pursue movie projects, including 1985’s “Secret Admirer” (with C. Thomas Howell) and 1988’s “Night Before,” (with Keanu Reeves,) two of her favorites since they were so far removed from herself.

Despite missing out on many typical teen-age activities, including the prom, Loughlin says she wouldn’t change a thing.

“Of my TV projects I’m proudest of is ‘Doing Time on Maple Drive,’ ” she says. “I thought it dealt with the realities of life and family, what really goes on in dysfunctional families.”

Her character in “Maple Drive” is a good example of the types of roles she looks for.

“I’m not looking for a specific part,” she says. “It’s not like I say, ‘I want to play a prostitute now.’ I look for a good character and a moving story. But I would really like to play a lawyer and do a courtroom scene.”

Loughlin, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband of 4 years, Michael Burns, aspires to become “more politically aware,” adding that she’d like to find ways to change the educational system and raise money to upgrade the schools. She would also like to produce. “Not just projects for myself, but things that move me or things that I think are important.”

“Full House” airs at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ABC; “Empty Cradle” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on ABC and “Sidney Sheldon’s A Stranger in the Mirror” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, also on ABC.