MINDY STERLING / ACTRESS

Who’s that getting cozy with Dr. Evil? Yes, uptight Frau Farbissina breaks through to new emotional territory in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.” It’s also been the breakthrough role for character actress Mindy Sterling, 45, a Groundlings improv veteran who is also in the upcoming beauty pageant mockumentary, “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”

AREN’T YOU . . .? “The visibility I have now from playing Frau is unrecognizable visibility. From my family and friends I get, ‘Why can’t you play someone pretty? Why do you wear all that stuff?’ ”

SECOND FIDDLE: “In ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ I play Kirstie Alley’s sidekick. I’m always a sidekick. I’m always going to be the sidekick. . . . I love being the supporting player.”

SUSSING SEUSS: “I’m doing the new Ron Howard movie in September, ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ with Jim Carrey. There is no script. Don’t even know the character I’ll be playing, just that it’s one of the Whoville townspeople. But so thrilled that it’s Ron Howard because you know it will have so much warmth and credibility.”

EVIL GENIUS: “Mike Myers is so smart, just this vast head of knowledge. He knows everything and is always thinking. I know nothing--not politics or history. So I make everything up and figure if I make it funny, people will laugh.”

GOOD STRATEGY: “ ‘Austin Powers’ was going to come out sooner, but they moved it back (to Friday). We all figured let everyone see ‘Star Wars’ twice and then see our movie.”

YOUTH MARKET: “All the wonderful films are for younger kids. What would I end up playing? The teacher? The mom? And even for those, there’s always someone with more celebrity status than I have who can win the role.”

HER PUBLIC: “I think it’s adorable [having young fans from ‘Austin Powers’], so fun--especially the fact that I’m not a teen and now have bar mitzvah boys after me.”

CULTURAL ICON: “People quote lines to me all the time. Kids attach themselves and will do scenes for you. I don’t even remember what I did in a scene, and they’ll do every line.”

WRITE OR WRONG: “If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn’t write [a screenplay]. In the Groundlings, that was one of the training things, and I have zero interest in it. Everyone else is writing. If you don’t have a script, it’s, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ The whole thing where every waiter was an actor--now every actor is a writer.”