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Kate Walsh talks about her ‘roller coaster’ year

“Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff star is surprised by the paparazzi attention she receives.
/ Source: Access Hollywood

In , she revealed some details on her upcoming “Grey’s” spinoff, tentatively titled “Private Practice.”

But now, in Part Two, it’s time to get a little more personal.

“It’s been a roller coaster of a year,” said Kate, when asked about the much-publicized tensions on the “Grey's Anatomy” set this past year. “But I think that first and foremost we’ve got a great show, and look — it is like one big family, and sometimes things are going to happen and erupt.”

She explained that, due to the nature of her job — and of our modern culture in general — there is a built-in mechanism for some amount of trouble:

“We just happen to be in a spotlight, and in a culture that wants to put the magnifying glass on any little thing. And I think it is impossible to act, and be people, and be exposed, and be with each other in a pressure cooker 16… 18 hours every day and not have, you know, little explosions here and there. You can’t do both. You can’t be completely vulnerable and emotional and do these scenes and throw down, and then switch it off and everything be neat and tidy all the time. So we’ll work through it.”

On top of her work on “Grey’s,” Kate recently began doing a little extra work on the side, as a spokesperson for Caress skin care products.

“The Caress thing is great,” said Kate, who stars in a series of Webisodes that advertise the products. “(The Webisodes) are sort of a modern day fairy tale. You go online to caressfairytales.com, and they’re these three little stories. There is a rendition of ‘Cinderella’ and of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ and the whole spin is the modern woman sort of taking charge of her life and living happily ever after with the product. And the product is really great actually.”

And it turns out that this is not the first time Kate has promoted products. She admits that she was a model back in the ’80s... in Japan.

“I was going over (to Japan) to teach English conversation, and a friend of mine was like, ‘You can make money modeling here because they’re crazy for Americans,’” Kate recalled. “I was too big for everything. It was like, ‘One of these things is not like the others.’ I (modeled) ski wear and wedding stuff, and they couldn’t hook up the back. It was like I was a circus freak!”

“There are literally pictures of me where they tried to make me look Japanese,” she revealed, laughing. “I’m not kidding you. It was a horrible experience.”

Luckily for Kate, things have only gotten better from there. On top of her success on television, she has met a man with whom she’s happily in a relationship. She would only admit that he is “in the business,” but not an actor.

Photos of Kate and her mystery man crept online a little over a week ago, including some rather invasive ones of the pair kissing in a car. How does Kate react to this newfound “attention” from the paparazzi?

“I don’t know, it makes you a little paranoid for sure,” she admitted. “You’re like, is my dog narc-ing me out? Is it my dog? Is my dog making calls for 50 bucks to get the paparazzi around? I don’t know.”

It’s a safe bet that it’s not the dog — it’s merely the fact that Kate Walsh’s star is rising, and the world has taken notice.