BITTY SCHRAM: ON LOVE AND NEUROSES

Audiences are going crazy for Bitty Schram's role on Monk as Sharona Fleming, whose calming influence works as the perfect foil for partner Adrian Monk's (Tony Shalhoub) obsessive-compulsiveness. With filming barely underway on the second season of the wildly popular detective show, Schram pauses briefly to talk life, love, and neuroses.

Q. How are you?
A. I've been running around like a nutcase.

Q. That's appropriate for someone acting against a character with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
A. Yes, it is.

Q. What's in store for Monk's second season?
A. We're only [currently taping] episode two, so I don't really know the season of storylines - it seems like it's going fine. So far, it's the same crazy adventures we had before.

Q. What would you like to see happen to Sharona during this season?
A. You wanna get me started? I'd like to have different relationships with the other characters. We started something with Lt. Disher and me in the first season. You really felt it was a love/hate thing, and they were going to get together at some point. They may really like each other.

Q. What about Sharona's bizarre relationship with Monk? Where's that going?
A. It would be good to delve into their relationship more. Like a married couple has its ups and downs, we should have more of an arc. If he got involved with a woman, how would I feel about that? How would that affect our relationship? He goes to the therapist; I could go to couples therapy with him and try to talk about our problems.

Q. The two of you would drive a therapist to drinking.
A. [Laughs]. It would drive a therapist insane. But us going to a couples' therapist should absolutely be explored. It would be fantastic.

Q. Why do you think Sharona is unable to leave Monk, even though he frustrates her?
A. Even though he does drive me crazy, I do connect with him. We're both outsiders, both different, and I really sympathize or connect with his oddness, his quirkiness. I do also know he's a good man, despite him driving me crazy. That's why I stay, that's the comedy, like The Odd Couple. He drives me nuts, but I could never leave him.

Q. What are your own neuroses?
A. I have a lot, but I don't know which ones to tell you. I worry about my work a lot, and I worry about how I look a lot.

Q. That's not neurosis, that's Hollywood.
A. I'll never be Hollywood. I'll never get plastic surgery. I'm mainly neurotic about the work. I'm neurotic because I'm a perfectionist. I'm worried about people taking my work and doing stuff with it. I worry about what take they'll use.

Q. What about an unreasonable neurosis? You sound pretty normal.
A. I'm claustrophobic. I can't stand being in elevators. Planes - I freak out on planes.

Q. Does Tony Shalhoub stay in character on the Monk set?
A. Oh, no. [Laughs]. Oh, God, no. And I don't think you could. I don't think the material warrants it. This isn't Sophie's Choice, this is Monk; we've gotta rest, otheriwse, we'd just be killed.

By Kevin Dickson