By Sam Jemielity

Playboy.com: Linc's was sometimes called "the black Cheers," and now many reviewers refer to Girlfriends as the black Sex and the City. What do you think of that comparison?

Golden Brooks: It bothers me. It shows you that African Americans have a long way to go in terms of showing who they are without their color in America. It's almost like we're playing catch-up to white people. It's so sad that it's so segregated that a black show has to play second fiddle to quote-unquote a white show or be compared to a white show in order to get some public recognition.

PB: How is it different from Sex and the City?

GB: I don't think the show's anything like Sex and the City, other than that it's about four women and we deal with issues that involve sex. But we also deal with racial issues, and class issues, and health issues. My character wants to get pregnant, and can't, because she has this fibroid, this little tumor that a lot of African American women get on their uterus. It's just a publicity gimmick to compare it to Sex and the City.

PB: Do you and your girlfriends in real life talk about sex like the women on the show?

GB: We do. It's funny, because Spike Lee was quoted saying the show was unrealistic and black women in reality don't sit around talking about sex. I wish I knew when Spike Lee was a black woman. He doesn't know. Of course, all women sit around with their girlfriends and talk about sex. We talk about sex, hair, bunions...menstrual cramps. Everything from A to Z.

PB: You had one show about a toe-sucking fetish. Did that come from your real-life experiences?

next

01 · 02 · 03 · 04 · 05 · 06

photo: © UPN

WHO IS SHE?:

This actress' name, like her future, is Golden. Having studied at the University of California-Berkeley and Sarah Lawrence, the brainy Brooks easily tosses off references to smart people whose names are hard to spell, like Nietzsche. So how did someone this smart also get a great sense of humor, free-spirited attitude and unapologetic sexiness? Who cares? This curvaceous cutie -- whose grandmother was also named Golden -- is money.

WHAT HAS SHE DONE?:

Brooks plays streetwise but straight-laced Maya alongside Diana Ross' daughter Tracee Ellis Ross on the hit UPN comedy Girlfriends (Mondays, 9:30 ET), in which four twentysomething African American women talk careers, politics, family, friendship and...there's something else. Oh yeah, lots of sex. She also starred as the sexually brazen bartender on TV's Linc's and as the sexy, no-nonsense movie exec in the digital film Timecode. She soon will be seen as a plague victim in the upcoming big-screen sci-fi film Impostor.

WHY DO WE CARE?:

She's got beauty, brains and talent, and she's not afraid to take on Spike Lee. For her youthful penchant for running naked on the beach, Brooks wins our Oscar for sexiest newcomer.