PARADE MAGAZINE 16 January 2000   "In Step With Sabrina Lloyd"   by James Brady
				GET READY NFL fans, Super Bowl Sunday's pre-game show on Jan. 30 is going to run even longer than usual.   As it is, it seems to me, the pre-game show starts about Thursday. And this year ABC is including a special three-minute segment of its Emmy-winning drama, Sports Night, worked up for the occasion by show`s creator, Aaron Sorkin. The idea, of course, is to hook a vast audience of football fanatics who have not yet sampled the series in its usual Tuesday time-slot.   Sabrina Lloyd, a regular on Sports Night (she plays the young producer, Natalie Hurley), told me “it`s very exciting” to think about being scene on Super Bowl Sunday, but she pointed out that the show is doing pretty well in it`s second season all on its own.  “We`re actually doing better this year because of a different lead-in, Dharma & Greg,” said Sabrina.  “Last year we followed Spin City. And I like the way my character is developing. Aaron has given me someone to play who is complex and interesting.”   Sorkin - who wrote A Few Good Men, a huge hit for Tom Cruise, and is considered a young genius by the Sports Night cast - had to exercise some ingenuity last year when Robert Guillaume, who plays the executive producer on the show, went down with a stroke. He`s back now, with his real-life illness written seamlessly into the storyline.   Sabrina`s big break was a guest appearance on TV`s Law & Order. “I played the girlfriend of a murdered boy in a reality-based episode,” she said.  It got me a really good agent in New York.”  It also led to a role in the 1993 Patrick Swayze film Father Hood. “I played a tomboy - his little girl,” says Sabrina. “It was one of the best times I ever had in work.” (She played a teen but was in her 20s and still looks younger than her 29 years.)   Until then she`d endured the usual struggling-young-actress travails and waitressing, which is what happens when you graduate from high school in Florida and two days later are in New york looking for a theater job.   These days the jobs are looking for Sabrina. She just finished a feature film called On Edge, starring Jason Alexander as a Zamboni driver. In this mock documentary, Sabrina plays an accident-prone ice skater. Trouble is, growing up in Florida she wasn`t much of an ice skater. “I had to learn to skate,” Sabrina said, “and skate well. Because to do something badly on purpose you have to know how to do it right.”     Brady`s Bits   Sabrina Lloyd was born in Virginia but raised in the small Florida town of Mount Dora, later moving to Orlando. Her acting career began with a role as one of the orphans in Annie at age 12 in the local Young People`s Theater.   After making the movie Father Hood, she did the HBO film The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, based on the true story of a high school girl who took her girlfriend to the senior prom. Any screams of outrage over that one? “No negatives at all,” said Sabrina. “In fact, I still get positive feedback from young people who tell me it gave them the courage to come out of the closet.”   Despite the sports theme of her current show, Sabrina admitted, “I don`t have a huge interest in sports. Only during the Olympics, when I`m just glued to the set. And I am an equestrian.”   How hard to Aaron Sorkin and the brass work them on the set of Sports Night? “Five days a week,” she said. “The work day runs 12 hours, sometimes longer.” Which by my calculations, makes 60 hours a week plus. Get this kid a labor union!