Many actors who work in regional theater or touring stage companies feel displaced and long for the comforts of home. To Roma Maffia, such gigs seemed like paid vacations after years of working at other jobs to support herself.

"I loved life on the road," says Maffia. "I did not find it tiring in the least. It was a luxury to go out and do theater in a different city because it paid enough to keep me from having to find another job."

Maffia was born and raised in Manhattan, the oldest of three children. She became enamored with acting while playing the baroness in "The Sound of Music" at her all-girls Catholic high school. She studied acting at a teen program at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and then became a theater major at City College of New York.

Maffia left college and waitressed, studied acting, and performed off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and in regional productions. At a benefit reading for The New Group in New York, casting director Jane Jenkins asked Maffia to audition for a role in director Ron Howard’s feature film "The Paper," and she won the part ("Ron Howard likes to think he discovered me," says Maffia, "and he did!"). With her acting profile boosted, she made her first trip to Los Angeles in 1993 and was cast as Michael Douglas’ lawyer in the film "Disclosure." At the same time, she met TV producer David Kelley, who offered her a role on his then-new series "Chicago Hope."

She left "Chicago Hope" in 1995 after its first season and went to work on more features, including "Nick of Time," "Eraser," "Kiss the Girls" and "Route 9." Her next movie, "Double Jeopardy" with Ashley Judd, will be released in September. Maffia also recently completed filming co-starring roles in the upcoming films "Rules of Engagement," opposite Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, and "Things You Can Tell," with Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz and Holly Hunter.