Kassie DePaiva was immediately smitten when she got the lowdown on Days of Our Lives' Eve Donovan. “ I knew that she was a hooker and a singer, and I went, 'Touchdown! I can play that. That sounds fun,'” recounts the actress.

A daytime veteran -- she previously portrayed Chelsea Reardon on Guiding Light (1986-1991) and Blair Cramer on One Life Live and General Hospital (1993-2013) – DePaiva was amped to tackle her fourth soap.

"Eve is fun and wickedly delightful to play," says DePaiva with a smile. "She stirs up trouble in town, and it's fun to be the big spoon."

After Charlotte Ross (ex-Eve, 1987-1991) passed on reprising the role due to work commitments, she tweeted that she was certain you would be a “wonderful” recast. Was it nice having her stamp of approval?
It was just a very classy thing to do. We can't, as actors, control what our destiny is going to be. We take jobs as they come. Sometimes things work in our favor. Sometimes they don't. If you're contractually bound to something you can't do something else. She had a choice to make and her choice gave me an open door. So I can't be more grateful to her, and her giving me her blessing at the same time was just a lovely gracious thing to do.

You've obviously had experience portraying troublemakers, although Blair was pretty nice the last couple of years...
Blair had matured. (Laughs.) But 20 years ago she was probably more Eve-like in her revenge and her sense of entitlement.

As a 30-year-old playing that type of character, you kind of enjoy it. It's like watching Theresa play it. When you add about 15 to 20 years onto that, it's not as attractive for a woman to carry that much spite. It's kind of pitiful and pathetic, but it's great fun to play.

Speaking of spite, what's it been like playing your onscreen rivalry with Missy Reeves (Jennifer)?
I love Missy Reeves. It's so great. It's a push and pull relationship. We get on each other's nerves. And it's so fun to see the perfect Jennifer Horton get her feathers ruffled. It's hilarious. Eve knows how to push Jennifer's buttons and vice versa. There are going to be winners and losers in a scene. It's really wonderful to work with an actress who allows [that]. It's like playing a great match of tennis. You win some and you lose some with Missy, and it's great.

Eve's a singer. Will we get to see that come into play down the line?
Yes. You're going to get to see that, but right now because she's struggling with her nodules. (Laughs.) Eve probably believes that she would be singing at Carnegie Hall every day, if she didn't have those nodules. [The singing] does play into a large part of Eve's story down the line.

Is that something you're looking forward to?
Yes. I think it adds a lot of depth [to the story]. And I do have a huge appreciation for music and can totally bring that to the table with Eve. It's also something that Eve might think connects her to Paige's boyfriend, JJ. So it's going to play a part in how she deals with things. Eve desperately needs to make extra money to send her daughter to Stanford, and she feels that if she did just sing that would help her out.

You seem to have a sweet rapport with True O'Brien, who plays your daughter Paige. Have the two of you bonded off camera?
I love her. She is such a delightful young woman and a terribly talented actress. From the minute I met her and we had our first scene, I thought there was a real genuine feeling there. Some of my first scenes were with her. It was very important to establish their mother/daughter relationship. It was also important to show that Eve set her daughter way up on a pedestal. But with that great love for her daughter, she also completely manipulates her. So it's great stuff.

And part of that manipulation involves getting Paige away from JJ...
Eve doesn't want to see her daughter unhappy. She wants Paige to realize that [JJ isn't good for her]. More than anything she wants Paige to come to that decision on her own. So what Eve does is set up scenarios for Paige to see JJ [in a bad light] or mentions things about JJ being such a failure or so similar to Jack. She's trying to set up stuff all the time. “Don't you see? He's a loser.”

Well, somebody has to stir the pot, even though the two of them are adorable together.
I think Paige and JJ are the next supercouple. They're just so sweet and wonderful. He's a bad boy kind of turned good, and she's an unbelievably sweet girl. It's pure.

You're traveling back and forth, from New York to LA, for this job.How is that working out?
That is doable. It's no ideal, but it's doable. I'm not a great flyer. Six hours in a plane is fine, when there's no bad weather. But when it's bumpy, I'm like, 'Oooh!' I get intimate with the passenger next to me.

Have you given any thought to relocating to California?
I just don't know. For one, Eve is so bad. I can't imagine them continuing to write me so bad. And I've got a great life back East. Now would I continue to do what I'm doing? Absolutely. But relocating -- no way. I prefer New York. I have an apartment here and an apartment in there and a home up in the Catskills. I also have a son who's a senior in high school there. So once he is situated in college – not this fall but next fall – then Jimmy (her husband) can come and spend more time with me here. We can go back and forth and see what happens.

Are there any perks to living the bachelorette life, when you're here in LA?
Yeah. I don't have to clean up after my husband. (Laughs.) The winters in New York were dreadful and I was soaking up the sun in January, February, March and April, when they were freezing their tails off back East. So there are definitely some perks. The down side is that I miss my husband and son terribly on day in and day out situations. It's the little things in life that make it sweet, so I'm hoping that I'm not missing too many of them.