Amanda Bearse might not be a house-hold name, but after viewing an episode of the hit television series “Married…With Children,” she can easily be remembered as the Bundy’s upwardly-mobile neighbor, Marcy Rhoades.

Bearse stars in the popular television sit-com which airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on the Fox Broadcasting network.

“I never had any hesitations about accepting the role of Marcy,” Bearse said. “I’d never worked on a sit-com before, so it was a medium I was very interested in working in.”

“I was thinking about going back to work on another soap (she played a character on the daytime soap opera “All My Children”) because I wanted to work more consistently. I don’t have an attitude about what medium the work is in, as long as I can get something out of it. I love doing comedy and think I’ve learned a lot from being on the show.”

When Bearse read the first script, she said she was instantly impressed at its quality. “It was an excellent pilot. It stood out because of very good writing,” she said. “I thought it was very funny, the characters were drawn very clearly, and all this in twenty-three minutes.”

Bearse said that for the most part the script for the pilot episode “was actually a tame script compared to the other ones we’ve had.”

Bearse said that she wouldn’t want to have the Bundys as neighbors in real life, but when she purchased a house earlier this year, that arrangement almost became a frightening reality.

“I bought a house eariler this year for the first time in my life, and when I was out looking I was very aware of what was next door,” Bearse said.

“I found one (house) that I liked very much, and then when I looked next door, oh my gosh, I saw potential Bundy-land,” laughed Bearse, “parking cars on the lawn and raising pigeons in the backyard.

“I thought, nope, I can’t move in here. As a new-home owner I do understand that you take what you can get, and fortunately, in the neighborhood where I’ve moved in, I’m O.K.”

Bearse explained, “I think that Steve (Marcy’s husband, played by David Garrison) and Marcy originally thought that they would be a good influence on Peggy (played by Katey Sagal) and Al (played by Ed O’Neil). Consequently, what’s happened is that Steve and Marcy have been dragged down with them.”

In future episodes of the series, “Things are going to shift,” Bearse said. “The focus of the show will always be and forever should be the Bundys. But in terms of Steve and Marcy, there are going to be big shake-ups involving their employment, which is going to change the relationship in their marriage and therefore effect their relationship with Peg and Al.

“What’s more fun to do and funnier to watch is conflict, and you’re going to see a lot of that this year,” she said.

Bearse has enjoyed acting for most of her life, but didn’t decide to embark on the craft until she was enrolled in college. She remembered, “I studied theater in school and did community theater growing up. Then I went to college not to be an actor.

“Unfortunately, I found out there weren’t too many things that I was interested in. The one thing I knew I wanted to do was act. Finally, I said that I wanted to study the craft and I wanted to give it a shot, so I quit college and moved to New York,” she said.

“I studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse (a theater company in New York) and thought they’d either tell me to go home and be a C.P.A. or they’d encourage me to continue, which they did.”

Shortly after graduating from the Neighborhood Playhouse, Bearse received her first job, a role on “All My Children.” She commended daytime soap operas as a place where young actors can fine tune their craft.

Bearse explained, “Because this country doesn’t have a National Repertory Theater Company, soap operas are what we have in terms of offering young actors consistent work on their craft and also the chance to earn a living at it.”

Another popular piece of work Bearse appeared in was the vampire film “Fright Night” with Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall. She thought the film worked in her favor regarding “Married…With Children” because the casting director for “Married” and the show’s creator both had seen the film and knew she could play a variety of roles.

“I enjoyed that script (“Fright Night”) because of the humor and the sexual undertones; I think they crossed over very well.”

“I got the role (in “Fright Night”) because I looked young enough to be believable in the high-school part of the character, but actually I was 10 years older,” Bearse said.

Besides her enthusiastic acting attitude, Bearse would like to pursue directing, which she studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. “That’s an avenue I would like to get into. I’m very interested in directing and actually in directing four-camera tape as opposed to one-camera film.”