Kim Fields

Latest Update News About Christopher Morgan, As an actress, Kim Fields spent most of her formative years in front of the camera. Now, she's spending a lot of time on the other side of the lens.

The 41-year-old showbiz vet, wife to actor Christopher Morgan and mother to son Sebastian, 3, has been busy directing episodes of Tyler Perry's hit sitcoms "Meet the Browns" and "House of Payne," and offering advice to aspiring filmmakers as a panelist at this summer's "Lens on Talent: Get Focused" film symposium and as a guest on the upcoming season of BET's "Lens on Talent: A Johnson & Johnson Filmmaker's Challenge," which premieres September 12.

Fields sat down with Parade.com to talk about her child-star past, the underwhelming feat of turning 40, what it's like to work with Tyler Perry, and why she has (almost) no regrets from her "Facts of Life" days.

Getting the acting bug at an early age.

"I was never pushed into the industry. I was a very shy child. I was not one to perform for friends and family at every get-together. When my mom started going to acting classes out here in New York, we couldn't afford a baby sitter. And so she took me to the acting classes just because, well, what else was she going to do with me? And there were other kids there whose parents couldn't afford sitters either. We would keep ourselves entertained by imitating what we saw them doing, and that kind of birthed acting classes for the younger kids. In that crop was Danielle Spencer, who played Dee on 'What's Happening.' Her father was a ridiculously tremendous actor named Tim Pelt who we lost some time ago in a horrible car crash.