Jillian Rose Reed of Northville was 13 years old when she convinced her mother, Lisa Reed-Tucker, to take her to Hollywood to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress.

The 19-year-old now lives in an apartment in Burbank with her mother and her 9-year-old brother Robbie Tucker, who is following in her footsteps.

"It wasn't like we just picked up and moved to L.A.," Reed-Tucker said. "I did my homework for probably a good year. She started doing a lot of commercials with Ford Motor Company and Comcast in the Chicago-Detroit area. And we knew at that time she started having a great love for the camera. Basically, I started doing my homework, looking into agencies and what it took to go out to L.A."

Reed-Tucker had also considered New York, but then discarded the idea, since her daughter was too young for Broadway. They decided that Reed would have more acting opportunities in California.

"We sent out numerous packages, the majority of them were well-received," Reed-Tucker said.

"But the thing we got from everybody was that you need to live here."

The family was not ready to pack up and leave Northville at the time. Reed-Tucker was a downtown business owner and eventually sold it to one of her customers.  And they never considered selling their house.

"Jillian was a huge fish in a little sea here," Reed-Tucker said. "And we knew going out to L.A., it would be different. We went out, just Jillian and I, and had numerous interviews with agencies, and we brought everything back and mulled over everything and decided this is what she had to do. And we didn't do it on a whim, Jillian has been so passionate about this since she was five."

Since then, Reed has played the role of Simone on the popular Showtime series Weeds. She was in a total of eight episodes in the fourth and fifth seasons of the show. She also starred in episodes of HBO's Hung, ABC's The Middle and the NBC's Community.

"I started in musical theater when I was five and I grew to love the stage," Reed said. "When I was about 12, I started interest in local commercials, radio spots, but there's only so much you can do in Michigan. So I started bugging my mom to go to L.A."

Reed will be starring in the upcoming MTV scripted series about teenage drama called Kill Me Now. It will premiere sometime in 2011.

"I play a girl named Tamara," Reed said. "I would describe her as the boy-crazy, fun character. She's very edgy. She's going to be the character that I think a lot of people will like and will relate to. She's the best friend of another character, and I'm definitely more the crazy of the two. Which is really fun."

Reed's agent took an interest in her younger brother, Robbie Tucker, and thought he would do well in the industry as well.

"I started watching her do the acting thing," Robbie said. "Her agent thought I would do well, so I tried it and I did my first commercial and I loved it."

He starred in five national commercials for McDonald's and other major companies.

After starring in commercials, Robbie got roles in episodes of Playhouse Disney, Criminal Minds and ABC's Flash Forward. He also plays the role of young Charlie on FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and of Fen Baldwin on The Young and the Restless.

He recently played the role of a bully in the star-filled movie Little Fockers, currently in theaters.

"My name was Tough Bobby," Robbie said. "Ben Stiller's son in the movie, I got to bully him. It was fun."

He will also be playing a role in the Disney movie Prom, that will hit theaters in April 2011.

While Reed-Tucker and her children live in Burbank for most of the year, her husband, Rob, lives in Northville.

"It's hard, but we love when he comes to visit," Reed said about not seeing their father. "He calls us every night and visits often. We like to make it fun when he comes to visit. We usually do Disneyland. And he has his favorite restaurants that we take him to when he's there."

The family comes home to visit as often as possible. Which is usually just around the holidays in December. Reed-Tucker said they try to sneak in a few weeks during the summer as well.

"We have already decided that we will keep our roots forever here," Reed-Tucker said. "We will always keep this as our family house. We like the snow at Christmas. We will always come back here."

"It's our winter vacation home," Robbie said.

The family has lived in Northville since Jillian Rose Reed was very young.

"I think living in such a big city like L.A., I think it's nice for us to come home and vacation to a smaller town and get that hometown feel. We like that," Reed said. "It's a good little break for us."

"My goal is to keep life for my children as normal as I can," Reed-Tucker said.