Kate O'Hare, Tribune Media Services

Tyra Banks hosts 'America's Next Top Model', which concludes its seventh cycle Wednesday on The CW.

To have 'former model' in front of one's name can be an impediment to getting respect in Hollywood. If anyone ever told Tyra Banks that, she obviously wasn't listening.

The 32-year-old supermodel, who retired from the catwalk in 2005, is now star and executive producer of two successful TV shows - one of them a genuine phenomenon - and working behind the scenes to launch other film and TV projects.

This Wednesday, December 6, The CW airs the finale of the seventh cycle of Banks' reality hit America's Next Top Model, with an eighth on the way. Banks also appears Monday through Friday as host of her talk hour, The Tyra Banks Show.

To top it all off, in May, Time magazine named Banks one of its 100 most influential people.

As to whether she ever thought this was possible back when she was modeling, or when she was a Catholic school student in Los Angeles, Banks, taking a break from casting for ANTM, says, "I never thought that in a million years. It's funny, all the models want the cover of Time magazine when, every five years or so, they do a fashion issue. Every model wanted that.

"I think I've got better than that. Not just, 'Look, here she is in the new dress of the season,' but a whole different thing. So I was very flattered."

Banks performs a balancing act with both shows going at once.

"I do have to focus on one show at a time," she says. "I try not to cross back and forth too much. I do one day of Top Model, then a full day of the talk show."

On her talk show, Banks is friendly, engaging and upbeat. Only occasionally do you see flashes of the tough teacher and mentor the contestants face on ANTM.

Eating disorders

"I have to use a lot of different aspects of my personality for the talk show," she says. "If I have a very compelling show about eating disorders, and then the next day, we're doing something like a panty party, I do have to use different aspects of my personality with that.

"But with Top Model, that's more of a character. That is not who I am in real life. People who come to my talk show laugh, because they say they watch Top Model, and that's who they thought I was, but it's a reality-show character.

"She's almost a caricature of herself," Banks continues. "There's a certain voice that I use when I say, 'I have five photos in my hand.' It's really funny. I would never give modeling advice in the tone that I give it to the girls, but it's just something that works for the show. The advice is the same that I would give, but I would just give it differently in real life."

As to this week's finale, Banks will only say, "I know we took the fashion show to the next level, added a lot of theatrics, shall we say, to the fashion show. They had to pull out their acting caps. They didn't just walk up and down a runway. I'm over that."

With the talk show in its second season, Banks is settling into that role.

"The first season of the talk show, I was nervous," she says. "To have my own show, to be worrying about reading a teleprompter and staying focused with my guests, making sure my voice didn't get too high-pitched. There are a lot of things. It's very difficult.

"I have homework every night where I'm studying my guests, marking up a notebook for the day. There's a lot that goes on. I was like a fish out of water. But this season, even how I sit on the couch is different. I feel like I'm at home now."

This didn't come without effort.

"I was training all summer to be a better host," Banks says. "I had to learn to listen. It's not just about, 'I came up with these great questions last night, and I can't wait to ask them.' It's not about that. I had to listen and stay in the moment and ask follow-up questions and not just stick to a list."

Banks also learns from those who came before her, saying, "I watch 'Oprah Winfrey.' I used to watch 'Donahue' back in the day. I watch Matt Lauer (on Today). I learned a lot from Matt Lauer's interview with Britney Spears.

Stage fright

"With Oprah, I learned to know your guests' story better than they know it themselves, because sometimes they might get a little stage fright. They forget. They get nervous, so you have to be able to know their story so that you can help them tell it.

"From Matt Lauer, there's a warmth about him. ... Larry King, I learned sometimes to not let up when you know that someone might not be being very truthful. I can't do it in the same style he does it, so there's a different way of doing it.

"And with 'Donahue,' his connection to the audience. He was always in the audience, and he always respected what that audience had to say. So we really do a lot of that on my show. I go into the audience."

For her other projects in development, Banks plans to stay behind the camera. "It definitely gives you longevity," she says of the switch. "I've said this before, I'm not really interested in being hot and cool and hip, in the moment. That kind of success is very scary to me.

"It's important to have integrity and to be relevant and respected. A lot of that is not by being on camera."

With talk-show episodes on body image (the topic closest to Banks' heart), addictions, homelessness and other serious topics, Banks hopes to slowly expand the horizons of her audience.

"I have to face who my audience is," she says. "My audience is women 18-34, so I have to give them what they want and spoon-feed them with sugar the things they might not be that excited about, give it to them in a way that they don't know they're being fed a little medicine.

"You have to grow and change with your audience and lead them at the same time."