Donna Mills has no time for retirement

Way up in the canyons of Brentwood, California, a TV icon is making plans for her next act.

Donna Mills has a slew of scripts on her kitchen table. Retirement? Not even a passing thought. “What I’ve learned in life is you just keep on trekking,” the 82-year-old says. “You don’t stand still.”

Yet she’s at an age when people ask The Question.

“I hear, ‘Don’t you want to retire?’ The answer is a quick no, no, no. I don’t want to retire. I’m here. I want to contribute. That’s a good feeling in life. Work. Volunteer. Make someone laugh. You get to the end of the day and think, “I gave something of myself today. Maybe I even made a bit of a difference.’

“People say, ‘Just go play golf.’ I’m not that into golf!”

And there’s no time for it between projects including her current Lifetime limited series “VC Andrews: Dawn.” It’s a four-part drama that follows Dawn Longchamp (Brec Bassinger), whose life takes a dark, twisted turn amid issues between the Cutler and Booth families. Mills portrays oppressive matriarch Lilian Cutler.

“When I read the script, I just knew I just had to play her,” she says. “She’s meaner than anyone I’ve ever played, but she has her reasons.”

The Chicago native has portrayed all sorts of types in movies such as “Play Misty for Me” and more recently “Joy” and “Nope.” She also infamously starred as Abby on the long-running nighttime soap “Knot’s Landing.” And she will appear in director Ava DuVernay’s “Caste” along with a holiday film.

Mills lives in California with a long-term boyfriend she met at age 60. “That’s the beautiful thing about life — the surprises,” she says.

Her good life tips:

Act against type

Mills says that the appeal of playing a “bad girl” like the wicked granny in “Dawn” is self-evident. “It’s great to act out of character because the mean stuff is what I don’t do in real life,” she says.

Constantly reinvent

Mills has been busier than ever. By choice. “When my daughter went away to college, I was like, ‘Now what am I going to do?’ I came to the realization that I love acting so much and really wanted to get back into it,” she says. “I hired an agent and manager and said, ‘Let’s go.’ … I think it’s important to keep reinventing and then put in the work to make the new dream come true.

Be proactive about health

“I try to do all the things to stay healthy,” Mills says. “I work out every single day. I play tennis five days a week, which is also fun. I also do a stationary bike at home and a home ballet barre. I do a lot of stretching and do light weights.”

Love the skin you’re in

As for the rest, Mills says, “I keep up with the makeup trends and what works for your skin. If I get a brown spot, I’m putting stuff on it. I’m not going to let it slide. I keep up with the wrinkles and say, ‘Oh God, give me some cream.’

As for plastic surgery, she says, “I think that’s a great thing at a certain point if you want to do that. At my age, I don’t want to do that.”

An attitude of discipline

“What have I learned at this age?” she poses. “I think what I learned is that you must still have discipline. I’m talking about discipline to stay healthy by working out, discipline about how you spend your money and discipline so things don’t get out of hand. … Yes, sometimes things go crazy in life and you have to rein it all back in. Times get hard. But if you keep that disciplined way then you will be fine.”

Sweet advice

“God, I used to watch it and never ate pasta or much bread. I ate mostly protein and veggies,” she shares. “I was really good until the pandemic, where after dinner I was saying, ‘Let’s have dessert.’

Mills admits she gained a few pounds. “You have to find the problem, and for me, it was sugar,” she says. “I found with sugar, if you don’t have it, you don’t want it.”

Get rid of stress

Mills’ go-to for stress relief is a quick game of tennis. “It’s quite stress relieving, because when you play tennis, you can’t really think of anything else. You have to be concentrated on that court,” she says. “Find the thing that’s so distracting that you can’t think about what’s stressing you.”

Savor the memories

Mills is happy to think back on her acting past, including the classic “Play Misty for Me,” in which she played Clint Eastwood’s love interest.

Her favorite memory? “The night before we started shooting in Northern California, I was at the hotel when my agent called and said, ‘Go down to the bar. Clint is there and wants to meet you,’ she recalls. “We had never met.

“He was such a magnificent-looking man. Still is. It was just mind blowing because the next day, we were sitting on a bluff overlooking the ocean, filming. I remember thinking, ‘I am so lucky.’”

As for her memories of “Knot’s Landing,” she says, “It was truly a great acting company. I worked with actors, not stars. It was really a joy.”

Remain open to love

Mill met actor and producer Larry Gilman when she was 60. “I really got lucky because before him I kind of went for the bad boy. But when I met him, I just knew. I was going for the not-bad boy. … We live together. Not married, but it’s married.”

Know what you want

“Don’t ever give up,” Mills says. “There have certainly been times in my life where I didn’t have a job. I didn’t know what was coming next. Times were tough, but I never thought of giving up. I wasn’t going to give up until I had the life I wanted. Life cooperates with those who know what they want.”