The top priority for any actor is not that different from being a baker, traffic cop or TV critic. The important thing is to find a way to just keep working. In the case of Ashley Jones, her steady employment has been accomplished by series regular roles on the daytime dramas “General Hospital,” “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” combined with parts in movies, particularly productions for the Lifetime cable channel.

Her most recent foray into the channel known for making movies that focus on women is the thriller “You Killed My Mother," which airs at 8 p.m. Friday on Lifetime. Jones plays a doctor who has to make a tough decision regarding a patient needing a liver transplant. That decision enrages an emotionally disturbed teen (Carlena Britch) who attacks a hospital nurse. After her release from a mental institution years later, the young woman plots an elaborate scheme of revenge against all those she blames for her mother’s death.

Working on the cable movie not only helped Jones take care of her acting priority, but it also gave her a chance to work on a project that shot quickly, giving her more time with her children. Plus, she just likes working for Lifetime. Jones has starred in a number of Lifetime movies, like “A Teacher’s Crime,” “Dead at 17,” “Secrets from Her Past,” “A Sister’s Revenge” and “The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom.”

“You have to go where the work is and Lifetime does that. It’s a network that caters more toward women so they have more roles for women, especially women my age,” Jones, 41, says. “They have roles that I’m drawn to. When I talk to women — and men — who are similar age bracket to me, they tell me they often have the same problems as the people in the films.”

Granted, Jones doesn’t hear from a lot of people who have been the focus of an elaborate revenge scheme by an emotionally disturbed woman. But there’s more to her role in “You Killed My Mother” than that. She gets to play a professional who has found success in her field while still finding time at home to be a loving and caring mother. There is a little sleuthing that goes on as the scheme begins to unfold, but not much more than making her character somewhere between naturally curious and a snoop.

Lifetime movies are made very quickly, but that’s no problem for Jones after all her years working in the hyper-speed world of daytime dramas. She recalls a time on “General Hospital” when she had to shoot scenes for four different episodes — covering 80 pages of dialogue — in one day. Her daytime drama background makes the quick pacing for a Lifetime movie – where seven pages will be shot in a day — far more familiar and comfortable to her than the more traditional lumbering style of feature films or even primetime TV shows.

“A Lifetime movie shoots in about three to four weeks,” Jones says. “That’s another plus about getting to do these movies, because you can do it on your hiatus from your series. Also, if you have a child (Jones has two), it makes it a little easier cause you can make the movie and then stay at home with your kids for weeks at a time after the filming is done.”

The work process on “You Killed My Mother” was even a better fit for Jones, because while the movie shot in and around Ottawa, she was able to take her children with her. Jones has been saying prayers that the next acting job will be just as good a work experience as the Lifetime movie.

Just because the shooting schedule was so good wasn’t the only plus. Jones liked that her character is very complicated even if the audience will not get to see all of the complications.

“They needed to shorten the movie and a lot of the scenes between my character and her boyfriend that really showed their relationship isn’t in the film.” Jones says. “You still learn that she was in love with a man who passed away and she’s been trying to raise her son on her own plus be a medical professional.

“It’s an interesting journey seeing how your choices have so many consequences on so many people,” Jones says.

The choices Jones started making in her own life began very early. Jones, who was born in Memphis but grew up in Texas, got started acting early filming her first commercial when she was 5 and appearing on stage in local theater productions starting when she was 9. Jones calls the process of becoming an actor a “slow and organic” process.

Her big break came when she landed the role of Megan Dennison on “The Young and the Restless” while she was still taking classes at Pepperdine University (in Malibu, Calif.) where she was studying television production. The role in the daytime drama earned her two Daytime Emmy Award nominations. Her credits also including HBO’s “True Blood” and “NCIS.”

Now, she’s always looking for the next job because that’s what actors do. Jones is hoping she will keep getting to do films like “You Killed my Mother” because they are right for how she likes to work.