Interview Outtakes, Part 6

Most of the time when I am conducting an interview with a soap star, I have more interview material than space for printing the interview. Here are some blurbs from stars that did not make it to the print version of the interview, but were too good not to publish.

Sharon Case (pictured, Sharon Newman, “The Young and the Restless”): “Right now, whenever I do a scene with Nick, I am aware that the love of my life is standing next to me. We might not be together, but they still have a lot of scenes together, and they share a son together. For me, every time I am in the room with Nick, it is a love scene between Nick and Sharon. We can’t be in the same room together and it not be about love. Even if we are fighting, it is about love. It is always there. I don’t think it is really over; it is just being played continuously in another form.”

Dominic Zaprogna (Dante Falconeri, “General Hospital”): When I read (the script with the scene of Dante falling asleep before he and Lulu could finally make love), I was like: ‘No, he doesn’t fall asleep! Come on! I’ve heard of that happening before, but I didn’t think I was gonna be the one!’ However, that is the same night he leaves the hospital, and I think he’s pretty drugged up. I mean, come on, he could have a heart attack. But I think it could be worth it at this point.”


JoBeth Williams (ex-Brandy Shelloe, “Guiding Light”): “For a long time, I was a workaholic. I felt very uncomfortable if I wasn’t working. Having kids really changed my perspective, as I think it does for many people, particularly women. My husband, who is a director, and I knew that we really didn’t want to be away from our sons. You just have to make choices, and they are choices that are often hard to make. There could be work that you wanted to take, but you can’t because your spouse is away working. Once you have a family, your perspective changes on how to balance work and life.”

Eileen Fulton (Lisa Grimaldi, “As the World Turns”): “I have so many stories I could tell you from the early days of filming the show. I remember we moved to Grand Central Station for our studio at one point. There was an office building there, and we had our studio there. We came on at 1:30, and at 1:35, all the dishes in Nancy’s cabinet started to rattle. There was a train coming into the station that had a square wheel or something, and it went ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.

“Oakdale is supposed to be out in mid-America, near Chicago. It always varied how near Chicago was: Sometimes it took an overnight train to get there, and sometimes someone could drive it in the half-hour the show was on. At one point, our studio was over on 57th Street near the Hudson River, and the Queen Elizabeth would come in with its horn blaring, unmistakably, and here we are supposedly in the middle of America with big ships coming to port.

“Oh, and I caught the set on fire one time – it was Cherries Jubilee. We had to start timing this thing in the morning. I had to serve this flaming Cherries Jubilee to all of the Hughes men. I had to look around and say: ‘I see we’ve all finished. Shall we go to the garden?’ In rehearsal, we went over and over it, timing all of our bites, so that we were finished eating when my line came. So we kept pouring more and more brandy into the dessert; we were looped by the time we went on the air. Grandpa Hughes ate a flaming spoonful of fire.”

Uncorked Virtual Wine and Cheese Party

Interview: JoBeth Williams Is "Uncorked"

JoBeth Williams, who got her big break in the biz playing Brandy Shelloe on “Guiding Light” and gained international success for her role in the supernatural thriller “Poltergeist,” is back on the small screen playing a winery owner in the Hallmark Channel original movie “Uncorked.” She co-stars alongside “Dexter’s” Julie Benz, Elliott Gould and Scott Elrod of “Men in Trees” fame. “Uncorked,” which is a romantic comedy about finding a passion that isn’t a paycheck, premieres Saturday, March 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, 8 p.m. CT (with encore showings throughout the weekend and the following week; see local listings for days and times).

As an actress with an already-busy schedule, what made JoBeth want to play the role of winery matriarch Sophia Browning? “It was really refreshing to read a script that I thought was really sweet, without being saccharin sweet. I loved the character. I loved the idea of this woman, as a sort of born-again hippie. She and her husband had been hippies in the old days, and they owned this vineyard. And I love Elliott (who plays her husband Paul) — Elliott happens to be a friend of mine — so the idea of us being a couple was fun.”

JoBeth was also reunited with Julie Benz, who plays Johnny. JoBeth tells me: “I’ve worked with Julie a couple of times. The first time was when I did a series with John Larroquette called ‘Payne’ some years ago for CBS, and Julie played our maid. And then I did four episodes of ‘Dexter,’ and I played her mom. So it was fun reuniting again. I adore her; she is a dear, terrific girl.”

While many things drew JoBeth to this film, the scenery was a big factor: “We filmed in the Santa Ynez in the Solvang area, which is a gorgeous area north of L.A., and shot in this wonderful vineyard. Everything seemed right about it, and it made me want to do it.”

Working with Elliott Gould was a big draw as well. “Elliott is just wonderful. He is very funny and has a very dry sense of humor. He just really has a great heart. He has a wonderful outlook on life; he’s very laid-back. He has a lot of wisdom. I love being around him and talking with him and spending time with him.”

JoBeth could see a bit of herself in Sophia, telling me: “I could certainly relate to wanting the best for my child and to see him be happy. I’ve seen my own kids go through their own ups and downs, and as a mother, you want to make it better. For Sophia, I think that was her driving force, to help her son get over the loss of his wife.

“And I think I have a certain amount of the old hippie in me. I went to college in the late ’60s/early ’70s. We were against the war, and were of the ‘make love, not war’ school of thought. I like that this woman made the choice to live not in a big urban situation. She just felt very earthy to me. That’s a part of me that I hope I have. I was raised in cities, but I was raised in Texas, so there’s a certain amount of connection to the earth. I really liked her Earth Mother quality.”

While a big message of the movie is finding a balance between your work life and your personal life, JoBeth hopes audiences take away this message: “I hope people take away a really positive feeling that family can ground you. I think a lot of the time, we don’t give our family connections the kind of credit they deserve, like how important they are to us and how much they mean to us. I think family makes all the difference.”