Interview (Days): Sarah Brown Returns to Daytime

Sarah Brown is no stranger to daytime soap operas. The 36-year-old award-winning actress has been a part of many of daytime’s casts, including “General Hospital” (as two different characters at two different times), “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “As the World Turns.” Since she’s made her mark at ABC and CBS, it’s only natural that the time has come for her to conquer NBC and join “Days of Our Lives.” Sarah made her debut a few weeks back as Sami’s new boss, Madison James. I spoke with Sarah recently, and she told me all about her new role.

Daytime Dial: I was very excited to hear you’d be coming back to daytime, especially in a role like that of Madison James. What can you tell me about your character?

Sarah Brown: Madison is a tough cookie. She’s got a very strong sense of who she is and what she’s in town to do, which is take over the world, basically. She’s come to Salem, and she wants all of Kate Roberts’ business (Countess Wilhemina Cosmetics). She’s a tough CEO in the sense that she’s a businesswoman. She knows, she researches, she does her homework, and she speaks all the languages that she possibly can to help develop strong relationships between herself and her distributors. She works all the time. She doesn’t really have much of a personal life. She’s there to work and to succeed and to build and grow her business bigger and bigger. She’s smart enough to know how to deal with both women and men in the business world.

DD: How did the “Days” cast welcome you to the fold?

SB: They just made me feel so at home. I came into the make-up room, and every person in there that was working or not working took the time to say, “Hey, we’re really excited you’re here,” “Welcome to ‘Days of our Lives,’” and “You’re going to have fun here.” Everyone here is wonderful. It’s a great place to come to work.

DD: In your daytime career, you’ve played lots of different types of characters. So far, what do you like best about playing Madison?

SB: I love that she’s a fashionista. I like wearing pretty clothes when I go to work, because I run around in my jeans and T-shirt all the time, so I like having that time in my day where I get to get all made up, put on pretty jewelry and be super girly that way. It’s fun because when you are running around in your day-to-day life, sometimes you forget to do that or you don’t have time.

I also really like the idea of playing a businesswoman who is conducting legal business and sort of getting to shine a light on how the world is changing around us, and how women are more and more in a position of power — how they handle it, how they are treated and how they have to work twice as hard all the time and be twice as good at everything they do in order to be taken seriously.

DD: Now, what about these sparks we are seeing between Madison and Brady?

SB: She can’t be all business. Nope, there’s got to be drama and romance, romance, romance. Yeah, there’s a big spark between her and Brady. It’s there immediately and it stays, and it’s underneath everything while they’re trying to run this company. Right now she’s more interested in building her business and building her company, but she’s super attracted to this person she works with. I think it bothers her a little bit. And it causes some problems for her, both personally and professionally.

Sarah Brown to Join B&B

Three-time Emmy Award winning actress Sarah Brown has been cast in the role of Sandy Sommers on The Bold and the Beautiful, Executive Producer and Head Writer Bradley P. Bell announced today. “Sarah’s powerful screen presence and vast range as an actress has intrigued me since she first appeared as Carly on General Hospital,” said Bell. “I look forward to challenging her with this new role that will be unlike anything she’s done before. Teaming Sarah with Jack Wagner, Ashley Jones and Rick Hearst will create a fresh and formidable platform for The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Brown’s portrayal of Sandy Sommers will kick off a story arc surrounding Bridget (played by Ashley Jones), Nick (played by Jack Wagner) and Whip (played by Rick Hearst) that will touch on a very specific woman’s issue and emotionally touch the hearts of the B&B audience. Her first tape date is October 1, 2009 and her first air date is scheduled for November 5, 2009.

Interview GH: Sarah Brown Creates a More-Appealing Claudia

It was almost 13 years ago that Sarah Brown created the popular character of Carly Corinthos on General Hospital. She left after five years, and the character went through a few more actresses before Laura Wright settled into the role.

Sarah came back in December 2007, but not in the capacity that fans expected to see her. A new role was created for her: that of mob boss Claudia Zacchara. Sarah explains her return: “We had discussed years before about my coming back to play Carly, but that wasn’t of interest to me to play the same character. But I DID find it interesting to play another character.”

But things weren’t smooth sailing for Sarah’s return to Port Charles. “When I first came on, it was really tough for people to identify with her and grab onto the character. She was so unlikable; there were no redeeming qualities at the time. I mean, they started off right away with, let’s throw her in bed, make her a slut, have her shoot a little boy that I had actually given birth to (as Carly years before). It was a hard sell for me.”

Sarah worked on turning the character around, for herself and for her fans. “I just started having more and more fun with the character, and brought in things that I thought would help ease some of the other stuff that had developed between Claudia and the audience.”

What is strange for some fans is watching her former character, Carly, interact with her current character of Claudia. But not for Sarah: “It’s not as weird for me as people might think. It just doesn’t occur to me. I mean, the name is the same, but Laura and I could not be more polar opposites. We are completely different in every way on every level as people. It’s not to say that we don’t like each other, because opposites attract. We’re just not the same.”

She adds with a laugh: “Once in a while I smile to myself and think it’s so strange when I hear Laura saying monologues to other characters about stuff that I actually filmed.”

Sarah gets to test Claudia’s mettle with the current disaster that is happening at the hospital: A deadly toxin has been released, people are being quarantined, there is a fire, and Kate is about to expose Claudia’s involvement in Michael’s shooting.

“It’s a very stressful time for Claudia, that’s for sure. She didn’t know Kate had a copy of Jerry’s DVD exposing Claudia. It’s panic time trying to get the DVD back in the midst of all that is going on at the hospital. It is a bit of a disaster over there, to say the least. It’s like, how much can one person take?

“But she is one tough cookie, and you get to see that throughout this whole disaster. You get to see how resourceful she is and see how tough her mind is.”

Once things settle down a bit — and as we no doubt gear up for the next catastrophe to hit Port Charles — what would Sarah like for Claudia and her future?

“I would love to see her fall in love. I think it is an interesting story to see someone who is tough on the outside, and people have preconceived notions about her, and to see that person fall in love and to be vulnerable and to see her completely open up in that way. It would be so completely confusing for her. She’s going to do all the wrong things, say all the wrong things. It would be fun to see what happens.”

Two Daytime Emmy Winners Returning to Soaps

I'm always amazed when one of soaps' best actors leaves daytime and doesn't immediately score the great part he or she deserves. Why doesn't the rest of Hollywood see what we see? That's where the element of luck comes in. If it were all based on talent, Tony Geary (Luke, General Hospital) would be tripping over his Oscars on the way out the door each day.


Two young stars with bright futures outside of soaps are coming back, although for how long isn't known. Both may have already nabbed their roles of a lifetime on their respective soaps, but let's hope not. The rest of the world needs to see what they are capable of -- but what are the chances of another part like Jonathan Randall for Tom Pelphrey, or another Carly Corinthos for Sarah J. Brown? I don't want to see Pelphrey or Brown yucking it up on some poorly written sitcom or TV movie of the week.

So catch these two on soaps while you can. Pelphrey is returning to Guiding Light in January to reprise the role of Jonathan, and on Sarah J. Brown's official web site, http://www.sarahbrown.net/, there's a teaser that she's returning to General Hospital, with more details to come. However, word is she won't be playing Carly -- Laura Wright currently holds that role -- she'll be playing a new part.