Interview: Catching Up With Charles Shaughnessy

Charles Shaughnessy (photo credit Suzanne Allison) charmed Days of Our Lives fans during his eight-year tenure as Shane Donovan, and he also co-starred with Fran Drescher as Maxwell Sheffield on The Nanny. Lately, Charles has been popping up everywhere — from a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical to Mad Men to voicing Dennis the Goldfish on the Disney Channel’s cartoon series Stanley, for which he won an Emmy.

This time around, he plays Mr. Bosley, the owner of a magazine company who sends one of his journalists, Cynthia Tamerline (who is played by Jordan Ladd), on a mundane small-town assignment where she discovers her true passion in life. Wishing Well also co-stars Ernest Borgnine, Jason London and Sally Kellerman, and airs on the Hallmark Channel on Saturday, Jan. 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT and 8 p.m. Central. (Check your local listings for encore presentations.)

So, what was the experience of filming Wishing Well like for the ever-busy Charles Shaughnessy? Charles explains: “These kinds of movies are always very fun things to do, playing different kinds of roles. I came in for a couple of days in the office set with Jordan Ladd. There’s sort of a mentor relationship between Mr. Bosley and Cynthia that is slightly antagonistic, but in a paternal way. He sends her to a small, Midwest town to kind of shake her up a bit.”

Charles had fun playing the head honcho and enjoyed finding different facets of his character. “If there is a chance to paint a character into someone who goes just beyond the lines, it’s always fun to do. It’s having that extra dimension that gives you a sense of who this guy is when the cameras stop rolling. Mr. Bosley has a few more dimensions than just a boss: He has a sense of humor, he knows the business, and he has a certain charm and flair.”

Working with Jordan — daughter of actress Cheryl Ladd and a dead ringer for her gorgeous mom — was also a wonderful experience. Charles raves: “Jordan is a delight. We had a lot of fun. She is just fantastic — I have nothing but good things to say about her.”

A main message of the movie is that sometimes you just have to follow your heart, which is something Charles understands, but doesn’t completely subscribe to. “My philosophy in life is to keep tap dancing, keep surfing. You can try to follow your heart, but sometimes it is not always the right thing to do. You’ve got to balance it with your head.

“I think that one of the great dangers is investing too much in plans. I’ve set so many goals that have disappeared during the journey and have been replaced by much more interesting goals that suddenly popped up and put me in a new direction. I’m a believer in being as smart as you can in the moment.”

With Charles’ varied career, would he ever consider coming back to daytime? As he tells me, he wouldn’t rule anything out. “I loved doing Days of Our Lives. I thought that format was a fantastic way to work. You use all the muscles you have; it was exhausting at times and it never got boring. I made some really good friends, and we absolutely had a blast. I wouldn’t say no (if the chance presented itself again).”

Fans of Charles should not say no to catching his co-starring role this weekend and next on the Hallmark Channel’s original movie Wishing Well.

Days: Such a Tease!

NEXT WEEK:

* Rafe urges Will to give Mia another chance.

* Bo walks in on Carly (Crystal Chappell, pictured) and Hope arguing.

* Vivian suspects she knows who Carly’s daughter is.

* Melanie and Nathan deny they still have feelings for each other.

* Philip and Melanie set a date for the wedding.

Thursday – Brady comes to Arianna’s rescue.

Friday – Victor learns Carly and Bo slept together.

Y&R: Such a Tease!

* A discovery by Patty could mean trouble for Emily and Jack.

* Malcolm’s stay in Genoa City could be short-lived when Neil (Kristoff St. John, pictured) asks him to leave town.

* When Chance starts to investigate the man who stabbed him, could his questions land him in dangerous waters?

* Kay prepares herself to meet her daughter for the first time.

* Billy and Mac come together when Delia has a health scare.

B&B: Such a Tease!

· A suspicious relationship is questioned.

· An addition to a family is made.

· A betrayal is unmasked.

· True feelings are revealed between rivals.

· Overwhelming guilt leads to a confession.

Days: Such a Tease!

THIS WEEK:
* Nicole (Arianne Zuker, pictured) throws herself upon the mercy of the court.

* Troy hires an operative to take Arianna out.

* Nathan urges Melanie to reconsider marrying Philip.

* Vivian tells Bo about Hope and Justin’s kiss.

* Sami and EJ receive a call from the kidnapper.

Thursday – Nicole is sentenced for her crimes.

Friday – Carly admits to Vivian that she killed Lawrence.

Happy New Year!!

Wishing everyone a happy, happy New Year! Here's to a great 2010!

Interview: Life After the Light for Robert Newman

When “Guiding Light” ended its historic 72-year run this past fall, fans were devastated. Robert Newman, who played Joshua Lewis for almost 25 years, is still in New York and is currently starring in the musical “Sessions,” which he began performing in prior to “GL’s” demise. I had the chance to chat with Robert to discuss the end of the “GL” era.

Daytime Dial: What were those last few weeks of filming like on the “GL” set? It must have been a pretty bittersweet time.
Robert Newman: Part of my doing “Sessions” was to give me a distraction from the fact that “Guiding Light” was ending, and it really worked well. My experience of those last few weeks might be different from some of the others, because I was already on this other journey. I almost didn’t have time to digest how heavy this thing was: the ending of a 72-year, 15,672-episode show, of which I spent many years of my life. I did around 3,500-4,000 episodes. The last couple of days, it started to become a bigger thing for me to realize and understand that this really was going to end.


We shot the last scene a few days earlier than the last day of shooting, with Josh and Reva meeting at the lighthouse and riding off in the truck together. That had its own feel to it, because we knew it was going to be the final scene of the show, with “always” being the last word spoken on the show. So that was an emotional day.


The last day we actually shot, a lot of the people who worked on the show came out (on location) to Peapack, N.J., that day. We also had about 200 fans who watched us filming, following us from location to location. As each scene ended, there would be an announcement made that this actor had shot his last scene, and he had been on the show for five years, or 12 years, or 13 years, or whatever it was, and there was a toast and applause, and then we’d shoot the next scene. And, of course, there was a big bash that night.

DD: How has it been since the show ended? What do you miss about it?
RN: Since then, it’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, something I didn’t expect or anticipate. I miss the people, I really do. I wasn’t particularly the most social guy on the show, but when you work that intimately and that closely with people, you kind of take it for granted. I will say that I don’t really miss the show — I’m not sure what that’s about, but I don’t. I’ve moved on. It was time to say goodbye to Josh, and I’m OK with that. It was about the people — it was about working with Kim Zimmer, it was about Josh and Reva, it was about being with people on both sides of the camera who are just a hoot to work with.

DD: Are you happy with the ending?
RN: The writers had a wicked task ahead of them. I mean, how do you wrap up 72 years of storytelling? Their sort of bailout of going to a one-year-later scenario worked fine. I think if they had tried to wrap everything up into tidy little packages on the couple of months that we had, I think it would have been sloppy. It was appropriate that the last scenes are with Josh and Reva, and driving off in the truck at the lighthouse. I joked that the truck should all of a sudden explode and then go to a black screen, sort of a “Sopranos”-like ending, but they didn’t go for that. They wanted the happy ending.

DD: What are your plans for the future?
RN: I will probably stay on stage for a while. It feels good to me, and it’s where I want to be. That might mean doing some traveling (to various region theaters), but I’ll probably stay on stage for a bit. That’s my way of taking a break — it gives me a break from the hectic television shooting schedule. Then I’ll figure out some things after that.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from Cindy and Dana at Daytime Dial!

Interview: Catching Up With Robert Newman

Since the demise of “Guiding Light” this past fall, Robert Newman, who played Joshua Lewis for almost 25 years, has hardly been resting on his laurels. He’s been playing to packed houses in the musical “Sessions” at the Algonquin Theater in New York City. As the show nears its end in January, Robert took time to reflect on the play, as well as his time spent on “GL.”

Robert is no stranger to theater, and musicals specifically. He explains: “For the past five or six years, I had been taking a month or two off from ‘Guiding Light’ to do theater somewhere, and it’s almost exclusively been musicals. It’s something I kept quiet for the soap. They asked me to sing a few times, but I said no. Plus, I just couldn’t envision a situation where Josh would suddenly break out into song.”

In “Sessions,” Robert leads a talented cast of singers and dancers as Dr. Peterson. Robert says: “The show is about a therapist and his patients. There are eight patients, all representing different walks of life and different problems in life. For example, there’s an older married couple who hate each other; there’s a man who’s very reclusive; there’s a woman who’s beaten by her husband, etc. All of them represent different struggles in life.

“The therapist himself is going through a midlife crisis where he is on the brink of having an affair with one of his younger patients, which would not only destroy his marriage, but his career as well. He is also beginning to question the value of what he does. He’s very skilled at his job, but he doesn’t think so.”

“Sessions” will ring true for many people who come to see it. Robert says: “There’s a lot of comedy in the show, and quite a bit of tragedy as well — kind of how life is. The audiences really like the show. Everybody in the audience can relate to some character in the show. We have people in the audience who are very weepy by the time we get to certain sections in the second act. For some of the soap fans, it’s interesting for them to see me as someone other than Joshua.”

So, what was it like for Robert to work with a cast other than his family at “GL”? “Everyone has been great. They welcomed me in. A lot of them have been on board with the show since the beginning. I brought a very different take to Dr. Peterson than my predecessors had, and they all climbed aboard and took the ride with me. They’ve been very loving and supportive, and we’ve become very close in the five months I’ve been working on it. The theater has become my second family now.”

Fans can expect to see much more of Mr. Newman’s board-treading. He reveals:
“There’s nothing like being on stage. I feel very much at home. I love having a live audience, and I love the give-and-take that happens between the audience and cast.”

If you are going to be in the New York area, check out Robert’s turn as a song-and-dance man. “Sessions” runs until the beginning of January; you can get more details at sessionsthemusical.com. And don’t miss next week’s column, where Robert discusses those final days on “Guiding Light.”

Interview Outtakes, Part 4

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.


Marla Sokoloff: I had to look something up on YouTube the other day, and some of my earlier acting jobs came up. I saw something I had done on “Step by Step,” and I must have been 12. It was so strange, because I don’t even remember too many of those experiences. But I was a huge fan of “Full House” before I was on it, like most kids in the sixth and seventh grade. When I got on it, I thought I’d be the coolest kid in school, but it actually backfired on me and I got made fun of.

Jonathan Jackson (Lucky Spencer, “General Hospital”) on playing Kyle Reese in “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”: That was really fun and that was a cool show. I liked the “Terminator” movies growing up, so it was pretty cool to be on the show. In terms of being that iconic character, when you go into something like that, you don’t overthink that you are playing a character that is so loved already. You just go into it and try to put your own thing into it with a sense of respect for the original thing, but not too much that it makes you gun shy.


Betty White (Ann, “The Bold and the Beautiful”) on receiving the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented this January: I cannot tell you what a thrill this is. When they called me I thought: “Well, they’ve made some kind of mistake. They must mean another Betty White.” I am just beside myself. I can’t believe it, and I can’t be coy about it. I am just thrilled to pieces.

Jay Kenneth Johnson (Philip Kiriakis, “Days of Our Lives”): I like that the writers have been integrating a lot of the characters. It’s smart writing to mix it up. It’s a small town, considering there are three places that we go. I mean, you’re bound to run into someone you know at the Brady Pub, right? And, at the Kiriakis mansion, I think we have at least 20 people living there.

Courtney Thorne-Smith: I am very prompt. Right after I had Jack, I’d missed a phone interview. It had never happened before in my life. In the beginning, after you have a child, there’s just no room for it. Usually on a day where I know I have an interview, it is constantly in my mind, but it’s all gone, because you’re thinking about changing the baby, keeping the baby from crying, keeping the baby from crying, keeping the baby from crying. It supersedes everything.

Don Diamont (Bill Spencer, “BB”): When you have a character like Bill, one who you want to be a romantic leading man, and he is that cutthroat, that makes it challenging. It makes the relationship that much more dynamic, and I think the writers are doing an incredible job with this, Whether Katie wants to admit it or not, she is enthralled by this guy, and the way that he wields his power and his influence. There is that place in her where she wishes she could be more like him.