Already have an account?
Get back to the

Dishing With Dan Gauthier

Soap Opera Weekly: Kevin certainly has a lot to deal with where Duke (Matthew Metzger) and Kelly (Heather Tom) are concerned, doesn’t he?
Dan Gauthier: It’s a precarious situation. I have no statement for that. What would you do in real life if that happened? I think that it’s probably going to drive Kevin insane. Who knows?


Weekly: Paige (Alexandra Neil) looks like she’s teetering on the edge, so maybe she and Kevin can get a deal on some Xanax.
Gauthier: She’s being forced into the abyss, too. That’s a very tough situation. I’ve never known anyone who’s dealt with something like that.


Weekly: Erika Slezak (Viki) plays a lot of tough situations on-screen, too. Have you learned a lot playing her son?
Gauthier: Oh, yeah. What Bree (Williamson, Jessica/Tess) says is, “When you come in here, she’s the pro.” Nobody really gives you a [picture] of what’s happening on the show before [you join the cast]. Nobody tells you anything about your character. They just throw you in here, so it’s nice to have someone who will sit there when you’re in scenes with them and, in between takes, explain the show to you. Erika does that very well, especially with her family members on the show. She explains everything, how things work, how they didn’t, and how they changed history. She told me the whole Todd/Kevin story. No one else would have, because Todd wasn’t on the show when I got here — Trevor [St. John, Todd] was Walker Laurence.You have to understand where people are from, your relationship with them and things like that. It makes a huge difference.


Weekly: I know you’re a bit of a classic movie enthusiast. Is that why you find history on soaps so important? What are some of your favorite movies?
Gauthier: Libeled Lady is one of my favorite movies because William Powell‘s in it, and Spencer Tracy, and it’s just wonderful. I like Gaslight. There are tons of movies. I’ve been through all the Hitchcock movies. I love the [dialogue] in All About Eve. I think it’s smart and witty and amazing, and so quotable. No one ever [picks] those movies, do they? I think if you’re an actor, you have to go and watch the history and why the business is what it is. It would be like not watching the films from the ’70s, which changed American cinema forever. Could you imagine somebody not seeing Ordinary People? That movie’s killer. Those are the kinds of things that I was doing in acting class. I picked scenes from movies like that. They have meat. They’re like well-written plays. The freedom of film-making in the ’70s was unprecedented. It was pretty friggin’ remarkable.

Filed Under:
Comments