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GH Alum Kimberly McCullough On Her Soapy Passion Project

Kimberly McCullough Fundraiser for "Creve Coeur, MO" Indiegugo Campaign
Kimberly McCullough Kimberly McCullough Fundraiser for "Creve Coeur, MO" Indiegugo Campaign The Bistro Garden Studio City, CA 7/29/13 © Jill Johnson/jpistudios.com 310-657-9661 Credit: JPI

GH fave Kimberly McCullough (ex-Robin) is giving fans a glimpse of her loosely autobiographical pilot, HEY DAY, set behind the scenes of a GH-esque soap in the 1980s. She gave Soap Opera Digest the scoop.

Soap Opera Digest: What prompted you to put this video together, sharing more about HEY DAY?

Kimberly McCullough: This is a show that I have been conceiving for a while and it all started because as I got older, I started to hear stories from, you know, the soap legends about what it was like in the ’80s and it was just a different time. Even though I was an actress on the show, I was a kid, so I didn’t quite understand the debauchery that was going on! Or rather, I was shielded from it. So anyway, it became very interesting to me and so I wrote this show and I’m planning on pitching it to the different networks — but in the meantime, Sundance has a contest called the Episodic Story Lab and I submitted a script and basically got into the last round of the competition. One of things they ask for is a visual pitch, where you talk about your own connection to the story, which for this particular project is really the most important thing because it is based on my experiences growing up on a soap opera. So that’s why in the pitch, I really go into what it was like in the ’80s, but also how I grew up on the show and how my real life was different than my TV life and what’s that like, to grow up as an actress. So that’s pretty much why I put it out there. And I wanted fans to see it because I want the people that I’m pitching it to to know that there’s an audience out there, that theres a lot of nostalgia that people remember, because like I say in the pitch, people say that was their favorite time. It was a really juicy time because all of these actors had this, like, crazy fame, you know? It seemed like everyone was watching soap operas so it was a really sort of exciting time. And since the fans have always been super-supportive of what I’ve done, it’s like every step along the way, I try to share what I’m working on so that they know I’m not just sitting on my ass not being on GENERAL HOSPITAL!

Digest: Is there anything the fans can do to help support the project? Should they share it across their own social media accounts?

McCullough: Yeah, it would help if the fans shared it and also used the hashtag that I put up there, which is #80sheydaysoap, because that way, when I’m talking about it to different companies, I can actually say to them, “These people actually want to see the show.” Other than that, I would want comments about what they liked or didn’t like about my pitch, their feedback on what they would want to see or is this interesting to them, what would be fun for them to see and what they really want to know about. Do they really want to know about the off-screen romances, do they want to know about what it was like to be a minority then on a soap? I would love to know the things that really interest them.

Digest: Both Finola Hughes (Anna, GH) and Bree Williamson (Claudette, GH) were in the HEY DAY pilot that you shot. What can you share about who they play?

McCullough: Bree actually plays my favorite character, which is Tammy, and she’s a former professional ballerina who got kicked out of her company because she was doing too much cocaine and she’s carried that habit over [to the soap set] and she’s kind of a bad girl. But she’s also extremely intelligent and she’s really the only one that’s able to navigate the entertainment world and get everything she wants out of it. She’s in control, which is what I like about that character. And then Finola’s playing a version of [former Executive Producer] Gloria Monty; I was inspired by her.

To see the video of McCullough’s pitch, click here.

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