Soap Opera Digest got acquainted with South African actor David Lee, who debuted on GH in December as Olivia Jerome’s smooth-talking, tea-serving henchman, Winston Rudge.
Soap Opera Digest: Growing up in South Africa, were you familiar with American soaps?
David Lee: Oh, yes. I started watching soaps in South Africa because the girl I was dating at thetime was a big fan of them. I got into them! You get so sucked in! It was quite intriguing to me, why it was so addicting. There was just something about it that drew you in and you loved the characters, or hated them, depending on which side of thefence you were on. I remember watching SANTA BARBARA and DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
Digest: Tell me about your first day at GH.
Lee: Everybody kept saying to me,”It’s really fast, make sure you’ve done your homework.” I went in prepared, but the first day I got there, I didn’t go in the correct stage door. There was a door next to the stage door that I ended up going in, so I didn’t sign in, I didn’t know what dressing room I had, I wasn’t sure where the stage manager was. I was drifting around asking people politely and I didn’t take my sides [script pages] with me because I work off of my iPad. Coming from [prime-time] TV and film, you expect that when you go in, the sides will be in the trailer and it’s all printed out for you, so I don’t bother taking in my own paperwork. But of course, there are no sides printed up for you in daytime! When I did finally find my dressing room, there was nothing in there. So I kind of missed the sort of orientation of going in and being told where to go and what to do, in a sense. It was quite a hairy first day! And of course, I go up and the stage manager says, “All right, we’re going to rehearse,” and I don’t have my script. I mean, I knew my sides, but I needed to make some notes. I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know where my dressing room was.” They said, “Oh, no, there’s no scripts, you need to bring in your own sides.” I went, “Oh, God! Uh, help!” It was a very quick lesson in sink or swim, but they were all very sweet about it and gave me aquick A to Z and I kind of just jumped in and started swimming. I really enjoyed it. It was kind of like being back in the theater for me, almost; you’re playing to a fourth wall; you’re pretty much live. Everyone was really great. I worked with William [deVry, Julian] in the beginning and he was really generous with his time and offered up any information I might need. People don’t know, unless you tell them, that it’s your first time on a daytime gig. If you don’t ask for help, you’re not going to get it, I quickly discovered!
Digest: Who warned you about the pace — your representation, or do you have actor friends with soap experience?
Lee: Both. My manager and agents said, “It’ll be good for you, it’s good to be working, it’ll be fun, it’s a nice medium, just be aware, it’s very fast.” And a dear friend of mine is Shannon Sturges, who used to be on DAYS OF OUR LIVES [as Molly] and PORT CHARLES [as Kate]. She’s an acting coach now, as well, and I popped in to see her and say, “Give me the lowdown.” She said, “It’s really fast!”And then when I started working with Liv, Tonja Walker, this was her kind of foray back into the business after taking some time off and she said, “Wow, this goes so much faster than what it used to be, and it used to be quick! We used to have much more rehearsal time.” So, I’ve kind of been dropped in at the pinnacle of fast — and I’m loving it, I really am. I’m working on the new Black Panther film for Marvel and I’ve got a bunch of scenes with Michael B. Jordan [ex-Reggie, ALL MY CHILDREN]. I told him I’ve been working on GENERAL HOSPITAL and he said, “I did daytime for four years and it was great!” He said it was brilliant, that it gave him so much to go forward with in the business. And I’m coming to it the opposite way around; instead of starting in it, I’m drifting in after having been in the business for 26 years. But I think it’s a fantastic medium and I feel really lucky that Mark [Teschner, GH’s casting director] picked my face out of the pile.
Digest: Let’s talk about some of your co-stars. I’d like to hear about working with one of my favorite characters, The Gloved Hands, meaning the pair of gloved hands you had to talk to before Liv was actually on screen.
Lee (laughs): That was great! That was actually like just doing monologues, like learning a bunch of monologues and just shooting them off. In the script, every day, she was referred to as Hands. There was no name, nobody knew who she was orwhat the storyline was, it was just, “Rudge goes in and speaks to Hands.” We were sort of stuffed onto the back of the soundstage there where they builtthis little back room and it was quite fun, actually, because we had to make it work. There was nowhere to go, really; there were like two or three steps from the door to the end of the table to the corner, so we would kind of have tolinger. I’d find the tea, then pour the tea, then, you know, slowly do a dramatic turn and think and hem and haw for a little bit just to chew into another 30 seconds so that that scene didn’t come and go too fast. If the show was running short, they would say, “David, we can extend this a little.” I’m like, “Extend what? I’m not really having a conversation with anyone!” So, I would do a little dramatic entrance and breathe and look at her and maybe sigh and drift across the room and then start talking and the camera guys were just having to glance her shoulder and sort of cock the back of her hand and see her rings, so that was quite funny. They would go, “Okay, that section’s right, we’re going to pick up with the next section,” so I’d walk in, do a monologue, turn around, they’d hold the cameras and go, “Okay, go again,” and I’d turn around and do the next monologue walking halfway back to the door. “Okay, stop!” I’d turn around and reset and then we’d do the third monologue and they would use those scenes over, like, two episodes. And also, they wouldn’t necessarily shoot in order, so I started watching the show that I could pick up the storylines of people that I’m working with and understand what’s going on and my girlfriend sits with me and goes, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m watching this show again!” She used to watch it when she was in school. So we sit and we’re watching GENERAL HOSPITAL and then I would see how they actually used what I was doing. I would get confused as to what episode I was shooting when. I could go in and do two or three episodes in a day and they would chop it in accordingly, cut it in accordingly.
Digest: If your girlfriend is familiar with GH, she must have been excited that you got to work with Genie Francis (Laura)!
Lee: That was the first thing she said! “If you see Laura, remind her that I looked after her dogs once.” They were neighbors many years ago. She said, “Remind her and tell her I say hi!” I was like, “That was 30 years ago!” She said, “Well, don’t put a number on it, just tell her I say hi.” So she was quite stoked, yeah. I spoke to Genie and I said, “Years ago, my girlfriend of 10 years or so used to be neighbor and you guys all went away for a vacation and Stacey looked after your labs, your dogs, who were puppies, and they chewed up her entire house. She’s always remembered it, lovingly so, and she says to say hi.” Genie looked at me and said, “Stacey, Stacey, I don’t remember.” I thought, “Oh, my God, that’s going to be so traumatic for my girlfriend because she remembers vividly having these puppies chew up her home!” But Genie actually did remember in time [laughs].
Digest: Did you enjoy working with Billy Miller (Jason) and Donnell Turner (Curtis) when we first met Rudge in the pawn shop?
Lee: Yes, that was my first day, in the pawn shop with the two of them and those guys are hilarious, man! I had started watching the show once I knew I was going to be on it and I lucked into these two guys. It’s funny; when you’re watching someone on TV on a daily basis, you kind of feel like you know them. So, of course, I went in and they were as warm and pleasant to me as I was to them. It was almost like, “Oh, hey, there you are!” They were really nice to receive, really warm, and right out the gate, Billy said, “Okay, man, you can change [the lines] a little bit if you feel they’re not right, if it’s not sitting right, as long as you get out the gist of what you’re saying.” He was giving me pointers about what to do if I felt like I was struggling with something. He said, “Coming in new, there’s a lot to get into.” Also, I’m quite a bit taller than him, so we were doing the scenes and there’s a little bit of friction in the dialogue as we’re talking to each other and they’re interrogating me a bit and we come to the end of the scene and we hold the last shot and he looks at me and goes, “You’re pretty tall, aren’t you.” It was a funny ice-breaker. He goes, “You’re pretty tall; can I get a box [to stand on]?” That was pretty fun. But they were both really sweet, charming, and really easy, man, just so easy.
JPI
Digest: Has anyone recognized you as Rudge yet?
Lee: Well, this was a funny story. It turns out that my neighbor is a huge GENERAL HOSPITAL fan. My girlfriend and I were sitting at home one afternoon and we heard her shrieking, and it turns out, it was the first day I came on and she was screaming because her neighbor was on GENERAL HOSPITAL! Her husband came over and said, “Hey, David, I gotta tell you, you almost gave my wife a heart attack. A little warning would have been nice!’ I said, “I didn’t know she watched, a, and b, I signed a non-disclosure, so…” That was really fun.
Digest: Would you be open to sticking around, even if Liv gets caught?
Lee: Yes, I would definitely be open to that. I can see how soap operas get in your blood a little! GENERAL HOSPITAL is such a legendary show and the cast is fantastic. I really am having fun with it.
For more with Lee, check out the new issue of Soap Opera Digest, on sale today.
