Mark Collier had a vision of what was in store for him when he was cast as AS THE WORLD TURNS’ construction worker Mike Kasnoff last spring. “I was picturing lots of hard hats and Lucky (Vanous) in the Diet Coke commercials,” he groans. “I was like, ‘Oh, jeez.'”Lucky for him, there haven’t been many beefcakey shots of Mike, but the character sure has dug himself a hole in his romantic life. He slept with former lover Carly the night before her wedding to Jack, and now she may be pregnant. To complicate matters, his girlfriend, Molly, is Carly’s cousin and best friend.”What an ass,” declares Collier. “Mike’s a good guy, but he’s made some bad decisions.” However, falling in love with Molly — practically at first sight — wasn’t one of them. “Mike feels that Molly is genuine,” he notes. “He saw her at a point in time when she was vulnerable, which you don’t normally see when you first meet people, and that is what makes you attractive. They bonded there (in New York), so it was a faster start to a relationship. People talk about how fast their relationship went, but they weren’t two people who met on the street. A lot of secrets and things came out in the open very quickly, which tends to accelerate relationships. Mike cares for her very much.”And what about the other women in Mike’s life? “When you see Mike and Rosanna together you see chemistry, without a doubt,” Collier confirms. “Mike doesn’t have past feelings for Carly like he does for Rosanna. But nonetheless, there’s a bond [between Mike and Carly] because of the child [they lost]. When two people go through that together, there is a deeper connection. I don’t think that Mike ever loved Carly, but there was something about her that he was drawn to.”Mike and Carly are now struggling to keep their passionate night together a secret from the ones they love. “I don’t think that Mike is sorry about sleeping with Carly,” Collier offers. “It was just something that happened. He’s more sorry about what the consequences could be — seeing how much Jack means to Carly and what’s going to happen with Molly.” If and when their secret comes out, “Oakdale’s not a big town,” chuckles Collier, “and you’re going to have some people who are not going to be very happy about the situation.”
