A few winters ago, Vincent Irizarry (David, ALL MY CHILDREN) rounded a corner near his Manhattan apartment as a cab carrying his wife, Avalon, and his then-infant daughter, Aria, pulled up to the curb. "It was very cold, and Avalan got out of the car," Irizarry recalls. "She had the baby in one arm and the diaper bag in the other; she had to get the stroller and open the stroller.... And the cab driver was just sitting there in the car, watching her struggle! I walked up and said to him, 'What the hell's wrong with you? Can't you see she could use some help?' As much as I love New York," he concludes, "it lacks a certain grace." That is the story of how Irizarry and his family — which also includes his 13-year-old daughter, Siena, by ex-wife Signy Coleman (ex-Annie, GUIDING LIGHT, et. al.) and his 14-month-old son, Elias — ended up moving to New Jersey. But it is also a story that captures just how far Irizarry's priorities have shifted since his first stint as a Manhattanite, more than 20 years ago, before and during the time he skyrocketed to soap fame as GL antihero Lujack.

"When I was a single man, Manhattan was the place to be, as far as I was concerned," he nods. "I loved the spontaneity of the city; I was constantly inspired by it. But as much as I love New York, when we moved back [from California, when AMC beckoned him East], it was too hard with the family. Now we have a yard, the kids have their own rooms. It was silly not to do it."

Of course, back when he first called the city home, the life he has now — the wife, the kids, the yard — was inconceivable to him. "I couldn't imagine much 20 years ago," he laughs. "I couldn't even imagine how I'd get to the first step of getting married and having a family. My parents were 21 when they had me, and I was their third child. I had my first child when I was 30 — and I was barely ready at 30! My whole life was self-focused up until the point Siena was born. I was really living the Peter Pan lifestyle."

But now that his lost boy days are firmly behind him, Irizarry has struck an enviable balance between his responsibilities to his family, his work and his community. Eighteen years into his soap career, he still cares enough to nurse regrets when he senses that a scene wasn't as good as it could have been, or that an important emotional moment was missed because the wrong camera angle was chosen. And when a new character pivotal to David is being introduced, he still cares enough to head down to Casting Director Judy Blye Wilson's office to view the screen tests of every actor under consideration ("This is the guy!" he told her after watching the tape of Josh Duhamel, ex-Leo). But when his work day ends, Irizarry moves on to other things. And that, he says, is the secret to avoiding professional burnout. "I've never worked more on any show than I've worked on [AMC] this past year," he explains, "but I have interests that are so different from David's, different things that excite me and stimulate me, and I need to nurture those, as well." For the past year-and-a-half, he has been nurturing the Bible study group he founded in his community. The group now boasts 252 members from 60 churches, and Irizarry spends about 10 hours a week writing and compiling booklets of supplementary material (e.g., historical references, archaeaological evidence) to aid their discussions. He has almost completed booklets for every book in the Bible, a particularly impressive accomplishment considering Elias's fondness for the on/off switch on Daddy's computer. (Irizarry has learned to save his work "every few sentences.") And once the project is a fait accompli, what will he do with those extra 10 hours? There's always his singing and photography, plus that screenplay he optioned and plans to start pitching soon. "I've never been the type to be idle," he (under) states. "I started playing classical piano at an early age, I started with my photography at 13 years old.... Even as a kid, I saw that there was a huge world out there with so much to offer. In New Jersey, I know people who have lived there their whole lives and don't know how to drive into Manhattan. I'm like, 'You're kidding, right? It's 15 minutes away!' It's not a criticism, it's just a different kind of character from me. I've just never been like that."

This article originally ran in the Mar. 11, 2003 issue of Soap Opera Digest