Soap Opera Weekly: How is work without Scott Bailey (ex-Sandy)?
Stephanie Gatschet: It's so emotional to have somebody leave, especially someone you've worked with for years, a friend you look forward to seeing every day. Now he's just not around anymore. The scenes that followed his on-screen death were really emotional, not just for Tammy, but for me, too, because Scott was gone and that's hard for me to deal with. I don't worry about Scott at all. I know he's going to go on and do great stuff, so it's not goodbye.
Weekly: At least you got to work with your pal Justin Klosky (ex-Joey Lupo) for a few days.
Gatschet: I missed having him around because he's one of my best friends! It was really weird, because I have all these memories of Tammy and Joey. To have him come back was crazy.
Weekly: Tammy has had a rough year. What was her biggest mistake?
Gatschet: Let me start the list of the stupid things Tammy did in 2005 (laughs)! There were so many. The worst was not being honest with Sandy early on, because Tammy could have saved herself a lot of trouble if she had just been honest with herself and with everybody else.
Weekly: Didn't you play a girl who found herself in trouble on LAW & ORDER, too?
Gatschet: It was an episode called "Girl Most Likely." I was a cheerleader and friend of this high school girl who turned out to be the killer. I had two little scenes, but I felt very important because I gave Jerry Orbach (ex-Det. Briscoe) a key piece of information. It was the year before I started on GL.
Weekly: You're a travel enthusiast in real life. What's next?
Gatschet: I am not kidding when I say that I want to go everywhere in the whole wide world. I have so many places that I need to see, and I want to see all of every continent. I really want to do less of the typical tourist-y stuff. I'd love to do some adventure travel; hike in crazy parts of the world that are beautiful, and be amazed.
Weekly: As an animal lover, what's your favorite charity?
Gatschet: There's this shelter here in New York City called Animal Haven, where I got my dog ChiChi. I did a lot of volunteer work for them, walking dogs and doing adoption events. It's a no-kill shelter. They're good people and they do good things for helpless animals.
