Mark Lawson

BIRTHDATE: December 17
BIRTHPLACE: Bristol, VA
MARITAL STATUS: Married to Cortney Mackin since April 17, 2010
YEARS ON THE SHOW: April 2008-Present

Mark Lawson's ONE LIFE TO LIVE audition couldn't have come at a better time. After five years of pursuing acting in L.A., he decided to allow himself just 10 more auditions before calling it quits. But in March 2008, he read for the role of Quinn (as Brody was then named) in L.A. and was later asked to take a screen test in New York. Well, audition No. 4 turned out to be the charm. "You get the call and it's like Ed McMahon came by to tell you you won the sweepstakes," he recalls. "I answered the phone and got the news from my manager and then I just kinda fell to my knees and started going, 'What?!' And then I ran outside and screamed, 'What?!' like all over West Hollywood. And 10 days later I was in New York."

Prior to booking OLTL, Lawson was preparing a business plan to secure financing for Forge, a gym concept he designed and describes as "somewhere between a 24 Hour Fitness or a New York Sports Club and a one-on-one studio." Should he ever take a break from acting, the fitness enthusiast says he would definitely go full-force with marketing the program. Meanwhile, he relishes playing out Brody's struggle with his war memories, which he acknowledges could have ended tragically. "I think the end of that path could have been Brody dead one way or another and I had thought about that as soon as I started to see those scripts coming out," he admits. "And I kinda made myself okay with that very quickly." But luckily for Lawson, Brody got a shot at redemption.