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Interview!

Catching Up With Jamie Luner

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Credit: ABC

Despite the prime-time soaps on her resumé, when Jamie Luner was tapped to make her daytime drama debut as a recast Liza Colby on ALL MY CHILDREN in 2009, “I was like a deer in headlights,” she admits with a good-natured chuckle. “It was shocking to me. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done!”

Though it’s been six years since she ended her three-year run on the show, having played Liza through to AMC’s end, her time in Pine Valley remains close to her heart. “I grew a deep affinity for it, actually,” she says of the infamously frenetic pace of shooting a soap. “Once I got two months into it, something clicked. I went from feeling really overwhelmed to, ‘Oh, I get this now.’ My memorization skills expanded and the work became really fun, really stimulating. I loved the spontaneity of it. I loved getting everything I could into a moment, and then it was over and you’re on to the next one — and you have 25 of them a day! With the soap world, you trust your instincts and you just fly.”
Working alongside one of daytime’s most notoriously spontaneous actors, Michael E. Knight (ex-Tad), was a highlight of her AMC experience. “Michael is a gem and we are still friends to this day,” she says fondly. “He was an amazing acting partner for me, just extraordinary to work opposite. I absolutely grew as an actress because of working with him. It was such a blessing.”

ABC

During Luner’s tenure as Liza, she was romantically linked not only to Tad, but to his surprise son, Damon, played by a then-unknown Finn Wittrock (AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW, The Big Short). “It is so fun to watch him on the big screen with these major motion picture stars,” she marvels of Wittrock’s post-AMC success. “I’m so happy for him. I ran into him a year or two ago and it was really great to see him and to celebrate his career trajectory.”

ABC

AMC’s cancellation was not as hard on Luner, who had seen many of her shows come and go over her long career in prime-time, as it was on some of the show’s vets. Still, she says, “The ending of any of these shows, even though it’s the nature of the business, is always bittesweet. It’s so nice, as an actress, to have a steady gig, and I could have done it for a lot longer. It was very sad for a lot of people, who had kind of grown up with most of the cast and crew and had been on the show for so many more years than I was, so I guess my sadness was not as great as many of the people around me. I was just really grateful for all of that whole experience — the people that I met and to have learned and grown with such an iconic show. And then you say, ‘Okay, that chapter’s closed. Now embrace and open up to what the next chapter’s going to be.’ ”

For the actress, that meant a return to prime-time, guest-starring on series like SUPERNATURAL, TWO AND A HALF MEN and from 2015-16, she had a recurring role on MURDER IN THE FIRST. “I am so blessed that I ended up on that show for two seasons with Taye Diggs [ex-Sugar Hill, GUIDING LIGHT] and Kathleen Robertson and the whole gang. I was so humbled and honored to work with another iconic [television creator], Steven Bochco. I mean, Aaron Spelling [MELROSE PLACE’s executive producer], Steven Bochco — those are some big names!”

To prepare for her role (Cassie, the wife of cheater/murderer Mario), Luner turned to Knight for assistance. “I was like, ‘Michael! I’m nervous!’ I was really nervous about starting and he was like, ‘I’ll help you!’ We got together and he totally helped me with my stuff. He’s really good like that.”

MURDER IN THE FIRST ended last year. “That show was a great experience for me; I just loved it. And I was shocked it didn’t keep going. I was in the flow and they’re like, ‘Okay, this show is done now.’ You just have to say, ‘Okay, that’s what’s happening.’ ”

More episodic work has followed, including an installment of CBS’s CODE BLACK. “I got to work with Marcia Gay Harden. Oh, man! That was just a treat. When you’re on a set with an actor of that caliber, you feel the difference in every nuance, every sentence exchanged.” Floating in and out of shows suits her just fine. “It’s fun to have so many different experiences,” she notes. “I’m always the new girl, showing up the first day like, ‘Hey, I’m the new girl! What’s happening?’ ”

Next up for the actress? An independent film, Honeymoon In Paris, which will start shooting this month, and the launch of her confectionary business. “I’ve been in the food world my whole life,” she says. “I grew up in a very food-oriented family, a lot of cooking, a lot of eating, and I have a passion for it, so I put myself through culinary school. I went to a cake decorating school, I did a pastry school.” She considered it just a hobby, until “somebody got their hands on my peanut butter squares” (a family recipe she would whip up as gifts for friends) — “and said, ‘I really want to be in business with you.’ And now, we’re going global, industrializing this product that I grew up on. It’s a really fascinating process, and I’m the head of a company now! I’m like, ‘How did that happen?’ We’re going to launch soon and we’ll also be giving back to a beautiful charity — so stay tuned!”

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