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Interview

Catching Up With 3 Soap Alums

ROSWELL
Credit: THE CW

Three Soap Alums Crash In ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO

 

nathan

THE CW

Nathan Dean Parsons
(ex-Ethan, GH, 2009-13, 2015)

For fans who haven’t yet seen the show, describe your character. “I play Max Evans. I am a small-town deputy sheriff in the town of Roswell, New Mexico. What people don’t know is that I’m also an alien, and I was part of the 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, and me and my two siblings have been in stasis for 50 years. We woke up as children, helpless, and have spent the last 20 years disguising ourselves as human.”

You’re also a part of the front-burner love story. “I am, and it’s a responsibility that I welcome. I’ve worked with some amazing actors and some amazing leading men who taught me how to do that, how to carry a love story and how to carry a show — Tony Geary [ex-Luke, GH] obviously being one of them — so being able to take the reins of something like this is really an honor.”

Did you watch the previous version of ROSWELL? “I was familiar with the material but I had never watched the show and when I got cast on this, I asked the bosses, ‘Should I watch the show? Is this our jumping-off point?’ And they said, ‘No, don’t watch it. We’re jumping 10 years ahead. We’re rewriting the history a bit,’ and for me as an actor, I don’t necessarily want my performance to be informed by the performance of others. I want to be able to bring my own feel to it instead of feeling the pressure to mimic or try and re-create something that’s already established. I’d much rather establish my own footing in this piece.”

What did you learn from GH that you’ve taken with you in your career? “I really learned about the work ethic. First of all, I learned so much from working so closely with Tony Geary. The man is a legend — just being around him and absorbing his life experience and hearing his stories and seeing the way he works…. I remember one time, I asked if [the director] would be mad if I did this or if I changed this or if I tried something different, and he said, ‘Listen to me, Nathan, the worst thing that’s going to happen is they say no,’ and that really opened my world because I was like, ‘You’re right.’ We have the freedom here now to play. This is a creative environment and this is a creative endeavor and we have the freedom to really reach for something — and if it’s too much, then they say no and we pull it back and find a middle ground. But, he always said, ‘Don’t be afraid to leap into something,’ and that stuck with me forever. To this day, I’ll never forget that, and I’m so grateful to him and to the soap community and GENERAL HOSPITAL and everyone there.”

Any message to the GH fans? “Thank you. A huge thank you! Starting out on GH as a crazy Australian con artist and going now into ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO, it has been such a wonderful journey, and the fact that there are people who’ve supported me all that time and followed that journey with me? I’m just so grateful and so blessed.”

Do you still keep in touch with any of your GH pals? “I’ve run into Chad Duell [Michael] and I try to keep in touch with Maurice [Benard, Sonny]. We’re all off on our own crazy journeys.”

Did you ever believe you’d trade in Port Charles, NY, for ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO? “I could have imagined it, but I couldn’t have told you it would have happened. I’ve got a pretty good imagination [laughs].”

 

tyler

THE CW

Tyler Blackburn (ex-Caleb, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS,

2011-17; ex-Ian, DAYS)

How did you end up in ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO? “Actually, pretty traditionally. I auditioned, but I took some time off after PRETTY LITTLE LIARS wrapped. We worked our asses off for seven seasons, so yeah, I took about a year off. Then, I auditioned for some pilots and I really didn’t want to do the typical teen triangle thing, and this script was way better than that. It really spoke to me. I love my character; so many elements of it have really resonated. I’m usually not a great auditioner, but I walked in and I felt really good about it and it just fell into place. It feels like the right role for me.”

Tell us about your character. “My character’s name is Alex Manes. In the pilot, you see that he’s back in Roswell after being discharged from the Air Force because he has an injury and he’s trying to acclimate back to normal life. He’s a pretty broken man. He’s concealing a lot of his truths about who he loves, and he can’t be completely honest with everybody. He has a lot of secrets, and I feel that he’s not a fully-fledged man yet, so this season he really starts to step into his own and figures out who he is and lets himself be free.”

How was shooting on location? “It was really a bonding experience. From the moment we did the table read for the pilot, I felt like the bar was already high in terms of professionalism. And then as time went on, it became about having fun, too. So, it’s the best of both worlds. Everyone is really dedicated to their characters and making this show a hit. Everybody is great and very much themselves and somehow, we all mesh.”

What do you have to say to the PLL fans? “I think PLL fans will like this show a lot, especially the ones who were watching PLL from the beginning, because now they’re a little older and I feel like this show is a little older, too, in terms of tone. There are definitely similarities in terms of the intensity and the romance and things like that. It’s a different beast; this is more extraterrestrial than technological, but I think it has a lot of the same emotions attached to it, so I think people can easily get invested in it.”

Any chance we’ll see Caleb on the PLL spin-off, THE PERFECTIONISTS? “I don’t know. I spoke to [I.] Marlene [King, executive producer] about the idea, but it would have to make perfect sense on both ends. But I would definitely be down for it.”

trevor

THE CW

Trevor St. John

(ex-Victor/ex-“Todd”/ex-Walker,

ONE LIFE TO LIVE, 2003-11)

What’s it like being the senior cast member of this group? “Well, it was tough at first. This is my first experience being the senior cast member, so it was a little hard on the ego at first, but I’m also the most experienced, so I feel like an expert, so that kind of took over. While I don’t have an achieved mastery, I feel like a master. I hope that doesn’t sound too self-aggrandizing, but that’s what I felt like. I felt like I brought some level of expertise to the role and on set, and so now I embrace it, because I realized — I am literally the most experienced. No one has as many credits as I do, so I’ve just worked more than anyone else [laughs].”

Do “the kids” come to you for advice? “A little bit, but I mostly just tell them to trust themselves. I remember, I wish someone would have told me that: ‘Don’t worry about it. Just go. Just do it, and you’ll know if it works or if it doesn’t, and then you won’t need my advice.’ ”

Have you found that the OLTL fans still follow you? “Yeah, that is so nice. They’re great fans. I’m not a big social media guy, but I do check my Twitter once in a while, and I’ve got a few Twitter followers still. I don’t check it very often but when I do, I see nice notes about how they miss me
and I’m very flattered by that. I really appreciate them.”

Do you keep in touch with anyone from Llanview? “Oh, yeah, Michael [Easton, ex-John; Finn, GH] is one of my dearest friends. Same with Dan Gauthier [ex-Kevin] and Kamar de los Reyes [ex-Antonio], and then I see some of the other people once in a while. But those are three really dear friends of mine.”

Would you ever do another soap? “If the right character came up for me to play, yeah. You never say never, but it would have to be right. It would have to be such perfect circumstances — the right character, the right people. It’s always about the people, and I had the right
character.”

Think we could ever see Victor turn up in Port Charles? “Well, I would never rule anything out like that completely but yeah, the circumstances would have to be so ideal that I can’t imagine the universe where they would allow that to happen [laughs].” w

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