To Di For
“I’ve been here for going on 24 years and I have never seen a screen test like the one she delivered. Hand to God, I have never seen a screen test that good. I had decided to come in the day before because I always feel bad [for the auditioning actresses]; screen tests are just so sink or swim. You come in, you get a handshake, you run through it once and then you do it. I found out that [AMC Director] Francesca James, who won an Emmy [ex-Kelly, AMC], was going to be directing the tests. Francesca knows the job inside and out. She’s done everything there is to do in this business — executive producer, writer, director. I knew she wouldn’t mind, so when she was in the rehearsal studio with the girls, I poked my head in and said, ‘Francesca, can I come in and do the blocking so the girls get to meet me, get a sense of what I’m going to do and who I am, what I’m going to do, so that at least when they come in tomorrow, they have one ally in the trenches and aren’t being thrown into a minefield?’ Francesca said, ‘Absolutely.’ Kelli came in, having never done a soap opera before, and does the dry-blocking with me, and Francesca and I just looked at each other. Between us there are maybe 50 years of daytime experience, and we just looked at each other and our jaws just dropped. Just like, ‘What the hell was that?’ It was uncanny, this girl’s talent.
“Kelli came in the next day for the actual test, and as there often is in these situations, there was a scene set up for her to do that has an aria. By that I mean they want to see the person roll. They want to see the real heart and soul of the character. They’re looking at long-term story: ‘This is where we think we’re going and we want to see if you can do it.’ The aria is designed to give a sense of that. So they get to that part in Kelli’s test, and there was a glitch, a technical glitch, in the middle of this unbelievably emotional monologue. And everybody — me, the camera guys — is going, ‘Oh, man.’ The timing just couldn’t have been worse. So they said to Kelli, ‘Okay, we’re going to do a pick-up.’ And sure enough, where they were picking it up from was at the top of the aria, at the most emotional point possible. Without batting an eye, Kelli does it better [than she already had]. And I mean, [Executive Producer] Julie [Hanan Carruthers] came out of the booth and we were all like, ‘What? Was? That?’ It was just obvious as could be: That’s the girl! Julie called me over the weekend and said, ‘She just batted it out of the ballpark.'”I felt bad for Kelli once she started because me and Jacob [Young, JR] … I mean, she had never done a soap before but between the two of us, it was like a rodeo of bad habits that were being thrown at her. It took her like six months to get used to us telling each other one-liners on the countdown: ‘Five, four, three, two — mushrooms walk into a bar….’ For a while, she was like, ‘Heh? What the hell have I gotten myself into?’ But by now, forget about it, she’s got our number. Kelli has worked long and hard to establish herself on this show — in what was initially an uphill battle, because even though she turned out not to be a recast [of Dixie], that wasn’t out there to begin with and it’s tough coming in as someone who is maybe replacing a favorite role. And for somebody who basically has just landed their first major job, who’s basically a kid, for her to wade through that and come out on the other side with people on her side, it’s fantastic. It’s just been fantastic to see.”
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