Greens Party
Sabine Singh just debuted as Greenlee Smythe Lavery, picking up where Rebecca Budig left off in 2005. The actress won the part after screen-testing not only with Greenlee’s love interest, Cameron Mathison (Ryan), but Alicia Minshew, whose Kendall is Greenlee’s stepsister, sometime rival, sometime best friend and erstwhile business partner. Digest spoke to both actors about their new co-star.
Cameron Mathison
“She’s awesome! She’s got big shoes to fill; Greenlee is an important character around this place. This may sound like a bit of a lie, but I really believe they had to do a great job with casting to pull this off and I think they did it, I really do. And they’ve written great story for her to walk right into.
“When I first heard they were recasting, I thought it was going to be very difficult, I really did. I thought it was a risky move for them to make, but for story reasons, I think it was a great call and I’m just really glad they found the right person…. I just taped my first scenes with her and I felt really good about them. I think people will really like Sabine.”
Alicia Minshew
“I felt weird when I found out they were recasting because Rebecca is one of my dearest friends and we have so much history together because of the character of Greenlee. But I was also excited because the character herself, regardless of who plays her, is so important for Kendall.
“When we did the screen test, all of the girls were very good and very beautiful, and some actually looked more like Rebecca than Sabine does, but Sabine I just connected with. I connected with her the best and I felt like her understanding of the character was the best. We had scenes where we had to play best friends and scenes where we were mad at each other and I just felt like, ‘She understands this. She gets it.’ After the screen test, I thought, ‘Okay, this is a great actress, this is someone I can really bounce things off of.’ I don’t want to take away from what Rebecca and I had because I may never have anything like that with another woman again. This is just a different chemistry that brings in a whole new aspect to the characters. I’ve been exploring it and finding different things that weren’t there before and really enjoying it.
“Sabine is putting her own take on Greenlee, not doing an imitation of Rebecca, which I really like, but she’s got that same snappiness; she’s gonna be a great bitch! In fact, one of her first days, Angela Tessinari was directing us and it’s the first time that Kendall sees Greenlee and we did the scenes and they were hard, but we got where we needed to be and Angela said, ‘Gosh, isn’t she perfect for this part? She’s got the whole attitude, but she just gets how this character would act.’ She just naturally did it without being told what to do. But you’re also going to feel for her because she’s got great emotion in her acting.
“The first few weeks of us working together are really intense. There’s a lot of information for Sabine to play in the beginning. It’s difficult stuff for anybody to play and I’ve been there five years! She’s only been there a few weeks and she’s already being thrown into layer upon layer of story, so many intricate things, and she’s doing a really good job. She’s doing much better than I did! I was so new, so new at being a professional actress when I came on to the show, but she’s far more seasoned and she understands subtext and backstory better than I did. She came in with a stronger understanding than I had. They couldn’t have chosen someone who could slowly find their way; they needed someone who didn’t need to be eased into it, who could just step in and tell the story. And that’s Sabine; that’s why she got the job.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.