His Heart’s Desire
Soap Opera Digest: For our readers who haven’t already been introduced to the show, describe the character you play.
Tomy Dunster: I really liked my character. I love to play these kinds of characters; he’s not even close to myself in real life. I find that to be very interesting for me as an actor. George is scheming during the 65 episodes [of the series] with his half sister, Victoria, trying to get this fortune. They are coming from a formerly wealthy family, which is now broke, and that’s why they’re doing all the evil stuff.Digest: He’s trying to bilk the money from his girlfriend?
Dunster: In the beginning, yes — actually, from her father, who owns the restaurant. Then the money is gone, then another person has the money, then another person … The money is going everywhere! He has the money for a couple of episodes [laughs]. He was rich for two episodes and now it’s coming up to the finale. But George doesn’t care about the money anymore. He has another priority in his mind.
Digest: Tell me about your experience working on the show.
Dunster: Doing the show was a really challenging experience because we were working like I’ve never worked in my life. We were shooting 65 episodes in three-and-a-half months. It was interesting and challenging and also really fun. We were really excited because not only were we shooting a great show, we were launching a new network.Digest: What was the most fun experience you had during filming?
Dunster: During the entire shoot, for me, was the finale. We were waiting to shoot the finale, all of us, because it’s really exciting and really good. You can’t imagine where the story’s going. It was really fun. We were shooting on location and there are a lot of things happening.Digest: Did you know when filming the first episode how the series was going to end?
Dunster: Yes, and that was great. The difference playing this part and doing this nighttime soap is that when I was shooting ALL MY CHILDREN in New York, they were doing one new episode every day, five or sometimes six episodes in a week. The scripts were coming every day, new scripts. But in this case, we were able to read all the scripts for the 65 episodes before we started shooting. That was great because we knew the entire story, the entire arc for our characters. That’s good for an actor to know about their character. Remember suddenly one day on ALL MY CHILDREN I just said, “I’ll see you soon,” and that was it?
Digest: Yes, I do! That was very confusing.
Dunster: To me, too! My character, he went crazy. That’s the truth about Juan Pablo: He went crazy [laughs]. It was sad for me, believe me.Digest: Do you still get recognized from doing ALL MY CHILDREN?
Dunster: Oh, absolutely, you know, because there are a lot of people watching ALL MY CHILDREN, all the daytime shows.Digest: You shot DESIRE in San Diego, right?
Dunster: Yes, I moved there for four months from Santa Monica, rented an apartment. It was the only way because my character, he is in 62 or 61 episodes out of 65, so it was not possible to live in L.A. and go back and forth. My family stayed home; my daughter is 10 and she is in school. But I visited every weekend or they visited San Diego. So that was really cool.Digest: So, for fans who’ve been following DESIRE from the beginning, what can they expect as it draws to an end?
Dunster: Just stick to the TV at 8 p.m. because there are a lot of things happening, the most exciting part of the show. I am really excited about it.
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.