Galen Gering (Rafe, DAYS) was a guest on Digest’s podcast, Dishing With Digest, where he looked back at his start on PASSIONS and how that led him to Salem
Soap Opera Digest: You just marked 10 years on DAYS last October, which is just sort of mind-boggling to think in light of the fact that you were on PASSIONS for quite a while before DAYS. So, first of all, what is it like for you to mark that milestone and what were your feelings coming on to DAYS 10 years ago?
Galen Gering: Well, first of all, thank you so much. It’s crazy that it’s been 10 years, ’cause it really doesn’t feel that long, which is, of course, what everyone says…. If my math is correct, I’ve been on DAYS longer than I was on PASSIONS [as Luis]. PASSIONS I was on for like nine-and-a-half years, so the fact that I’ve been here longer than I was there seems very weird to me just for a lot of reasons. Has it flown by? Yeah. Has it been amazing like, roller-coaster ups, downs, middles? It’s great…. It’s just amazing, truly. And honestly, I feel like where we’re at right now is a good spot in terms of the show and its chemistry and the cast and everyone that comes in here. Not to say it was ever bad, it’s always been great, there’s different colors. But I feel like at the end of PASSIONS, it was like, “Okay, we’re riding into the ground. How many times are you just gonna write the same story and they’ll never notice?” But that doesn’t feel like the case here; it feels fresh and alive and I feel they’re doing some fun and innovative stuff. [Ken] Corday [executive producer] and the network and everyone’s all in a really good, happy place. It’s a great feeling to have as someone who works on the show.
Digest: 1999 was when PASSIONS de-buted. Do you remember your audition? What did you know about the show before landing the job?
Gering: Great question. Yeah, I totally remember, in fact, because I was in my final semester at University of Miami to be a writer, director, producer; I had basically made up my mind that I really wanted to be behind the camera. I felt like that’s where I could best serve myself. So this audition came around, it was the final semester, and they faxed through the sides at the time and it was literally like a 10-page monologue nearly. It was like, “First of all, no, and second of all, no freakin’ way. This isn’t really what I wanna do anyway.” I was doing great in school. I had a ton of projects going on and just was in a really phenomenal place creatively. So I blew it off. [Gering ultimately auditioned on tape and then had two screen tests.] I was like, “Do I wanna do this?” I was very conflicted, to be honest with you. But being that I had invested a lot in it, just the time of it and going out to L.A., and then I was like, “This could actually be really cool because they’d pay me at least to fly out to L.A. if I got the job” — which is where I knew I needed to be anyway from a film standpoint — “and then I’d probably get fired, so whatever.” So I go back to do the second screen test, and … I think this was like the week before like the end of the semester. Like it was like insane how I was trying to keep my head aboveground and do this. So I get on the plane, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a guy going out to do his second screen test. His name’s James Hyde [ex-Sam, PASSIONS]. And James Hyde was the guy who I had had in one of my student films. He had been in New York doing ANOTHER WORLD and then he got let go from that. He was on that for like six months. He was kind of the person who I was like, “Oh, you did the show for six months and then got fired, that’s what’ll happen to me if I do the show PASSIONS.” Like worst-case scenario, right? So anyway, I see him on the plane and so now I was like, “Oh, my God, this is like serendipitous. What’s gonna happen?” … And so during this final test, I was doing chemistry reads with McKenzie Westmore [ex-Sheridan] and with Ben Masters [ex-Julian]. So I did it with McKenzie and it was great…. And then I had this scene with Ben Masters, who by the way, was just like such a tremendous actor, and so the scene with her was obviously like a romantic comedy, but just like a little back-and-forth. But the one with Ben Masters was like a real power scene and he was just destroying me so much in the test that I didn’t even know what the hell was going on and I kept messing up. I must have messed up like four times. He totally Julian Crane’d me! Not in a bad way, but I was like, “What is happening?” So I was like, “Well, I didn’t get that show. Whatever.” So I went back to Florida and … then it was like literally another week before I found out I booked it. It was literally like the day before I graduated. I got up on stage and walked with my cap and gown and then got offstage and then [wife] Jenna took me to the airport pretty much directly from the commencement and we started filming in Ventura like a day later. It was crazy.
Digest: Did you know you were going to have scenes with an orangutan? Did you know there was a witch and a doll?
Gering: Um, no, in short. I had no friggin’ idea. I think that would’ve made it more interesting. They had said it was going to be cloaked in some supernatural … I’m like, “What? What are we even talking about?” I knew there was a doll coming to life and that there was a witch, but my story was really driving this more romantic story, certainly, to begin with than it was intertwined with the witchcraft story. I don’t wanna say they were like different threads ’cause they were all tied together —
Digest: Yeah, but they all existed in the same world, but you were part of the more grounded part of the canvas.
Gering: I always wanted more like crazy, campy stuff, at least as far as the witchcraft and all of those things were concerned. I mean, I don’t know about the whole orangutan thing. It was challenging.
Digest: Now obviously Luis and Sheridan were such a huge couple on that show and had so many passionate fans. What was it like for you to be in a pairing that made such a difference to the audience?
Gering: You know, it was something that didn’t dawn on me, actually, because we didn’t have the Internet, we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have mobile phones; like, none of the ways that we are able to engage with fans. People [now] get this incredible immediate feedback that didn’t exist, so there started to be a significant amount of fan mail that was coming in, but it didn’t hit me until they flew us to Rockefeller Center, McKenzie and I, for a signing, which was our first signing, and we walked into Rockefeller Center in a part of this atrium area that goes like three floors up and there were thousands of people there. It was insane! They attacked our car when we left. McKenzie and I were like, “Oh, my God, what is happening?” It was mind-blowing. And that was when we started to go, “Wait, we’re part of something special. This is way bigger than we ever thought it was gonna be.”
Digest: Who from PASSIONS have you stayed in touch with?
Gering: A lot of people, actually. I stay in touch with James, Travis [Schuldt, ex-Ethan], Natalie Zea [ex-Gwen], Eric Martsolf [ex-Ethan; Brady, DAYS], Lindsay Hartley [ex-Theresa]. And then we had that PASSIONS reunion like six months ago or something, whenever that was. And oddly enough, Kim Ulrich [ex-Ivy] lives just around the corner from me, which is super-funny. I see her and her husband, Robert, sometimes. He walks around late at night and talks on the phone or talks to himself or something. I’ll be out in the yard and I’ll hear him talking. It’s hilarious. And also Travis and Natalie moved out by me also. That’s pretty much the crew.
Digest: How did you wind up in Salem?
Gering: So Gary Tomlin, who was one of the directors at PASSIONS, got hired over here at DAYS and he subsequently brought Eric and myself over. Corday had no idea who we were, so we both had to go in and test. They offered us the job. And they also brought in Lindsay Hartley for a while, too.
Digest: Was it fun to have people you had worked with on PASSIONS on DAYS?
Gering: Yeah. I will say, however, when Eric and I both came in, we were very nervous because there were a lot of people at DAYS who were like, “Okay, just so we’re clear” — and being that Gary was here, too, like I think that the actors, they had looked at PASSIONS as being this campy, outrageous show that it was and were, I think, worried that DAYS was gonna become that and potentially lead to its demise subsequently of changing the tone or whatever. Everyone was super-welcoming and maybe we were just putting that on ourselves. You have that emotional thing when you’re coming in like, “Oh, does everyone think we’re trying to make it PASSIONS now?” You know what I mean? But obviously that wasn’t the case, and we’re still here.
Digest: You played a dual role. Tell us about that.
Gering: That’s sort of like the harbinger of like have you made it in daytime if you get to play a dual role, right?
Digest: You haven’t been presumed dead yet as far as I know.
Gering: Almost. Certainly been on the edge, that’s for sure. But I will say this, with the dual roles, boy they are hard. You end up playing not only that character, but you end up playing that character trying to play the other character, which had happened. So when the good Rafe found out there was a bad Rafe, he then had to play the good Rafe playing the bad Rafe at one point in time — that was like, tricky. And then God, the amount of material with dual roles, you obviously have a big storyline and you gotta double it. Super-fun. Super-demanding. God, I enjoyed playing that character. He was just a blast and such a departure for me playing the altruistic, heroic character, to just play a full-on dirt ball with no filter who just does what he wants when he wants is so fun. And I remember people like Lauren Koslow [Kate] were just like, “Can we just bring him back? He was way cooler.” I was like, “Thank you, I think?”
Digest: You’re a very funny person and you don’t see that with Rafe.
Gering: Right. Could you imagine if you were like, “Ugh, I wish you were funny like Rafe.” That’d be depressing.
Digest: I don’t know that anyone would ever say that.
Gering: I try and bring some fun and light moments and it’s hard to when people are dying, investigating murders or trying to beat people up.
