Life has come full circle for John Reilly. Setting foot on PASSIONS’ studio lot, as he comes to play the show’s menacing patriarch Alistair, is like stepping back in time for the veteran television actor. It was here on this storied lot in Los Angeles where Reilly worked in his first role — and many others — after venturing to California.
“GUNSMOKE was my first, my second was THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, the third was THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, and then LOU GRANT,” recalls Reilly wistfully. “I have a very soft spot in my heart for this lot, and it hasn’t changed.”
While the faces might be different, the spirit isn’t. PASSIONS’ cast and crew welcomed Reilly into the fold at the beginning of the year after the unexpected death of David Bailey last Thanksgiving. For Reilly, taking the gig was bittersweet — he was friends with Bailey and had previously tested for the role of Alistair. But being the professionals that they are, Reilly and the PASSIONS troupe soldiered on, and achieved a surprisingly smooth on-air transition. Much like Bailey, Reilly has won fans over quickly, and evokes great enthusiasm from them as the man they love to hate. “I’m having a terrific time here,” enthuses Reilly. “It’s a totally different atmosphere than anything I’ve ever encountered. The show itself is so bizarre and so interesting to play that I find myself jumping with joy with some of the situations they put me in. I had never seen the show, so it was a joyful surprise: ‘Wow, this guy is something else!’
“My perception of Alistair is that he just laughs at people because they’re all stupid,” continues Reilly. “He looks at them as if, ‘Why are you saying that? You dummy!’ Alistair gets a big kick out of the human condition,” explains Reilly, breaking into one of Alistair’s sadistic laughs. “I use that laugh during Halloween, actually. One year, I had this mask on, some little kid comes up to the house and I go, ‘Hello — hahahahahaha!’ and the poor kid cried! I went, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!’ and took the mask off. I was trying to be funny, but it didn’t come out that way!”
That’s okay, because now Reilly gets to play in the sandbox all day long without fear of scaring anyone — and do it in some great threads to boot. “Diana (Eden, PASSIONS’ costume designer) likes me, so I’ve got some great clothes,” says Reilly with a laugh. “She’s always finding something new for me — she makes me one of the best-dressed fellows around.”
A stylish wardrobe and the money to afford it are probably the only things Alistair has in common with Reilly’s last, and most memorable soap character, GENERAL HOSPITAL’s suave but shady superspy Sean Donely. Comparing his experiences on both shows, Reilly explains that “I was on GENERAL HOSPITAL for 11 years, and it was like a family. But I was here for four days and I was part of this family.”
PASSIONS’ stable production and writing regimes are something Reilly never enjoyed during his tenure at GH. “We’d always have to get adjusted to what [the new regime] was doing and saying, and they had to get adjusted to us, so it was always sort of tense.” But unlike taking over an established role on PASSIONS, Reilly originated his GH part. In fact, “I helped create Sean Donely with Gloria (Monty, GH’s former executive producer), so that was very nice. Back then, James E. Reilly (PASSIONS’ creator/head writer/executive producer) wrote on GENERAL HOSPITAL, and I always felt good when I knew James was writing my stuff, because when you said it, it made sense and it was always interesting.”
The character of Alistair affords Reilly some dimensions that Sean Donely didn’t. “To have all of these offspring: half-bastard sons, bastard grandsons, bastard granddaughters, half-this, half-that…and he’s attracted to anyone that moves a little sexy, you know. He doesn’t use Viagra — I said that in one of the scenes: ‘Who needs Viagra? I’m Alistair Crane!’ I knew that came from Jim!”
Alistair’s self-confidence is something Reilly shares (albeit on a more rational level), and it allowed him to abandon a successful business career in Chicago for “parts unknown” in New York and then California. “I used to go to these advanced acting classes that my friends [in Chicago] were in. I was saying to myself after about the sixth class, ‘If this is the advanced acting class, then this acting thing is a piece of cake.'”
Reilly’s break came when an exec from a top talent agency spotted him in a local play. “He came to my dressing room, gave me his card and said, ‘Now you could be a big fish in this little pond, or you can come to New York and swim with the sharks. Which is it?'” Reilly flew to New York, where the agent signed him immediately. One of Reilly’s most notable New York roles was his “turn” as Dan Stewart on AS THE WORLD TURNS, which was then taped live. “It was like being back on the stage,” he recalls. “There were no retakes. It was 5, 4, 3, 2, Bang! You’re on.”
Reilly signed onto ATWT in part because it was his mother’s favorite show. “I’d call her every once in a while and say, ‘Mom, how do you think I am doing?’ And she’d say, ‘Well, you look really good!’ She was so proud. It was a real thrill for her to see one of her sons on TV.”
Reilly’s professional life has a funny way of coming full circle. Not only is he now working on the same lot where he started in L.A., but as he took his first soap role for his mother, he took his GH role for his daughters. “They talked me into doing GENERAL HOSPITAL,” he confirms with a laugh. “They were like, ‘Dad, you have to do this! This is great!'” After years of doing episodic work on A-list prime-time series, the offer was too good to pass up. “I had two daughters from my first marriage, my wife Liz had two daughters, and we had a daughter of our own. So all of a sudden, you go, ‘Well, a steady job is a good thing to have.'”
Being the only male in an all-female household might sound daunting, but Reilly embraces it. Growing up in an all-male household, save for his mother, “made me very curious about females,” explains Reilly. “It made my heart beat faster, it was wonderful. I love all the females around me: my wife, my daughters, my stepdaughters, my granddaughter. You learn a lot. You see bits and pieces of it that you understand, but you’ll never figure the whole thing out, because they’re so far ahead of us, it’s ridiculous.” Maybe that’s why Reilly took two of his best-known roles at the behest of his mom and his daughters? “I guess I’m just a piece of clay to women,” says Reilly with a laugh that sounds more like charming lady-killer Sean Donely than scheming Alistair Crane. “They just mold me any way they want to.”
SIDEBAR: ACT YOUR AGE
The idea that Reilly could play Ben Masters’ (Julian) father was an extreme proposition, even by PASSIONS standards. So what did the two seasoned actors do to sell it? “We just looked at each other and laughed,” responds Reilly. “Because I don’t have gray hair like he does. But we play what is written. Ben’s great to work with. I had met him a couple times socially over the years, but I really didn’t know him until now, and we just hit it off.” As for the lack of a visual age difference, Reilly reasons that plastic surgery may play a part. “Being a billionaire, he could probably look 10 if he wanted to.”
