Looking Ahead
Soap Opera Digest: How did your Y&R gig come about?
Sylvia Browne: Lynn [Marie Latham, executive producer/head writer] was at one of my lectures and said, “I think Sylvia would be great for a little part on YOUNG AND RESTLESS.”Digest: Was it always playing yourself?
Browne: Oh, I have to play myself. I don’t know who else I could play.Digest: How did you do with learning your lines?
Browne: I used to be on the stage when I was younger, and I was also a school teacher for 18 years. I taught drama, but tomorrow I might as well be doing Our Town. I’ve got 16 pages of dialogue!Digest: How has your experience been so far?
Browne: I’ve been in television for 35 years and with a lot of crews, but they’re just wonderful here. You can tell they’re like a family. They all love each other and that’s really important. I’ve been places where I’ve gone, “Please, get me outta here!”Digest: Are you in Genoa City to help guide someone onto a certain path?
Browne: There’s a mystery and it’s something that Katherine is laboring with, which is very real because that’s why people call me. Psychiatrists can’t find it out and I get so many referrals. I work with 360 doctors and a lot of psychiatrists will call me and say, “Sylvia, is this really schizophrenia or is it paranormal?” I know there’s a lot of kinetic energy that people don’t understand. I will tell you, like I told Montel the other day, people are more apt to come out of the closet, as we say, and to talk to me about hearing voices. Ten years ago, people would hang you out.Digest: Do you feel Y&R captures what you do?
Browne: Yes, I think Lynn has really been kind about showing that I do regressions and that I’m not hokey and that I don’t carry a crystal ball. I think they have really done a very good job about making Sylvia, Sylvia.Digest: Had you seen Y&R before?
Browne: Not too many times. I work during the day because I’m doing readings and I don’t have time. I also travel and lecture a lot.Digest: What do you do to energize yourself?
Browne: I think that’s so stupid. People are always asking, “When do you take time for yourself?” When you die.Digest: You like to keep busy then.
Browne: Yes, I do. When people say, “I need time for myself,” I say, “Oh, shut up and do something for somebody else.”Digest: Do you think psychic awareness increased after 9/11?
Browne: Hell, no. I used to be on PEOPLE ARE TALKING for 10 years. I think it’s the advent of spirituality. I think we have come way up above ground on the spiritual movement. You don’t have to be Mormon, Catholic or Buddhist, spirituality is sort of an umbrella over all of us. I don’t care what you are, just believe in God. I think that makes it so much easier than all of the dogma.Digest: Is there something you haven’t accomplished that you would like to?
Browne: Yes, there’s two things I would like to do: I would like to have enough so I could build a home for the aged and also an orphanage for children. But I support seven churches and ministers, I have three organizations and 22 on staff and I’m the only moneymaker, so it’s kind of tough.Digest: So, do you have any predictions about who killed Carmen?
Browne: No. I don’t know anything about that.Digest: The publicity department here likes those kinds of answers.
Browne: I’m dealing with too many real ones right now. My book Insight, that was released about three months ago, follows up on the cases that I did with Montel; like when I found the ski mask rapist. Digest: What’s the most frequently asked question? “Will I meet someone special?
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Browne: That’s No. 1, but what’s fast on its tail, ‘Am I spiritually on track?’Digest: What’s your sense about Lynn Latham?
Browne: I think that she’s the best thing to happen to the show and I don’t have to suck up with her because I have enough work. I think she has brought life to it without being a dragon.Digest: How do you like Jeanne Cooper, who plays Katherine?
Browne: I already know Jeanne very well.
Digest: So you’re only here for three days?
Browne: Yes, but you don’t have to be psychic to know that they’re going to have to have me back because it leaves everything hanging.Digest: We predict that you’re up for that.
Browne: Oh, yeah.
Conversation
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