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More From Maura And Michael

Soap Opera Digest: Let’s talk about your best and worst qualities.
Michael Park: Yeah, let’s do it. This is gonna be interesting.
Maura West: Go ahead.
Park: She’s going to ask you first, and then I’m going to retort.Digest (to West): Do you want to go first?
West: No.
Park: That’s bulls–t. Let’s make a deal: I’ll make the worst qualities funny. Or attempt to. Let’s go.

Digest: Okay, what are her best and worst qualities?
Park: You aren’t going to ask me any questions?
West: She just did.
Park: I already gave you the best.

West: Yeah, we don’t have to answer that. We already know.
Park: There aren’t any “worst” qualities about Mojo.
West: Oh, God, of course there are.
Park: How about this: You don’t want to interview her right after a nap? Digest: If one of you left, would the other stay?
Park: Do we have to have this conversation? Because I don’t want to talk about that.Digest: Okay.
Park: It’s sad to even think about.
West: It is really sad.

Park: But like I’ve said, I think Maura is bigger than daytime. So if anyone was to leave, it would be her.Digest: Would you stay?
West: Of course, he’d stay. I’d stay.
Park: I have three kids, so I’ve got
responsibility.Digest: What do you think of their relationship right now?
West: I like it.

Park: I like that Jack has accepted the fact that Carly is not always going to tell him the truth and that he’s going to have to dig it out of her. And that Carly, in the same respect, tells an untruth and in the next scene she’ll come clean in the same episode, as opposed to it dragging out and her getting in trouble. Although that is what happened with Iris bribing her. But that wasn’t a big breakup. This was, “You should have told me.”Digest: He was a little dramatic with the whole “making my peace with God” speech.
Park: Oh, my God! But that wasn’t me! You can’t change that.

West: When did you have to make your peace with God?
Park: Remember when I had to sign the thing?Digest: He was “signing away his
integrity.”

Park: “… And I’ll find a way to make my peace with God.” There was nothing to do but say what’s on the page. And then she asks if he can forgive her. “God help me, Carly, I love you too much not to.” What are you gonna do? Those are little challenges that you have to try to make work. Clearly, I didn’t that day [laughs].Digest: Some people still haven’t forgiven Jack for the Julia thing and wanted Carly to kick him out.
Park: They still do?
West: See, what I think is interesting about that is that had it been different … You’re talking about people who want Carly and Jack to be together, but I don’t think it’s necessarily that they have to be ‘happy happy’ every day. I think it’s that they agree with Maura that Amnesia Jack was a jerk. If a couple were forced apart in different sorts of circumstances, then I’m not sure that the audience wouldn’t want to see that struggle back together. But it’s the reasons why they’re separated that I think are the issue.

Park: But I had to find a way to justify everything that Amnesia Jack did, so I can’t say that he was a jerk. He might have been in some people’s eyes, and I apologize for that.Digest: Why should you have to apologize? You didn’t write it.
Park: I apologize that they feel that way. But in the same sense, you’ve got to justify what you do or you’re going to go absolutely crazy trying to figure it out day to day. You’ve got to just give in and find a way to make peace with God for doing it [laughs].Digest: I think Amnesia Jack should have been around for longer and Carly should have washed her hands of him.
West: That would have been a good opportunity to do that, and then you have him suddenly remembering but she’s already gone.Digest: But even without his memory, falling for her.
Park: But Sarah [Brown, Julia] was leaving.Digest: She could have left anyway.
West: As a matter of fact, you couldn’t have done that if Julia was still there.Digest: Do you ever feel a responsibility to the fans?
Park: I think we do. I hate saying that, but I think we definitely have a responsibility to the fans. The producers do as well, and they’re the ones calling the shots.
West: I’m just given a script every day. I have nothing to do with any responsibility. If someone feels responsibility, it’s not me because I have no power whatsoever about what words are in the script.
Park: But having said that, we do have some responsibility to the fans. I know that when we’re at the fan club luncheons…
West: That’s different. That’s not her question.

Park: But I understand what she’s
saying.
West: I don’t think you do.
Park: This conversation is over! Don’t ever talk to me like that in front of Jennifer!Digest: So do you want them to split up and move on?
Park: Yeah, but with who?

West: What do you mean, “Yeah”?

Park: See, that’s what I mean. Of course, you always want to try something different, but I don’t want to tick the fans off and I don’t want them to get bored with the same old, “Jack and Carly breaking up, Jack and Carly getting back together, Jack and Carly breaking up, Jack and Carly getting together.”
West: In any genre of fiction, whether it’s a book or a movie or a TV show, prime-time, daytime … I personally always find it more interesting to watch or read about a couple foiled, trying to be together, hearts aching to be together. But when there’s a couple sitting in the living room folding the baby’s laundry and laughing about spit-up, it’s boring to me. Not that that’s what this is. It’s not. There’s still spicy stuff. And I also like the idea that you can tell a story about a married couple that is kind of real, like married people still have sex, they still argue and they’re still passionate about each other.
Park: But do married people have more sex on their couch than in their bed?
West: We don’t have a bedroom.
Park: Well, we do, but…
West: Remember that scene when you came in dressed like Santa?
Park: I know, that was kind of spooky.
West: That was creepy.

Park: So strange.Digest: Didn’t they get a bedroom recently?
Park: They’ve always had a bedroom, but that was the same bedroom that he was tied up in and tortured and stabbed and … stuff.(At some point, the conversation turns to Mike and Jack.)
Digest: Mike and Jack would…
Park: We’d be a great couple, wouldn’t we? Digest: Maybe they’re too much alike.
Park: I take offense to that. We’re not at all alike. We were going over the men that Carly could actually go for, but there aren’t many women that Jack could have a drunken night with and sleep with.
West: There are a lot of options.
Park: Who?
West: Emily!
Park: That would be very strange.Digest: They’ve been on a date before, too.
Park: It wasn’t even a date. That was when Stenbeck was around and they were in the Falcon Club.Digest: No, they got set up through a dating service or personal ads or something and met at Al’s.

Park: Really? Thanks for that history lesson.Digest: Who should Carly be with?
Park: Anybody.
West: I like to work with different people. I always like to come back around to my old standbys. I like Carly and Craig. Anybody!

Park: But recently I had some scenes with Henry and Mike and Katie and those guys, and she’s right: It’s a lot of fun working with a bunch of different people, but it’s always nice to come home at the end of the day.Digest: What do you never want to see them go through again?
West: Amnesia Jack.

Digest: What about Amnesia Carly?
West: Yeah, I would like to have amnesia.
Park: There you go. Then everyone can be mad at you. But we have to find a way to break them up that’s plausible. A reasonable breakup so that we can move on and do a little something and work back together again. Jack and Carly are most interesting when they’re apart trying to fight for each other’s love. We’ve got to find a decent way to break them up again.
West: Or not [laughs]. Whatever the script says.
Park: But the fans probably won’t be happy about the whole breakup thing, or even hearing that I’m trying to break them up.
West: Michael, are you trying to break up with me?
Park: Listen, I think it’s over.

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