Nathan Fillion Recalls Michael E. Knight’s Soap Acting Advice: ‘Make Three Faces’
The Rookie star Nathan Fillion launched his television career on One Life to Live, where from 1994-97 he played Joey Buchanan, Viki Lord’s (Erika Slezak) youngest son. Chatting with host Andy Cohen on the Watch What Happens Live after show, Fillion reflected on the key acting lesson he learned while at OLTL from daytime legend Michael E. Knight (Martin, General Hospital).
Michael E. Knight’s ‘Three Faces’ Rule for Soap Acting
“There are very few soap operas left,” lamented Fillion to Cohen when talk turned to his days on OLTL, which earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1996 for Outstanding Younger Actor. The show went off the air in 2012, shortly after the cancellations of other long-running soaps like Guiding Light (1952-2009), As the World Turns (1956-2010) and AMC (1970-2011). “I was in it just as they were starting to decline.”
Fillion said that as a novice TV performer, “I learned one very important thing” that helped him master soap acting. Turning to fellow guest Geena Davis, he noted, “We were talking about that slow closeup at the end of a scene,” also known as the tag. “A lovely man named Michael Knight from All My Children [at the time, he was playing his Daytime Emmy-winning role of Tad Martin], I complained about how long that closeup was, like, ‘What am I supposed to do?’
“He said, ‘You need to make three faces,” Fillion continued. He then proceeded to demonstrate the expressions as he explained Knight’s advice. “They are: ‘Did I leave the stove on?’ ‘I did leave the stove on!’ ‘No, I turned the stove off.’ Works for every scene!”
In 2018, Fillion spoke to Soap Opera Digest about the impact his OLTL experience had on his future career, which has spanned prime-time hits like Castle and Modern Family and major motion pictures like Saving Private Ryan and Serenity. “Oh, my gosh, One Life to Live was so important to me for so many reasons,” he said. “If there is any kind of intense training for acting, daytime drama is what that is. You make a 44-minute program every day of the week, sometimes more than that. It’s a lot to do, and it’s hard work. By the end of it, you are ready to attack anything.”
Fillion added in his Digest interview that his years playing Joey continue to influence his life both professionally and personally. “Not a day goes by in this career of mine where I don’t use something I learned on the soap in front of or behind the camera,” he mused. “It has been the most valuable experience of my career [and] a lot of people I became friends with on that show, I’m still friends with to this day.”
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