Judith Chapman (Diana, DAYS)
“When I started on AS THE WORLD TURNS years ago [as Natalie], I was so young and so green. I remember there was a camera on me. As I was saying good-bye in a scene with Bob Hughes, the camera panned up. All of a sudden, I realized my purse was on the floor. I bent down to pick it up and slipped out of the frame. Then I stood up, and all of a sudden, my head popped back into the frame — like a jack-in-the-box. I was teased relentlessly about that and learned you don’t step out of frame to get your purse.”
Courtney Hope
(Sally, B&B)
“I learned when I was on a different show — this is not B&B. When I did guest-starring roles early on, I was very fortunate to have a lot of the leads be very generous and want to run lines. I learned on a couple of sets, after being very young and having that good experience, that is not always the case. I learned you should just expect to go on, do your thing and go home, because some of those leads on some of those shows are not very nice and don’t want to have anything to do with you. It’s totally the opposite of that here, and I’m so grateful for that!”
Eden McCoy (Josslyn, GH)
“I didn’t know what the director meant by ‘upstage’ and ‘downstage’ — it was so embarrassing! I would always move the wrong way because I was too ashamed to admit I didn’t know which way to move! Honestly, I still get it wrong sometimes. Also, to remember to take my personal jewelry off before I come on set! We have had to reshoot a scene or two because of that.”
Peter Bergman
(Jack, Y&R)
“I was in a party scene with Susan Lucci [ex-Erica, ALL MY CHILDREN], I had been on the show a short time [as Cliff], and I turned to her while the rehearsal was going on and said, ‘Hopefully, this isn’t going to take too long.’ And she said, ‘Oh, Cliff, I don’t think we’ll be here that long.’ She was in character the whole time and that reminded me, ‘Oh, yeah, I need to be in character while I’m here.’ It was a great lesson.”
Melissa Ordway (Abby, Y&R)
“I can’t just look at my lines the morning of. I managed to get through the scene but that was a lesson I learned the hard way.”
Darin Brooks
(Wyatt, B&B)
“I have learned that when
you are on set, work is work and personal is personal. Between action and cut, it’s strictly professional and after, it’s me doing my thing. I’ve never gotten into any kind of trouble. I always strive to be a consummate professional, but I have seen things happen to other people that don’t always end well because those lines get blurred, and seeing that happen with other people became a real learning experience
for me.”