Scene and Heard
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Photo credit: ABC
Tamara Braun’s first day back at DAYS as Ava was a whirlwind. “With the new [Covid] protocols and everything, and having to deal with wardrobe and hair and makeup, we didn’t have enough time [before being called to set] to run lines,” she recalls. “The way we run lines now at DAYS is, we use an app to do video calls — if it works! Sometimes, especially in the first month, it was sketchy with the WiFi down there, getting it connected and all that. But when we can’t do that, we just call each other on our dressing room phones and run lines. Unfortunately, Jay Johnson [Philip], who is such a sweetheart, and I didn’t get a chance, because they were calling me to set while I was still in makeup! It was like, ‘Hello, on set, go for it!’ I didn’t even have time to look at my lines before I went up to set.” Time crunch aside, Braun says that working with Johnson has been a pleasure. “I think he is so interesting,” she raves. “Such an interesting actor! I guess we never worked together before, but I find his delivery so entertaining and I said to him the other day when we were running lines, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to stop watching you! I’m just enjoying you and you’re making me laugh — and Ava wouldn’t be laughing!’ I really do enjoy him. He’s a great human being.”
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Photo credit: JPI
Sasha Calle (Lola, Y&R) admits that adjusting to the safety measures at the studio because of Covid has been a disconcerting experience. “We have to wear face masks at all times, even for rehearsals, which took some adapting, and we take them off just before going in front of the camera,” explains the actress. “It’s definitely challenging. And you can’t even walk toward the other person in your scene because you have to still be 6 feet apart. Your instinct is to be near that person and hug them but you can’t, so it’s weird.” Not being able to congregate away from the set adds another layer of difficulty for rehearsing. “Before, we could meet in a dressing room or in the hall- way but not anymore,” she notes. “That makes it hard for running lines. You have a few minutes of that during block- ing but that’s not enough for me, so I started FaceTiming with people. It’s different but it gets the job done.”
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Photo credit: Instagram
Maurice Benard (Sonny, GH) has taken his passion for mental health advocacy to a new plat- form — YouTube, where he now posts his weekly “State of Mind” discussions, which occasionally feature co-stars like Kin Shriner (Scott) and Ingo Rademacher (Jax). “The history of how ‘State of Mind’ started is that one night I was in bed and I woke up with anxiety and I started filming myself with anxiety — and as I was doing that, I was watching a guy on TV going, ‘I can’t believe these Hollywood actors that film themselves and put themselves on social media [laughs]!’ Anyway, the next day, my friend Melissa said to me, ‘Why don’t you film yourself talking about mental health?’ I said, ‘I don’t know....’ But I did it; I talked about my life a little bit and put it [on Instagram] and it got a lot of views and people were into it. That was over a year ago now. The response ... I get emotional just talking about it. It’s amazing. One woman said, ‘It makes me feel like I’m not alone,’ so I kept doing it. But when Instagram took away my music, and then cut in half the amount of time I could film, I went to YouTube and put my wife [Paula] on — and my wife gets 125,000 views! I thought, ‘This is it. YouTube is where I’m going to be.’ I would prefer to have on people from the show who are [willing to talk about their mental health issues], but the problem is, nobody wants to talk about it! Kin was the first actor from GH I had on, and I knew he would be great because he has OCD. And he really was great, and it was good for me to learn about something I haven’t experienced.”
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Photo credit: JPI
B&B’s Aaron D. Spears (Justin) is hopeful that viewers will get to see a more casual side to Justin. “When Jennifer Gareis came back to play Donna, I was like, ‘Okay, possibly something’s going to happen,’ ” he recalls. “I thought, ‘Probably something’s going to pop,’ but it just never jumped off. I was like, ‘How can we be on the same set and not even say hi to each other, not flirt with each other, not a lunch or dinner or going to the movies? Nothing?’ It’s tricky because feel grateful and blessed that I’ve been working this long on the show but it’s hard to be in the house while [the annual Forrester] Thanksgiving dinner is being cooked and you never get a chance to sit down at that dinner table and have a meal with everybody. Of course, this year that didn’t happen anyway because of Covid, but in years past, it was hard to smile sometimes when you see the amount of turkey being served and you’re like, ‘I’m right here. I’m in the house. Hello? I smell the turkey [laughs]!’ Well, there’s always next year.”
Tamara Braun’s first day back at DAYS as Ava was a whirlwind. “With the new [Covid] protocols and everything, and having to deal with wardrobe and hair and makeup, we didn’t have enough time [before being called to set] to run lines,” she recalls. “The way we run lines now at DAYS is, we use an app to do video calls — if it works! Sometimes, especially in the first month, it was sketchy with the WiFi down there, getting it connected and all that. But when we can’t do that, we just call each other on our dressing room phones and run lines. Unfortunately, Jay Johnson [Philip], who is such a sweetheart, and I didn’t get a chance, because they were calling me to set while I was still in makeup! It was like, ‘Hello, on set, go for it!’ I didn’t even have time to look at my lines before I went up to set.” Time crunch aside, Braun says that working with Johnson has been a pleasure. “I think he is so interesting,” she raves. “Such an interesting actor! I guess we never worked together before, but I find his delivery so entertaining and I said to him the other day when we were running lines, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got to stop watching you! I’m just enjoying you and you’re making me laugh — and Ava wouldn’t be laughing!’ I really do enjoy him. He’s a great human being.”
Photo credit: ABC
Sasha Calle (Lola, Y&R) admits that adjusting to the safety measures at the studio because of Covid has been a disconcerting experience. “We have to wear face masks at all times, even for rehearsals, which took some adapting, and we take them off just before going in front of the camera,” explains the actress. “It’s definitely challenging. And you can’t even walk toward the other person in your scene because you have to still be 6 feet apart. Your instinct is to be near that person and hug them but you can’t, so it’s weird.” Not being able to congregate away from the set adds another layer of difficulty for rehearsing. “Before, we could meet in a dressing room or in the hall- way but not anymore,” she notes. “That makes it hard for running lines. You have a few minutes of that during block- ing but that’s not enough for me, so I started FaceTiming with people. It’s different but it gets the job done.”
Photo credit: JPI
Maurice Benard (Sonny, GH) has taken his passion for mental health advocacy to a new plat- form — YouTube, where he now posts his weekly “State of Mind” discussions, which occasionally feature co-stars like Kin Shriner (Scott) and Ingo Rademacher (Jax). “The history of how ‘State of Mind’ started is that one night I was in bed and I woke up with anxiety and I started filming myself with anxiety — and as I was doing that, I was watching a guy on TV going, ‘I can’t believe these Hollywood actors that film themselves and put themselves on social media [laughs]!’ Anyway, the next day, my friend Melissa said to me, ‘Why don’t you film yourself talking about mental health?’ I said, ‘I don’t know....’ But I did it; I talked about my life a little bit and put it [on Instagram] and it got a lot of views and people were into it. That was over a year ago now. The response ... I get emotional just talking about it. It’s amazing. One woman said, ‘It makes me feel like I’m not alone,’ so I kept doing it. But when Instagram took away my music, and then cut in half the amount of time I could film, I went to YouTube and put my wife [Paula] on — and my wife gets 125,000 views! I thought, ‘This is it. YouTube is where I’m going to be.’ I would prefer to have on people from the show who are [willing to talk about their mental health issues], but the problem is, nobody wants to talk about it! Kin was the first actor from GH I had on, and I knew he would be great because he has OCD. And he really was great, and it was good for me to learn about something I haven’t experienced.”
Photo credit: Instagram
B&B’s Aaron D. Spears (Justin) is hopeful that viewers will get to see a more casual side to Justin. “When Jennifer Gareis came back to play Donna, I was like, ‘Okay, possibly something’s going to happen,’ ” he recalls. “I thought, ‘Probably something’s going to pop,’ but it just never jumped off. I was like, ‘How can we be on the same set and not even say hi to each other, not flirt with each other, not a lunch or dinner or going to the movies? Nothing?’ It’s tricky because feel grateful and blessed that I’ve been working this long on the show but it’s hard to be in the house while [the annual Forrester] Thanksgiving dinner is being cooked and you never get a chance to sit down at that dinner table and have a meal with everybody. Of course, this year that didn’t happen anyway because of Covid, but in years past, it was hard to smile sometimes when you see the amount of turkey being served and you’re like, ‘I’m right here. I’m in the house. Hello? I smell the turkey [laughs]!’ Well, there’s always next year.”
Photo credit: JPI
