Scene and Heard

Revisiting the Tony/Renee dynamic with Linsey Godfrey, whose Sarah wrongly believes she’s Tony’s late love, has been an interesting plot twist for Thaao Penghlis (Tony). “I love the dynamics that happen between her and I, and I really like working with her,” says Penghlis. “She does a lovely job. She is very real. There was no manufacturing in the situation. She doesn’t play it where you see an actor’s tools coming through.” And in some ways Godfrey grasped the late Philece Sampler’s (ex-Renee) take on the character. “Both of them have a wonderful way of elaborating through their manners,” notes Penghlis. “They knew how to dominate a scene just by the way they created the persona.” Another perk of the story has been the chance for Penghlis to share scenes with Suzanne Rogers (Maggie). “She is lovely and a lovely actress,” he praises. “She’s a pro, like Dee [Hall, Marlena]. They come in and they’re solid. That’s wonderful in an age where quickness is the art of the game. Suzanne got all emotional one day. She turned around and said, ‘I love working with these two,’ meaning Leann [Hunley, Anna] and myself. I was like, ‘Oh, my God! It takes me back to the days of old.’ ”

Rory Gibson (Noah, Y&R) encountered some helpful people on his path to becoming an actor. “I had just started acting in September of 2016 and I had no agent, when I auditioned for a Lifetime gig,” he recounts. “I didn’t know what I was doing and went in with no script or even a headshot.” The reading didn’t go so well. “I was auditioning for four guys, but I dropped the line like 10 seconds in,” Gibson groans. “I had to shamefully admit that I didn’t bring my sides and they told me to just remember what I could, and still I was forgetting every few seconds. I was sweating and so embarrassed, but at no point were these guys mean or upset with me, they just tried to work with me until I finally got the entire thing down. I knew there was no way I was getting cast in this, but they were so patient and nice.” Gibson was shocked when the casting director asked him to wait. “I thought, ‘He’s going to rip me a new one,’ ” he shares. “Instead he said, ‘I want to help you out,’ and got me a meeting with a pretty big manager. My worst experience turned out to be one of my best.”  

GH’s Gladys has been known to rub son Brando, daughter-in-law Sasha and co-worker Brook Lynn the wrong way, but her portrayer, Bonnie Burroughs, gets along swimmingly with the actors who play them. “Johnny [Wactor, Brando] and I have become good buddies,” she reports. “He’s such a sweetheart, part of which I attribute to his Southern heritage. He’s from South Carolina and I’m from Georgia, so we sort of share a little bit of that stuff. And Sofia [Mattsson, Sasha], similarly, I just love. She is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. At one point, with her real pregnancy, I think I said to her, as I’m sure people have to said to her her entire life, ‘You are so gorgeous!’ And then I thought, ‘I’ve got to stop saying that. This poor woman. It probably almost feels like an assault to her!’ But it’s true! She is just one of those women who is just on another level. And I can’t say enough about Amanda Setton [Brook Lynn], another one who also happens to be gorgeous, funny, and an extremely generous and kind soul.”

Jason George (ex-Michael, SUNSET BEACH) has one role that was always very special to him. “Still, to this day, one of my favorite projects was this show with John Ridley, who I knew was going to win an award one day [and did for Best Adapted Screenplay] for 12 Years A Slave,” George shares. “He did this thing that was like The Godfather, set in the world of hip hop, called PLATINUM [in 2003]. I was basically the Al Pacino character, the Michael Corleone character, and I loved it. It was something I really wanted to watch, let alone be in, and we did not get picked up for a second season. It was funny because I remember we literally had just gotten back from shooting in Toronto and my wife was saying, ‘I think we’re ready to have kids. I want to have a baby,’ and I said, ‘Baby, I just lost the best job of my life. You’ve got to give me a second [laughs].’ But, it all worked out.”