SPY GAMES: While B&B’s Nicole was busy supporting Zende’s burgeoning design career in Paris, Reign Edwards made the most of her time away from the soap by moonlighting on a three-episode arc on the CBS reboot, MACGYVER. There, she played an ambitious operative-in-training — and a potential love interest for the title character’s best buddy. “I got to do a lot of my own stunts, so that was awesome,” she relays. Edwards states that as much as she loves playing Nicole, “I go out for different things all the time, so it wasn’t that challenging to get out of the Nicole mindset because they’re such different characters. It was really fun to do something so different, and it was a really great crew and cast on that show. Everyone was really warm and welcoming.” Rumor has it that the MACGYVER role could become recurring. Would Edwards be up to the task of juggling both shows? “I’m always down,” she smiles. “I’m an actress! I love working on different things. We’ll see what the future holds.”
BEGINNER’S LUCK: “I always say, I never even had one good audition in my whole life,” chuckles Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie, GH), who didn’t have to try out for her Port Charles part or the soap gigs that preceded it. “I started off on EDGE OF NIGHT,” she explains. “I did two shows with Dixie Carter [ex-Brandy] and Tony Craig [ex-Draper], playing a flight attendant for a few scenes, and that was just offered to me. Then I was called in do an under-five on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, a scene in the restaurant [Tony’s Place] where I’m walking by in a white shirt and a short, black miniskirt and someone patted me on the butt or something as I walked by, and the line was something like, ‘Don’t do that!’ I made it a big moment on the show, and I guess they saw it and went, ‘Oh, that was good,’ and so I got called back in for another time, as a day player with a few lines, and then they offered me a contract as Lana. Doris [Quinlan] was the producer and she said, ‘I’d like to offer you a contract on the show, the network likes you, I like you, we think you’re a good actress.’ Everyone says, ‘Oh, you’re an actor, you’ve got to audition,’ and I say, ‘Well, I don’t really know a whole lot about that!’ ”
REMEMBER YOUR FIRST: Louise Sorel (Vivian, DAYS) has very fond memories of her first soap role, SANTA BARBARA’s Augusta Lockridge. “I had never done a soap or never seen a soap, so when I went up for SANTA BARBARA, people were like, ‘You’re not going to do that are you?’ ” she recalls. “And I said, ‘I don’t know what it is, but I hear you work every day.’ So, what I found and never found again was on SANTA BARBARA. It was really classy and really good actors. Dame Judith Anderson [ex-Minx], Robin Wright [ex-Kelly], Nic [Coster, ex-Lionel], Lane Davies [ex-Mason], Nancy [Lee Grahn, ex-Julia; Alexis, GH]. Back in the day, we were allowed to improvise and bring things in. We didn’t take lunch hour. We would meet and then improvise and then bring it to the director. The Dobsons [Bridget and Jerome, creators] were very creative. There was more time, more money. We would figure out the problems and redo stuff so it worked. That was my favorite time in the work process, when I was on SANTA BARBARA. It was loose because the inmates took over the asylum!”
BROOD AWAKENING: Christel Khalil (Lily, Y&R) admits to being surprised when she discovered that her young soap twins, Charlie and Mattie, were being hyper-aged to teens. “It was odd to try and imagine playing a mom to 16-year-olds and that the actors would most likely be over 18 in real life,” the actress explains. “However, there was a big part of me that was happy because it meant the writers really believe in the Ashby family unit and wanted to explore more storylines with them. So, that just meant that there was going to be more for me to play and that was definitely a good thing.” Khalil was quite pleased with the audition process that ultimately brought Noah Alexander Gerry and Lexie Stevenson to the roles of Charlie and Mattie. “The show did a great job with casting,” Khalil trills. “I read with all the boys, so I read with Noah and I did recognize there was something special about him. I didn’t read with the girls, but they were all brought in to stand next to me because we wanted to see who could pass as the youngest. Lexie definitely looks young and the other girl, who came close, [seemed] a lot more mature. Now, I just love Noah and Lexie. Even though it may seem a little strange physically that I’m their [on-screen] mother, it still feels very natural as far as their personalities.”