SEEING DOUBLE
GH’s Genie Francis (Laura) says that shooting Laura and Kevin’s emotional reunion at Ferncliff with Ryan lurking in the background came with an added degree of difficulty, given that her leading man, Jon Lindstrom, was playing both male roles. “I’ve never worked in a split-screen situation before,” she explains. “I’d never done that and I was very thrown by it. I just couldn’t wrap my head around when are they really filming my side of it! What’s most interesting is that Jon is so completely different in both characters. When I had Kevin back in front of me, I was like, ‘I missed this! I missed this so much.’ But unfortunately, it was blind Kevin, so we still couldn’t look into each other’s eyes! It was hard when I had Ryan and was looking in his dead eyes. It’s fun for me in that it really feels like a different person to me. Kudos to Jon for being able to do that! It’s fun to watch him be Ryan.”
SLEEPING ON THE JOB
Pretending you’re in a comatose state wasn’t as easy as Y&R’s Sasha Calle expected when her character, Lola, was unresponsive for weeks. “Everybody was asking, ‘How does it feel to lay around and do nothing?’ but it was kind of difficult,” admits the actress. “I remember the first scenes of me being unconscious, Michael [Mealor, Kyle] had this big monologue. I closed my eyes but it was so crazy not to respond to him. When we’re acting, you play off of each other in a scene, so that day I was doing a ton of silly things in my head to not smile. On the first day, I kept repeating ‘peanut butter’ or silly songs in my head. I didn’t want to listen to Michael because he was sobbing on me and I couldn’t move or react.” Then Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki) offered some useful advice. “She asked, ‘So, how’s the coma?’ ” Calle recalls. “I told her that it isn’t as easy as it looks and she told me to just focus on my third eye and breathe. That really helped.” As for her on-screen brother, “Jason [Canela, Arturo] was something else,” Calle chuckles. “I would come in emotionally prepared and he would make me laugh with his funny faces and voices. I had to say, ‘Jason, I’m being serious. I’m in a coma!’ ”
NEW GIRL
Having once been the new kid on the block, B&B’s Annika Noelle (Hope) was happy to welcome Katrina Bowden (Flo) into the soap fold. “She is already an expert,” praises Noelle of her co-star. “She’s such a professional. Katrina shows up so prepared and so emotionally ready to go for each take. She has a lot of experience on many different projects. At first, the person guiding her through everything was Wayne Brady [Reese]. That’s who her initial scenes were with, so I am so excited to get the chance to work with her now and have scenes with her. It was so fun getting to play with her and hitting all the emotional beats that we’ve played so far. There’s a really fun dynamic as Hope and Flo get to know each other better, and I really enjoyed filming with her. Plus, I love talking to her about her dogs, and I live vicariously through her and her dogs, as well. She’s a sweetheart. I’m so happy she’s now become a part of the family.”
THE 90210 KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
He’s the head of the household on ABC’s hit sitcom THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT but from 1992-93, Michael Cudlitz was one of the gang in the country’s hottest zip code on BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, playing Steve’s (Ian Ziering) jock buddy, Tony. In a twist of fate, Cudlitz’s new gig takes him back to his prime-time soap days — literally. “My new show is shooting in the same space where we shot BEVERLY HILLS, 90210,” he marvels. “Taking it one step further, I was actually the construction coordinator on BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 when it started [in 1990], so I helped convert the warehouse that we shoot in into stages. Now, almost 30 years later, I’m right back where I started.” As for his 90210 experience, Cudlitz says he has nothing but good memories, and if asked to participate in the upcoming reboot, he’d be game. “Oh, yeah,” Cudlitz smiles. “I’d pop in and have fun. They were a great group of people, so I think that would be a blast.”