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News for the week of 14-Apr-2014

by Carol Banks Weber

Laura Wright had a blast filming the 51st anniversary episode, featuring all three Carlys — Tamara Braun, Sarah Joy Brown, and herself. She actually didn’t get to hear about it until a week before filming. But when executive producer Frank Valentini told her offhandedly in a fitting, she got excited for the possibilities — as an actress and a fan. As the three Carlys, they supported one another 100 percent even when Wright found it a little disconcerting to have to play a through-line of anger with Sonny after each previous Carly’s walk down memory lane took them to another, lighter emotion. “We were all on set together,” Wright told On-Air On-Soaps’ Michael Fairman. “It was great being with them and so fun. It was great, especially for Tamara, because Sarah had already been back. Tamara was seeing people again she hadn’t seen in years! She was having a great time hugging everybody. I told Frank, I think this is so great … actors having jobs… I never think about that other stuff. I always think, the more the merrier.”

Wright is even cool with the Franco situation. It had to be done. Once the OLTL character of Todd Manning went off the table — due to Prospect Park’s issues — GH’s PTB had to convert actor Roger Howarth into another character somehow. The way they did it was in the best interests of the show, Wright believed. “They came up with, as best they could, a character connected to people, and they connected him to Jason, and then they changed that and connected him to Scott (Kin Shriner) and Heather (Robin Mattson) which are rich in history,” Wright explained. “This is a character that allows Roger Howarth to do what everyone loves that he does, which is his shtick of sheer brilliance! And, they did the best they could at changing a story that really didn’t make sense anyway, so we could have a movie star (James Franco) run around and be weird! And, it’s not that James Franco wasn’t great! He was awesome, he was funny, he was kind, and he did a great job, but it didn’t really evolve our show, or really raise our ratings, but it gave us media attention. Then, they gave the role to Roger. I think that was a big deal. And if we want to be stuck in the past, and point a finger to that, we can, or we can move forward and tell fun story, and it really is that simple.”

She does believe, however, that the pairing of Carly and Franco compared to Carly with Todd hasn’t been as seamless. With Todd, Carly had time to get to know him and fall in love with him. Not so much with Howarth’s taking over Franco. Wright acknowledged that fans may have a hard time investing in this sudden new pairing. She sounded like she could totally see that too. “That is because you did not see the journey of them falling in love, or having a moment where she says, ‘I don’t know if I can be with you,’ because then Franco pulls Michael out of the water, and then Franco got laid! (Laughs) And that is great too, but it happened very soon after that saving Michael moment. I don’t know what Frank and Ron’s timing on certain stories is. I don’t know if they had something they had to get done in two weeks, because we have sweeps we have to worry about, people going on vacation, Nurses Ball, the anniversary, and so on.”

Regardless, Laura Wright is the kind of actress who will do whatever it takes to make her character and her show outstanding. The Emmy-winning actress was able to find a few reels to submit for best “Leading Actress” that were off the beaten path. Instead of going with the Sturm und Drang of the usual chest-beating, garment-rending scenes, Wright went with something quiet and moving (which earned her the 2011 win, so go with what works, girl!). For the final pre-nom round, she bypassed the emotional scene of Carly “trying to talk Sonny down” after he went off his meds, for the one where she expresses profound disappointment with Todd in jail (“I did not want to die, because I did not want to not see your face again”). “I didn’t want to submit a show where I yell and scream at Sonny for five scenes,” she explained. “It’s great when I get to submit one scene of that, because it gave a contrast, but if I am going to submit a whole show, I want it to be something that I was really proud of, and that I was really present and in the moment, and worked really hard on … and not that I don’t have that with Maurice, but Roger and I worked really hard on the pairing of Carly and Todd, and the downfall. So, I decided in the end to go with that.”

At the tail-end of that Michael Fairman interview, Wright revealed that she had a major hand in selecting the SORAS’d Morgan in Bryan Craig. He was her final pick. “I said, ‘You know what? First of all, I think he was the best actor. But visually, he has light eyes like me, and he is tan and has dark hair like Sonny.’”

The GH casting department needs the right child actress to pull off a rebel with a heart of gold. Must have blonde-light-brown hair for the recurring part with “a substantial” amount of dialogue.

Gossip for the week of 14-Apr-2014

by Carol Banks Weber

GH’s casting department just sent out feelers for a rebellious, eight-year-old girl with blonde or light-brown hair. Sounds like Jocelyn to me.

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