AMC: A New Interview

[AMCHistory]

I wanted to shared my latest interview with a past cast member of All My Children. Alexandra Daddario (ex-Laurie Lewis) opened up about her time at All My Children, considered to be one of the worst times for the show.

For the whole story, please check out the All My Children History Project: http://amchistory.powweb.com/

[Jonathan]

This was during a time I completely turned off the show. It was unrecognizable. Is she in any way related to Jean Dadario Burke?

ETA: Nevermind. They spell their names differently.

[leevo64]

Great interview! I always felt bad for the teens during that era, they got a really bad rap.

[AMCHistory]

No, she is not. That was one of the first questions I had asked just to get out of the way.

Some parts of the interview I like to save for future features.

[All My Shadows]

Count me in as one of the people who were close to tuning out during the early 2003 period. Horrible, horrible time for the show. That's why McTavish's return was almost miraculous for a couple of months.

Daddario seems like a nice girl in the interview. They could have done a lot with her character had she been gradually featured on the show, but it seemed like no time before JR and Laurie were running the show. Of that teen set, the only one I really, really liked was the delightful Amanda Seyfried as Joni. It's awesome to see her career grow with each month!

[detroitpiston]

Great interview! But this was around the time I started to turn AMC off.

[All My Shadows]

I took a look at some of the other interviews, and I have to say, TC Warner just seems awesome. Of course, I wasn't watching the show at that time, but I'm more intrigued with the character of Kelsey now than I've ever been. I want to see her crashing Noah and Julia's wedding!

[Kubla Khan]

Laurie was like the worst character...ever! I know Frons gets a lot of the blame for pushing the younger characters during that time (and he did mandate for 'younger characters' to be featured more), but Gordon Rayfield seriously loved that character...inexplicably. Alexandra talked about how she first came on the show as a dayplayer (JR's prom date). Gordon had written that breakdown and had an affinity for her right off the bat and suggested later that she come back in a recurring capacity. And of course, he took over and made it the freakin' JR and Laurie hour.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah Rayfield's characters were so shoehorned in there it was like "what not to do on soap operas 101". The whole abusive dad angle too, Brooke helping intervene withhim when she didn't even really knwo who he was, etc

[Vee]

It was the most unwatchable AMC I have ever seen.

[Adam]

As much as she damaged the show, Megan came and saved the day from that mess that was the last half of 2002 and first half of 2003.

[EricMontreal22]

Damn right--it's easy to forget now, and I do think AMC was heading in a better direction when Anna Casio (sp?) became co-headwriter, but the very week Megan was officially back was such a great change from the Rayfield stuff. her first episode back was a 4th of July one and suddenly we saw CORE families again--just small basic things that had been forgotten

[All My Shadows]

Shh....you don't want to get bashed for...you know...actually having a positive opinion dealing with Megan McTavish.

Every now and then, I look for this episode from late 2003 that I have on tape in which Tad comes home and finds then-nuJamie (Bruening) in the midst of a big old party, and so Tad and Joe clean it all up afterwards and talk about how Tad's going to have the same problems raising a teenage Jamie that Ruth and Joe had had raising a teenage Tad. It was a great episode! And if I'm not mistaken, Christmas 2003 was the last time the Martin home has been shown...

[EricMontreal22]

The Martin home *cries* Oh I'm already known on here for being more positive towards "McTrash" than most would like (and believe me I don't have blinders when it comes to her)

I actually remember that episode. Even when the show started to improve under Casio with Rayfield they still were sorely lacking when it came to families or havign new characters interact and connected--McT was smart to basically just refocus all that--somethign every soap scribe should know to do.

[R Sinclair]

The reason I feel like VOMITTING just a little bit when I see people keep saying McTravesty turned AMC around in 2003 -- is because it's true. Raping Bianca right off the bat turned this show around alright... turned it around into one of the most dark, the most depressing and the most miserable "soap escape" on ABC. Yeah, Rayfield's version sucked ass, but with the addition of Cascio, I was in no hurry for Megan to come in. After a kick ass May sweeps in 2003, I was optimistic to see what R&C would do... and then I had to spend my summer watching Bianca get raped, impregnated and become a dark and depressing character.

Back on topic, I didn't enjoy the Laurie character. I thought Doug Lewis was... weird. The storyline was written oddly, in my opinion. I know it was supposed to be this teenager forced into becoming an adult and taking care of her drunken father after her mother passed away, but it almost always came across incestuous. It would've worked better if Laurie came off as the parent and Doug was the impossible teenager -- but instead it just came off as Laurie the geisha girl frightened into pleasing her alcoholic father... in curious ways. Plus, she was too green to deliver a storyline like that. It also didn't help, in my opinion, that she spent her time with that horribly miscast (to put it nicely) Andrew Riddings.