Y&R: Shocking Role Recast

[MarkH]

Honestly, that sounds to me like the BEST STORYLINE EVER! How twisted! How devious! That is the kind of villain we crave on daytime!

Be honest...sick and perverse and weird and edge of your seats. You can never predict what a dude like that will do next, and that makes you tune in tomorrow.

Now, "sick and twisted" is NOT what I imagined for Adam. I imagined Adam would eventually rise to greatness, with the strength of his father but the soul of his mother. Alas. Not be be.

So, I've given up that vision of Adam, and I'm now sitting back and enjoying the much more twisted one the writers are giving me.

===

I realized the moment at which Adam switched.

It was that Youtube video Kennylicious shared with us...where Victor was in prison telling Adam to man up and act like Victor's son.

Engen showed his inability to cry or play appropriate emotions.

But, THAT SCENE SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE DEFINING MOMENT. That scene should have showed us that the last fragile threads of Adam's decent Hope-soul had been burned off by Victor's ire...and left behind was the burnt hardened flesh of his Newman soul.

We should have seen, in that instant, in a Faustian way, Adam chose the dark path. Kind of like Anakin chose to become Lord Vader.

But we never SAW that choice. I don't know if it wasn't scripted, or if Engen didn't play it right. Probably both. But I think Muhney might be able to better show us that Adam has become Vader.

I can't wait.

[marceline]

No you didn't.

[Cashton]

[Cashton]

Hmmm.....wish she would

[alphanguy74]

Everyone, I had a discussion today with one of my closest friends about the Engen thing (he watches Y&R as well) and he thought Engen had EVERY RIGHT to refuse to kiss a man. He would never DREAM of kissing another man in public like I do. I told him that we have every right to be ourselves just like straight people, and people don't have the right to act like wer'e beneath them. He said if making us feel like crap or calling us names is ALL people do to us, wer'e LUCKY. I've tried many times to get him to not be ashamed of who he is, but it's very hard considering his mother is a Jehovah Witness and put him through electric shock therapy when he was 8 years old because he acted too "girly". Since he's black, he embraces "black pride" like a dying man to a life preserver, and I know why, because he hates every OTHER part of himself. And the idea of kissing a man being so reprehensible that you are willing to quit your job over it, just perpetuates this idea that we are somehow less than everybody else. I suppose those ideas are a product of your upbrigning, because I have a mother who drillied it into me to not give a sh!t about what other people think and gave me unconditional love.... therefore I love MYSELF. And it's too bad that people like Engen have to do crap that perpetuates this to the next generation, what is his son gonna think about gay people, if his SON was gay, how will he feel about HIMSELF? It's really damn sad. As far as Y&R... I say good riddance to bad rubbish, and bring on the TALENT.

[rhinohide]

I don't interpret it. He didn't say I refuse to kiss a man because I don't feel it's right on many levels. I have no idea to what he refers specifically, hence the remark is too vague for me to assign specific motives to it.

Again, I do not see where in his blog he defended intolerance. In fact, I thought he said just the opposite.

[alphanguy74]

Exactly, too vague to assign specific motives, how CONVENIENT for HIM and his CAREER. I'm an ozark farm boy, and as you know by now, say it out plain and striaght. I hate mealy mouthed pussyfooters, and boy was that blog post FULL of it!

[rhinohide]

I doubt he considers anything about this entire situation convenient, and he astutely observed that there is little he can say that will not incite further condemnation. He seemed more concerned that people not blame his high school or the Catholic church for his actions.

[Errol]

One more thing I will say. Despite the Gay issue that is the center of this firestorm, Engen is expected to play some downright evil scenes in the coming weeks before Muhney takes over as Adam. If I were an actor, I don't know if I could do them.

Yes, you signed a contract and you are expected to do what the character is doing as written, but there are times you can't do it. If you were told that your character was going to eat dog poop, and they had you eat something that looked like poop and smelled like poop, but wasn't poop, to up the ante of the drama...I couldn't do it.

It's almost as if as an actor, you are expected to defame yourself in public for the benefit of others.

A few weeks ago on Ugly Betty, Daniel Meade wore a bunny suit in order to secure finances for Meade Publications. If I were Eric Mabius and I had to act like a successful business man, who is forced to wear a bunny suit and hop in front of a soundstage full of kids and co-workers, I couldn't do it. Nothing is worth that amount of humiliation.

[cara mia]

Engen's statement is vague but if he is a closet homophobe, I get the sense that's he's not proud of that fact at all and wants to be a someone who is not. Life is a journey, and we all evolve. His "I have gay friends" shpiel indicates sympathy for gays but perhaps he has not yet developed empathy for gays. I believe that as an intelligent and well-intentioned person he eventually will. It appears that his limitation as an actor is that he feels he cannot play what he cannot empathize with.

I don't think it was about the kiss, or that was just the tipping point. I think it was about Adam's descent into sadism and how that began to eat at CE.

This question of sympathy vs. empathy goes back to his process as an actor. There are MANY processes that actors employ. Some actors can absolutely leave their characters on the set and forget it about when they get home. George Clooney & Brad Pitt are famous for joking around and having a good time during shoots. But some actors live with their characters. They obsess over them. Denzel Washington gave up pork and liquor to play Malcolm X. Daniel Day Lewis is infamous for becoming his characters 24/7. Any actor's process is not inherently good or bad. It's just your process. If CE were playing Adam for a film with a finite 6 week shoot, he may very well have been fine. Soaps are not like that though. You are playing the same person day in day out for and sometimes for years. Adam was becoming increasingly sadistic & demonic while at the same time, none of his victims, particularly Ashley, are displaying any heroic qualities. It's easy to see how CE could have felt the whole storyline was an exercise in sadism, akin to American Psycho (let's not forget all the firestorm that engendered). If CE's process is to live with his character, one can understand why it became too much for him.

So one could say, well obviously CE shouldn't play the part. Which is fine. One of the really irritating things about all of this is that CE was pulling it off as an actor even though he clearly thought he was not. But the REASON the part works so well (IMO) is because CE took it so damn personally. His attempt to ground Adam in some reality and not have him read as a DAYS character is why this version of Adam is so damn compelling. CE puts a lot of himself in his work, and perhaps too much, and perhaps he needs to learn how to balance that. All I know is that while CE has made mistakes as Adam, he has many great moments under his belt and he is currently acting his conflicted ass off. Can you name ONE great moment from Eva Marcille, Clementine Ford, Christel Khalil, Tammin Sursok, Vail Bloom (outside of her work with CE), in the last year? Even Greg Rikaart, normally amazing, was off in the chipmunk story. Even he couldn't find the truth in that. Judging by what is on my screen, I see an actor who put much more thought & effort into a role than many of peers put into theirs.

[rhinohide]

Thank you Errol. I was actually thinking of Heath Ledger and his role as the Joker and some of the things he said about playing that role and the dark place it took him. Sometimes it's not worth it.

[MarkH]

This is the spoiler thread, no?

Spill 'em please, sir.

[MarkH]

Yes, SteveFrame has talked about Beaty. I mean there is no question these roles can mess with their heads.

[Vee]

Errol, while I respect your bunny suit qualm, I'm a little upset by the comparison between say, bunny suit, dog feces, the Joker, and having to play gay or quasi-gay. I mean, a lot of straight actors have played gay with none of this five-star ***DRAMA.*** What exactly is defaming him here?

[DeeeDee]

:lol: :lol:

...You expected any less?