We Love Soaps interviews one of the all time underrated soap actresses, Anna Stuart (ex-Doctors, GH, AW, AMC). They're up to her tenure at AW.

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/anna-stuart-wls-interview-part-one.html

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/anna-stuart-wls-interview-part-two.html

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/anna-stuart-wls-interview-part-three.html

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/anna-stuart-wls-interview-part-four.html

Edited March 19, 201015 yr by CarlD2

Great interview!

I hope we get to hear from her mouth whether or not the rumors of Donna getting killed off were true and what she thought about playing Mary Smythe and if she'd ever revisit that role again.

I've read her comments on AW before, but I haven't seen her talk as much about some of her previous soap work, especially her temporary stint as Vanessa.

We Love Soaps: What was that like for you to walk into a roll that you knew was someone else’s and was going to be short term?

Anna Stuart: Absolutely terrifying. I remember one day in particular I had tremendous scenes. The character was integral to the whole show. It was a great character. I remember having all these very emotional scenes with my father played by Bill Roerick. I didn’t really know her, she wasn’t inside of me yet, I didn’t know who she was. I did a couple of scenes, came back to my dressing room, and had on this beautiful white pant suit with a white fox-throw. I sat there, looked at myself in the mirror, and I freaked. I just dissolved into tears. Sobbing, make-up running, dripping down onto this beautiful fox-throw, saying, “I don’t know who she is, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I fully expected them to knock on the door and fire me. And i had to get myself back together and go onto the studio floor and do these scenes. I was in a panic for a couple of weeks.

We Love Soaps: Why so much pressure for a role that was temporary?

Anna Stuart: When an actor, or at least certain actors, do not know who their complex characters are, and that actor cares about their work and cares about being truthful in the part, they want to do it justice. It’s not just about saying words and putting facial expressions with the words. That’s my bar, that’s my criteria for Anna. Not too long after I had a scene with another one of the bitchy characters. There was something in that scene that made me snap and say, “Ah! That’s who she is!” From that point on I had something to grab on. From then on I felt really good and was able to go forward.

You can see two clips of her as Vanessa here. Funnily enough, the woman who plays Diane Ballard, who gets into some spats here with Vanessa, went on to temporarily replace Anna Stuart as Donna for a few days in the early 90s.

Edited March 18, 201015 yr by CarlD2

This is a great read, there aren't enough in-depth interviews of her like this one. WLS is doing some great work. I wish I'd witnessed AS's entire tenure as Donna. I especially liked the part you clipped, the glamorous '80s must have been a fun time to be a soap star and I always love Paul Rauch anecdotes. She looks GREAT as Vanessa, I remember them writing in SOD that bringing her back to GL as Vanessa after AW was cancelled and MK left was such a "DUH!" move they should make. One thing that pisses me off about soaps is the amount of work they rely on the fan to do for his or herself, i.e., coming up with whatever reason why Mary Smythe wasn't banging down Greenlee's door weeks ago. She was great in that role, from what I understand, Mary seems to have been more like her early days as Donna. I HATED how they had Philece's Donna kiss Iris' ass when they were cut from the same cloth, something they never would have done if Anna was still in the role as she was more age-appropriate. Portraying Philece's Donna as a climber was just all wrong.

Edited March 18, 201015 yr by SFK

Seeing Anna as latter-day Vanessa would have been fascinating. By then all of Vanessa's edge was gone, she was very much a defeated woman, mostly thanks to Rauch's issues with older women, and with Maeve Kinkead in particular. Anna had some experience playing women who were poorly treated by the writers, and she might have brought some of the sarcasm and fun back. She has less of that steely reserve that Maeve had, even early on as Vanessa, but she would have been a good addition to GL. As she'd be a good addition to AMC now. I hope we can see her again. I think it's easy to underestimate how difficult it was for her to transition to AMC -- Mark Pinter, who I think is a fine actor, I was shocked at his poor performances as Roger Smythe.

I'd love to see more of her whole run as Donna, especially before they brought in Michael (I liked Michael sometimes but I loathed him during the time he was with Stacey Winthrop), and when DePriest showed up and made Donna into a broken victim. Donna as the completely bitchy socialite must have been delicious. I saw some of her scenes from 1983-1984 when she would sit around with Cecile and they would backbite the lower classes of Bay City. She worked very hard to break up her brother and Sally Frame, whom she saw as trash...and then she was horrified when Cecile swooped in and took Peter (and his money) for herself! Needless to say, that friendship was over, but it was great entertainment.

The writing often treated Donna as frivolous, for years and years, which is a shame, because when they put Donna in the spotlight, Anna always proved herself to be one of the show's best assets.

AMC needs to bring Mary Smythe back permanently, or at least give the character a regular recurring status.

Anna Stuart is one of those actresses that can sell any sh!t no matter how awful or ridiculous it is. It's sad that she never seems to get enough credit for her acting.

In part 4, Anna claims that JFP wanted to fire Robin Christopher from AW. That really surprised me and I find it very difficult to believe.

She also says she's close friends with JFP, which surprised me. But I know Anna and Linda Dano are BFF's, and Linda and JFP are obviously close too.

I find it hard to believe Jill wanted to fire Robin Christopher at AW too, given how close they've been on the ABC soaps.

Wanting to fire Robin Christopher, however, probably had less to do w/ firing Robin than w/ getting rid of Lorna and not "tying down" Felicia with grown children.

In part 4, Anna claims that JFP wanted to fire Robin Christopher from AW. That really surprised me and I find it very difficult to believe.

Isn't JFP the main reason Skye inexplicably showed up on OLTL and not AMC when RC was fired from AW?

Wanting to fire Robin Christopher, however, probably had less to do w/ firing Robin than w/ getting rid of Lorna and not "tying down" Felicia with grown children.

I can see that. And also keep in mind that as soon as Jill showed up at AW, she fired Christine Tucci, supposedly for little reason beyond showing the cast who was boss. I can see her initially being torn between firing Christine and firing Robin -- both Amanda and Lorna were stuck in storyline limbo at that time weren't they? Lorna did not get any real storyline until late 1995 when they started all that with John Bolger, which was a very JFP story, "Thank God I have this man to make me feel worthwhile."

Speaking of Anna, this is a fun clip:

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If game shows were this much fun these days and starred our favorite soap stars, I'd be all for them.

Edited March 19, 201015 yr by SFK

I have been a fan of Anna Stuart's since she started on AW and I was, ahem, substantially younger. Donna Love was a fabulous character. Donna, Felicia and Iris were the three divas of AW during the late 80s/early 90s, a period of the show I look back on very fondly.

She gives good interview, she dishes the dirt and says what she feels. Her story is one that most soap actresses never tell, to have taken the business for granted in a way and then to not have the business to fall back on.

Not a surprise that JFP is personal friends with Anna, as Y&RWorldTurner points out, the common link is Anna's BFF Linda Dano who is a major FOJ.

Thanks, SFK, that was a fun clip! David Oliver showed more spark there than he did in his entire run on AW. Gorgeous man, horrible actor.

I loved the Anna Stuart interview -- I've been a fan of hers since her days on The Doctors, but she really became a "star" with Donna Love. Very underrated character and very underrated actress, IMO. On a superficial level, I always loved her long hair, and was very disappointed when she cut it off for that short, chic style -- even though that showed off her beautiful face to better effect.

Also good to see Mary Page Keller again. I didn't see as much of that era of AW as I did others, but I always thought Sally-Catlin -- and from the same period, Cass-Kathleen -- were great couples. And again, very underrated.

Part 5: http://www.welovesoaps.net/2010/03/anna-stuart-wls-interview-part-five.html#more

She talks about the "egos" that were involved in doing AMC and how she'd like to be asked back for a few episodes and doing Gotham...