Kim Zimmer interview

[John]

Well than kZ shoulda quit oLTL thebn. She has no deal, she could just walk

The thing i Daytime is in dire times this is not 78-94 anymore and if she likes going to OLTL where they work her a lot, she should be happy with that. A lot of actors are worse off than kZ. This is not the time to Diva out but be a team player.

[All My Shadows]

You're right. She's totally unhappy. Which is why she said "...it's still great fun. And I love the people. I've honest to God loved it all."

That wasn't the issue. The issue was that they moved her into another dressing room with someone else without letting either one of them know first.

I think she can be a diva all she wants. Be a team player for what? The show is dead. If it goes online, we can all be 100% sure that she won't be asked to go with it. What team does she have to play for other than Kim's team?

[Eric83]

Oh please, she just wanted to be notified she was moving into another dressing room. You're acting as if she over at OLTL demanding to be treated like Erika Slezak, and begging for major story. She obviously likes working there and she was joking about the stuff with FV. It isn't that serious.

[Eric83]

And lol at KZ being a bad person because she thinks GL should have been canceled earlier. I couldn't have agreed with her more, it should have ended on the 70th anniversary. The re-enactment of the Irna Philips story made it feel like the show had come full circle. It would have been more satisfying had they wrapped the show up around that. Except for a brief period in 2009, the show was HORRIBLE.

[John]

Then Kim should have quit GL if she was not happy

As for dressing rooms at oLTL

Non contract players like KIM dont have permanet dressing rooms they change day to day and they are given rooms of contract playeers not there that day so KZ knew she'd being moving DR's all the time

[DRW50]

I don't think she's a bad person, I just can't take her complaining seriously because she was complaining about the show a long time before they ever did Peapack. There were always uber-dramatic interviews, and interviews commenting on her interviews. She gets a lot of hype for telling it like it is when generally telling it like it is means = I'm not happy/I wasn't happy, I had to suffer through this stuff, I don't know why I am staying on/why I stayed. There are probably variations of this going back over 10 or more years.

[SFK]

I get the dressing room thing John, I just don't think that she, nor a Linda Dano, nor a Victoria Wyndham, nor a Colleen Zenk, et cetera, should have to share. Put Dani, Destiny, and Deanna in together for a day, let those young girls earn their stripes. JMO.

[JackPeyton]

I [!@#$%^&*] love her. So she drank, a lot on daytime do. So she thinks GL should have ended before it became the most pathetic, awful tv show on, shes not alone! so she doesnt think that her stiff being moved into a shared dressing room is ok without them telling her, do people really disagree with that?!

64?! She must be exaggerating cuz my BA was HIGH and i only got 8.

[Mr. Vixen]

Hers was in CA, right? Was yours? Sometimes different states have different policies.

[John]

As for OLTL KZ is not on contract and does not get gher own DR. They are given on a daily basis. So What if she shared. JVD had roomamtes at OLTL, Forbes March was One and since JVD actually has been in daytime longer with No Breaks, if he can have a roomie, Zimmer can shiut up and have one too.

Zimmer has also complained about her current time on OL saying shes not on enough bS they worked her all the time for a long while and even re-wrote major story for her ungrateful self.

Maybe KZ who told we love soaps that she didnt work much in the year after GL ednded should take a long look in the mirror and realize the reason why might have been her diva tude. If I werea producer/director i wouldnt put up with her crap

Yes its very ignorant for her to wish cancelation and job loss on hundreds of people when she had the opportunity to exercise an out in her contract and leave every YEAR but decided to stay in a place she didnt like. Well it was your choice, U made it. Stop Bitching kim I dont feel sorry for u one bit.

Showing up Drunk at work and functions is unprofessional and has lost many actors their jobs why should KZ be treated differently

[dragonflies]

She was more upset that they moved her stuff without telling her :nbe:I don't think she has an attitude at all, especially not in this interview, maybe a bit snarky, but alot of actors/actresses are

[All My Shadows]

OMG...SO. NOT. THE. POINT.

I'm through.

[saynotoursoap]

Agreed.

I am neither a lover nor hater of KZ. I thought she was wonderful on The Doctors, and I enjoyed her first run on GL. From the 1990's on I could take her or leave her, usually depending upon whether or not she had good material to emote and a talented director to reign her in. So, I am fairly objective in my view of her. While I agree that she can be crass, obnoxious, and present herself as the ultimate diva, what I appreciate is her candor, as well as her honesty in not trying to act sweet and demure such as some equally divaish actresses do.

It seems that many of the responses to this interview are missing the crux of her points. The interviewer asked KZ how soaps had changed in terms of star treatment, and she replied. I do not see answering questions asked as complaining, bitching, or whatever one wishes to call it. I am equally baffled at her being called on the carpet for commenting that GL should have been canceled two years earlier. An overwhelming majority of posters on this board were saying the exact same thing in April 2009, and many continue to assert it today. Chastsing KZ for supporting it is more than a bit hypocritical, and her point that GL should have been allowed to go earlier with dignity is a valid one. Also, Zimmer is hardly the first performer to complain about a show's decline in quality yet remain with it. Jada Rowland hated the last five years of Secret Storm and made no bones about it in the press. Rosemary Prinz loathed her material on ATWT, as did Larry Brygmann, both of whom were equally vocal to anyone who would listen. Why did they all stay, and why did Kim stay? They needed the money. I seriously doubt few people can say that they have been wealthy enough to have never worked a job they did not like. We all do it at some point, and we all complain because we know that in most cases the job could be better and more tolerable. I think that is all Zimmer meant.

Quite frankly, Zimmer appears to be one of the few people in the industry to have enough insight and balls to say what is really wrong with the soaps -they are no longer about "human drama". She hit the bullseye with that comment and the implication that viewers are turning off because they cannot relate to clones, time travel, undone abortions, mother/daughter split personality acts, supervillains who are killed off every six months only to pop up again, characters who die on camera and pop up again, kidnap victims replaced with doubles, serial killers, mass murders where none of the victims are really dead but being held captive on an island, escapes from islands derailed by tidal waves...you get the point. As much respect as I have for the more ladylike veterans, Erika Slezak immediately comes to mind, I am annoyed that they continue to tow the company line that nothing is really wrong with the production itself, when clearly it is. Being diplomatic is not doing a damn thing to salvage the industry. These actors should have been screaming from rooftops about the inanity of the material for the last decade. Good on Kim for telling it like it is. Will I watch her on OLTL because of it? Absolutely not. But, I'm not going to crucify her over an interview in which she answers questions honestly.

One final thought. To all the people who scream that if KZ was not happy with GL she should shut up or leave, why not take your own advice? If you hate her so much, don't read her interviews and then slag her off.

[saynotoursoap]

You are correct. A good chunk of AMC's cast did it circa 1983 where the set had more coke than a cola bottling plant. From what an associate producer told me, even the cleaning lady was snorting.

[DRW50]

It's not so much that I fault Zimmer for criticizing GL over the years, it's more that I don't remember her ever, at least in her last run, being overly thrilled with the show in the press. Other actors have felt the same way, but most of them, like Larry Brygmann, seemed to avoid press. I'm glad she didn't feel the need to avoid the press, but based on her comments over the years, I can't really see her as a truthteller about the Peapack years. When Maureen Garrett, whom I don't remember having that much to say to the press, came out at the end and trashed the Peapack setup, I took more notice.

I have a lot of respect for Zimmer and I am glad she doesn't mince her words, but it's hard for me to really see this as "Kim Zimmer speaks the truth about GL," which seems to be Logan's spin, as I feel like this interview is just another in Kim's usual range of talking about what she didn't like and what let her down, mixed in with some laughs and self-commentary. I don't wish she'd left GL if she didn't like it, but I do wonder if she really has that many fond memories of this golden era pre-2008, when I never got that impression from her earlier interviews.