AMC: Actress confirms return

[Skin]

I think the main problem with Lucci is that she just isn't as dramatically strong as an actress as her colleagues. Erika Slezak, Kim Zimmer, Susan Flannery are all stronger then her so she gets a lot of flack because she isn't as amazing as an actress as they are. But I do agree that she is likable, charismatic and more or less a lovely performer to watch be it in comedy, drama or romance because you just kind of want to watch her and you care about her. She has a flair about her that makes you interested in what she is doing which isn't an easy thing for an actor or actress to instantly create.

I actually like Minshew a lot for her work in comedy and romance I just find her to be stiflingly limited when it comes dramatic scenes. She always needs a stronger actor or actress to lead her through her scenes and work. I find Budig to be a better compelling dramatic actress because she is so aggressive and can instantly hold her own against stronger dramatic performers but she is lacking in the likability and I find her only to be funny when she is doing the sarcastic bitchy one-liners. Budig plays an awesome bitch but I think that's it for the most part. SMG was basically just a stronger version of RB.

[Jonathan]

edenriegel Eden Riegel

This news of S.M.G. headed back to A.M.C. has me J.E.A.L.O.U.S. #WhyNoBinxSquared? #TooMuchHotness4U, ABC?

That is all.

[Kylie]

I think the problem with SL is that different actors and different styles seem to help/hurt her performance. I never thought she nor SMG were particularly good, together. They seemed to just be there to finish and move on. I never got the emotion that I've sometimes gotten from AM and SL. SL seems to feed of how her costar is with her in scenes and with SMG it just never seemed to, click. I don't know how to explain.

She always clicked with Eden. Despite Eden's sometimes screeching, they seemed to tap into something and draw off each other. It's just NOT there in the SMG/SL stuff I've seen.

[Skin]

I thought Eden was pitch perfect in her role as Bianca. Probably one of the best younger actresses to come from AMC in it's history. I wouldn't hesitate to say that she was a better dramatic performer than Lucci during her first tenure on AMC. Eden deserved at least three Emmy wins (01, 04 and 05) for her portrayal of Bianca and it always flabbergasted me how she was constantly overlooked.

[EricMontreal22]

I was deeply upset that she never got her own submarine witha periscope to spy on Pine Valley about.

[EricMontreal22]

SMG really seems to have rubbed the Buffy people the wrong way--fans and cast/crew alike. I believe she's not in contact with any of the cast, didn't go to weddings etc, and creator Joss Whedon has said some (not so) cryptic comments about how if it had gone on she wouldn't have been on it anyway. It sounds like at least the last season (which was pretty dreadful anyway, so maybe she was right) or longer, she really wanted out. I kinda get that, it was a VERY demanding role in every sense. But she seems to have burned a ton of bridges there. I've also heard some stories of her and Freddie being kinda snobby to others, but again it's largely gossip and doesn't really matter. I'm sure an older SMG and Susan Lucci would have no prob working now.

I'd kinda enjoy SMG in a role a bit like that Hot in Cleveland woman did earlier this year--though not quite that campy, but as an Erica fan who starts getting more and more extreme, or something like that. It's too bad Erica will be out of Oakhaven, she could have been a patient who thought she WAS Erica's daughter.

[DRW50]

SMG had a lot of vulnerability in what I've seen of her run as Kendall, and in her first year or two on Buffy. As time passed she became harder and colder and it was tough to watch her (but then the show becoming so poorly paced and such a depressing self-parody didn't help). You could also kind of see onscreen how distant many of the actors had become, especially SMG and Hanigan.

[EricMontreal22]

I think they work quite well together here:

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There aren't a lot of clips, and I admit I was only 12 when she came on so perhaps less critical (and had just started watching AMC, my first soap, a year earlier) but I really think SMG and SL for the most part played their two complex dynamic awesomely together. If Kendall had been softened when SMG still played her, there may have been more of an issue, but the kinda constant hatred and rivalry, even when both (particularly Kendall but Erica too) are yearning to be able to love each other, was always a strong subtext.

Yes agreed. I think part of that was SMG (it's prob unfair, and based as much on her on screen personality as inteviews, but I don't blame Hannigan) but to be fair that's also how they wrote Buffy. The fact SmG didnt' seem to want to be on the show actually kinda worked for Season 6 because Buffy was meant to be almost literally sleepwalking though her scenes, it didn't for season 7.

[DRW50]

For me it became blatant starting around season 4, but that might be down to awful writing. Either way, the last years of the show were more interesting for gossip (remember all that with the stunt coordinator) than anything else.

[marceline]

This was an excellent way for Kendall to leave. Going back to the parent who loved her and raised her. These days they would've just killed her off in some spectacular plot point explosion. Does Kendall ever even mention Bill or Alice anymore? Is Alice still alive and has she ever met her grandchildren?

[SFK]

Oof. Shim showing up at a double funeral in a black skirt with hair in a french roll busting out with "You Raise Me Up" like someone's spotlight whore of an aunt was the campiest thing I have ever seen in All My Years of AMC viewing.

[SFK]

Ha! Good memory.

[SFK]

I think a lot of that has to do with their s/l. Erica basically wanted to pretend that Kendall never existed and it was a real effort for her to embrace her. When she did, it was reluctantly. Then of course Kendall was hurt and angry and wicked and gave Erica several reasons to not embrace her, which perhaps subconciously was exactly what Erica wanted. What was really sad was that Kendall was pulling all of these schemes and Erica would get royally pissed and screwed over but there was (imo) always this underlying thing of Kendall doing SO much to get some sort of rise out of Erica when Erica didn't really give a damn about her. Time, and softer Kendall in the fom of AM really helped that. When Kendall left Pine Valley I really had a hard time believing they spoke or even wrote once in the span of those years. It was like they squared things away and I just did not get the impression that any sort of relationship would continue.

[Khan]

ITA. In drama, chemistry means everything. If two actors working together in the same scene(s) don't have it, then it makes for uncomfortable viewing. Sure, you could say any enmity between SL and SMG should've lent itself well to their respective characters' on-screen relationship. However, IMO, there's a fine line between, say, watching B&B's Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke) and Susan Flannery (Stephanie) - who, not for nothing, happen to get along well IRL, which I think says a lot - have at each other as enemies and arch-rivals on-screen; and living in fear of that giant red ball of awkward that seemed to hover over SL and SMG whenever the two were even on the same set.

[Khan]

Remember how at-odds Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor were over the whole love triangle w/ Eddie Fisher before they happened to be on the same luxury liner and decided to bury the proverbial hatchet (or so the legend goes)? I think the same will happen one day for SL and SMG. Perhaps, it'll be a chance encounter; or perhaps, it'll all be the doing of a mutual friend and bystander. Either way, if and when they do reunite, they'll sit down and realize, as many of us do, that theirs was a situation that got blown way, way, WAY out of proportion.