OLTL: Gina Tognoni interview with Michael Fairman

[dragonflies]

http://michaelfairmansoaps.com/one-life-to-live/the-gina-tognoni-interview-one-life-to-live/2011/08/24/

[DRW50]

My antivirus always shows Fairman's site up with a red flag or whatever you call it. I don't go there anymore, which is too bad, as I liked some of his interviews. Does anyone else have that issue?

[alexisfan07]

Nope and mine usually goes haywire haha

Very nice interview. It's nice to see that she and RC (even if only sorta) said they needed more time to find Kelly's footing again. I thought her remarks about Tom Degnan were a few syllables from becoming Ehlers-esque (about J.R. Martinez). Gina seems super sweet but I can't help but feel her ego is probably telling her she deserved more high-profile love interests.

[DRW50]

If she'd had chemistry with leading men perhaps she would have had more of a chance. I guess there was John, but I loathed that relationship, as I loathe any John/victim relationship.

Gina has almost always been, IMO, mediocre to poor as Kelly, very fake, and it's tough to connect with co-stars when you can't handle the character. In this case I would say it's because there was no character. Kelly was, from the beginning, an abortion.

I thought Degnan would have been OK if they'd ever actually written for him.

The best work of her career by far was as Dinah, and even she seems to know that, as she wants Dinah to go to Y&R. Apparently she has never watched Y&R. I would say, "She just wants a job," which I could understand and with this economy in particular, but asking for such a special character to be destroyed by MAB makes me feel sad. Thankfully P&G will never let go of their death grip on their characters.

If she really wants to try Y&R then all I can say is - good luck!

[Cheap21]

She came across very hard this time around which made it difficult to get behind her in any pairing. She might have been better off going to AMC playing a lesbian. Maybe a Reese recast for Bianca

[JaneAusten]

I thought Y&R wanted her or that was the rumor not too long ago. I am sure MAB would have no issue creating another disposable female to throw at Nick, Adam, or Victor with a named actress.

I have always found GT a very hard actress but I think like many others the writing she got at GL for a long time really helped her a lot. To me she's like a lot of average to decent soap actresses who made a name for themselves in one role but have really not worked at anything else. Now I admit I have never watched any of her work outside of GL or OLTL.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Dinah was by far the best work of her career, she even basically says it. I think even when she came back to OLTL, Dinah never left her consciousness. It's a bit like when Lisa Brown came back to GL in the mid 90's and just couldn't shake Iva out of her system (though the writing for Nola in the 90's was horrific).

I think the only time the Kelly character had some direction was when Heather Tom played her, and that was during one of the show's worst eras...

[Gray Bunny]

Yeah, I don't know what it is, but halfway through her GL run, she came across as very hard, jagged, and butch. Shave her head, put a leather jacket on her, and she'd be the perfect dykes-on-bikes stereotype. Wonder if going back to blonde would soften her up a bit?

[DRW50]

I doubt it. She had blonde hair during her first OLTL run and she became extremely hard by the last few years of that run. I actually thought she was much more vulnerable as Dinah.

When some people lose weight it really hardens their face. She's one of them.

[JaneAusten]

I still found her a hard actress but I do think the writing at GL benefitted a lot of actresses who IMO were not as good as many thought they were on GL. CC might have been the only exception and yes Kim Zimmer. Laura Wright is another perfect example. She was decent on GL and is awful on GH now.

[DRW50]

GL never got credit for it but it was a show full of complex female characters, even up to the last years. I miss that on soaps more than I can say.

[JaneAusten]

I think there is a reason so many actresses got emmys who worked on GL and ATWT. I know people felt there was a lot of bias but those 2 shows actually had some of the best female characters and best writing up until the last few years. But I think it shows that some of these actresses are not nearly as good as some rave about them. Look at RH when he went to ATWT or Sarah Brown. Both were not only miscast, but completely dreadful in the roles they were cast in.

[rhinohide]

More time? Perhaps a millenium would be enough. She was obviously disappointed that they didn't blow up every other story on the canvas to accommodate her lust for a particular leading man. The whole thing about TD having big shoes to fill and that making it such an uphill battle desregards that she'd already had several failures to launch before he (and two other characters) were brought on to prop Kelly.

[DRW50]

I wish they'd asked her about Kelly's last years, when being paired with some of JFP's favorite actors (like Tim Gibbs), who had a lot of experience in soaps, made many fans hate Kelly.

[Vee]

Dinah may have been her best role, but GT said she couldn't wait to leave at the end. With OLTL she wanted to stay. I think so many things sabotaged her return, but number one was not playing her out with Kevin and Zane, and being focused on a "star system" at ABC where she had to be with John or Todd.