Actors Who Disrespect Daytime TV

[Juliajms]

Mostly, I don't care what these actors have to say about soaps. I have had a laugh or two over the years, when basically all a person has done are soaps, then they dis the genre publically upon getting a pilot, the show gets canceled, after a few episodes and they are then back on the soap. At the very least make quite you are finished with a job before you trash it, I say.

[chyti]

I know it rubs people the wrong way when they love something and someone puts it down but I really see nothing wrong with what Morgan Freeman or some other actors have said. So what he and others don't hold their earlier days in the soap close to their heart he doesn't have to. To tell the truth how many of his fans know he was on a soap, I sure didn't.

Like it or not soaps are not in the same league as primetime, film or theater as a sports fan I like to think of it in terms of there is high school basketball and then there's the NBA.

[AdelaideCate007]

Agreed. I worked at David Jones and Myer and they were both crappy jobs. I've moved on passed my retail days but I'm not going to wax poetic about those days now just because its in the past or because I should be grateful about the experience.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and can feel however they want about their daytime experiences.

[John]

This is exactly the problem I speak of. Acting is Acting. If Your an actor you act in different mediums. It shouldnt be the medium for the reason u chose a part, it should be based on whatever has the best role, wheter, that be Daytime, Primetime, film or theater.

Actors on soaps and even theater tend to work longer and harder a lot would say to produce this entertainment than a film or primetime show.

[John]

IMHO Daytime Soap Operas Are Not Training Grounds. If that were the case that would mean at some point we stop learning & Growing. IMHO, Daytime Soap Operas are repertory companies. Plain & simple.

[P.J.]

As I said somewhere at towards the beginning of the thread, it's not that the stars "tell the truth", it's how they say it. I think every soap fan knows that daytime ain't Shakespeare. But we also know that it's a genre that has been filled with talent. When someone acts like they're now above it, why shouldn't fans call BS?

[SFK]

Acting is acting at the heart of it, but there are differences from one medium to the other, each medium posing its own set of challenges. I think soap acting which involves very quick memorization and the cranking out of episodes at a frenzied pace can encourage a lot of bad habits, short cuts, and tricks that some performers rely on. Frankly, who can blame the better actors who actually have technique for doing this from time to time, because if your character's emotional life is particularly demanding, one could burn out/break down. Thing is, soaps are known for hiring not so great actors and the writing is widely believed to be dreck. And we fans know that to be true at times, and of course there have been actors who have shared that opinion. Great soap writing and acting is such a feat, that's why we admire it so much when it happens. I think a lot of daytime actors see the medium for the machine it can be and I think it's logical that there have been actors who didn't care for that aspect and don't look back so fondly on their soap years.

[DRW50]

Right. If someone doesn't look back on their daytime experience as a great slumber party, then I'm not exactly furious, but there's a way to say it and a way which ends up seeming like they are describing an STD.

[dragonflies]

+1

[soapfan770]

I think that the only real problem I've had when an actor looking back negatively on their daytime experience is Brian Bloom. Bloom was incredibly harsh about it, yet Grayson McCouch, a far more successful actor outside daytime than Bloom has ever been was happy to have the role. I guess I just found Bloom unnecessarily harsh about the role

[marceline]

Yes they are. Some actors move on from that training ground (Michelle Forbes, Judith Light, Debbi Morgan, Cynthis Watros, Jessica Tuck, Nathan Fillion, Kelli Giddish, etc..) and others don't. If you love soaps, that's fine but stop trying to paint these shows as something more than what they are. They are - or more accurately they were - a way for actors to earn a living working their craft but that doesn't make them some kind of underappreciated art form. If the actors who worked in soaps want to call them crap, then let them. Who better than them would know?

[John]

You left off that IMHO Soaps are repertory companies. Actors never stop learning or growing. Never had an issue with a soap star complaning about their time on a soap its when soap stars trash the whole medium

[EricMontreal22]

In Interview Magazine a few years back Ryan seemed proud of his soap past--he only spoke briefly about it but said it gave him more training than any other show that would hire a teen could have and it was a groundbreaking story. I'm not sure where the disrespect comes from (aside how uncomfortable he was when Jay leno did that infamous interview--which would make anyone angry)

[EricMontreal22]

I still would like to hear quotes for some of these people. I don't think Feeman's comments for example are all that insulting to soap fans (though I get the reaction--but from what he's said recently it did seem that he was reacting more to a general question). JaneAusten mentioned that a lot of these people are also discouraged to discount their soap work from their resumes. When you become as big as many of them have that seems genuinely disengenuous at best, but.

It was arguably a very brief period that soap actors were given all that much credit when they worked in other genres or told to mention their soap past. Sarah Michelle Gellar talked about how when she was doing auditions between AMC and Buffy she wasn't even allowed by her publicist to mention her daytime Emmy.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm beginning to sound like a Philipe fanboy, and I don;'t think he's done much worthwhile on screen but shown his ass--but the few times I've seen him mention his OLTL role it's always been very positive. Unless this was something he said just when he was breaking into features--and fairly young--I'm still surprised he said anything else, elsewhere.

But... This is a common problem even among the best theatre actors when they move to screen--for some reason they're often (unless they are charcter actors) told to play down--or they play down themselves--their theatre success, particularly if it wasn't some Tony award winning huge commercial hit.