Actors Who Disrespect Daytime TV

[AmandainNC28655]

Like many others I do think that daytime has lost the respect that it once carried. As a fan, I will speak the positves and negatives of daytime. I think what stings when you hear people like Morgan Freeman, Meg Ryan, Ryan Phillpe, etc speak poorly about their daytime experience is that daytime allowed many of them to hone their skills and essentially get their foot in the door in the entertainment world so to speak. Unfortunately, they're many actors who are out their doing odd jobs, waiting and hoping to get their big breaks. They're also many former popular daytimers who have left the acting profession all together.

I guess what bothers me is where would any of these popular Hollywood film and primetime actors be today without their stints in daytime?? Would they be the big names that they are (or were) or would they be just some other starving actor trying to do what they could to scrape by and hope they had enough money to make ends meet until their next gig came along.

[John]

Thats my point Amanda. Acting is Acting. Looking Down On Daytime Just because Its Daytime is snobby. Not liking a gig cause you had a bad experience is one thing but to say the whole medium is crap is overstepping

[marceline]

This is something I don't understand. Whenever somebody dares to suggest that soaps just aren't all that, I hear people talk about how hard the actors work. I don't see anybody claiming soap actors don't work hard but that doesn't mean the end product isn't often crap. It's two different issues. Sorry but if somebody who worked in soaps wants to say it's a crappy gig more power to them. I used to work at Burger King. Do I owe it to the millions of people who eat there to pretend it wasn't a lousy job making crappy food?

[DRW50]

I think it can be annoying when someone acts like their daytime experience was a wasteland and they are now superior. I guess a lot of it depends on the material they had at the time and the material they've had since. For instance, I thought Ryan Phillipe had good material when he was on OLTL. Since that time, he has probably mostly been famous for his ass, and who he married. So the idea of him feeling that era was inferior always kind of annoyed me.

[lovely_m]

Not all acting gigs are created equal. Primetime and films for the most part offer better roles than daytime, especially for women.

[DRW50]

And considering how bad most film and primetime roles are for women, that's pretty sad these days.

[JaneAusten]

Actors generally seem very egocentric and self absorbed,yes even in daytime many are like this. Hell look at the swipe Eric Braeden took at Neil Patrick Harris who seems to be one of the few niceguys out there.

[DRW50]

True, although a lot of people seem to hate Neil Patrick Harris, for whatever reason.

Me criticizing someone who has moved on from daytime doesn't mean I think people in daytime are ego-free. I'm just saying, if you look back on your soap work as tripe, then I hope you have the work after soaps to back it up. That's why I don't care if Morgan Freeman disses soaps - he certainly has a very strong body of work, and it's not like he said anything heinous, he just said soaps had been on a long time and were done.

[P.J.]

I think what sticks out for me is when "Ms.BigStar" doesn't act like they appreciate the fans who watched them on the jobs they "don't respect". There's a way to be gracious about their stints in daytime and still tell the truth. If they're honest about all their work (hello...are those crappy Hallmark movies that Lauren's doing now any better than AMC? I don't think so....), then fine. But only divorcing themselves from a genre that already gets no respect at times seems more self-serving than "honest".

And NPH took a swipe at Braeden first. I like NPH, and I love HIMYM, but he was out of line. It was probably the only thing I'd ever agree with Braeden about.

[JaneAusten]

Ican never hate Morgan Freeman after watching him on some sort of actors discussion with Cloin Firth, Stanley Tucci and that pretentious ass Nicoles Cage who monopolized the entire discussion with his Francoish view of acting until Freeman put him in his place.

[marceline]

I think that when you're dealing with fans who ignore, or worse outright disrespect, the work you're doing now just so they can rhapsodize about a role you had on a soap for two years, 20 years ago, it's hard to feel appreciative. It's like the SNL skit that WIlliam Shatner did years ago where he tells a room full of Trekkies to "get a life."

[DRW50]

That's true, but most actors tend to do an OK job with it. Even actors like SMG always had good things to say about her soap work and went back for a cameo.

There are some actors who loved their time on soaps, and yet felt frustrated when too much focus was put on that time (Kate Mulgrew was one) but at times it seems like those who badmouth soaps or their time on soaps don't put any real nuance into it. It just seems like some type of kneejerk shame or empty putdown and has little to do with fan demands. I don't think most people were telling Meg Ryan that her only true role was Betsy.

[ghfan89]

That is strange about Lauren because I remember back when Rosie O'Donnell had her talk show and she asked her about AMC and she seemed fine talking about it, where as Kim Delaney when she was on the same show wouldn't even talk about it.

[John]

I think its an ebb and flow. maybe things changed for them. I know Ryan Phillipe now speaks of how Important the role was maybe he didnt realize that for a while and reflected on it. I know that happened with George Pilgrim who played J Chamberlin On GL b4 Ethan Erickson. When he left he said he went backwards doing a soap but recently said losing GL in 2009 made him realize how ignorant he was

Then there is Matt Morrison who played Adam on ATWT for a month in 2006. He said that Daytime was not for him because you have to spend so much time on your character and he likes his freedom However he went on to say that he worked with some great actors there and gave them praise for what they do everyday

[P.J.]

But wouldn't you (as an actor) at least feel some kind of appreciation that the work you did twenty years ago still resonated with someone? I mean, what did Bill Shatner have to brag about from '70 to '85....TJ Hooker ?

No one expects Morgan Freeman to praise The Electric Company as some transcendental experience that made him the actor he is today. Maybe it is unreasonable, but I think most people simply want to hear a "big star" have some kind of self-effacing humor about their worst jobs.