Actors That Wouldn't Have Been Cast Then & Now

[SoapDope]

Times change, so do casting choices of what shows look for in an actor or actress.

What past daytime and primetime soap actors would never be cast now days ? What current actors would have never been cast back then ?

[amybrickwallace]

People that would never be cast now:

ACTORS as opposed to MODELS.

[Khan]

No way would my girl, Lisa Brown (ex-Nola, GL; ex-Iva, ATWT), be cast as anything other than recurring comic relief (think DAYS' Anne Milbauer) on a soap today.

Conversely, I can still remember when someone like Y&R's Greg Rikkart (Kevin) would be lucky to land a gig as a short-term, easily disposable creep on an ABC soap like LOVING or RYAN'S HOPE. He certainly wouldn't be considered leading man or love interest material.

[SoapDope]

LOL at Greg Rikkart. I'm surprised that Vince Offer (the sham wow/slap chop guy) look alike is still on the freaking show.

[Chris B]

They would've arrested a 24 year old Erika Slezak if she came to an audition for Viki today lol.

[Vee]

Robin Strasser, sad to say. Perversely, it was a fight to get her and Susan Lucci onscreen back in the late '60s and early '70s, too - Susan has said their type was considered "too ethnic." We've come a long way but a lot of daytime has simply doubled back around.

Melissa Hayden.

Roger Howarth, at least as a young man.

Victoria Wyndham. No chance.

Heather Tom.

Robert Krimmer.

As a contemporary example: Eric Nelsen, who's very talented but looks every bit the sheltered geek/waif, with big eyes and a certain affect, would never have been cast in the lead teen role on ABC's All My Children in the last fourteen years, if not the last twenty. But he was, last summer, on the Internet.

We can't totally bash models, though, either. The fact is soaps have almost always employed models - trained them from the ground up, made many of them great stars. Susan Haskell from OLTL started as a catalog model, I believe.

[quartermainefan]

The entire original cast of AMC and just about every addition throughout the popular 80s glory days of the show. There is no way on earth anyone would accept Louis Edmonds in a role today, and undoubtedly we would see posts about chewing of scenery and being one of the worst actors on daytime. Same for Ruth Warrick, Eileen Herlie, Matthew Cowles, Dorothy Lyman, and so many others.

[edgeofnik]

I suppose if you think about a number of the actors on NY soaps from the 70s-early 90s who had plenty of theater experience - shows like TEON or ATWT were filled with actors who came from the stage - some of whom did it concurrently. Now with all the shows based in LA, it's not going to happen like that ever again. There were definitely a different feel to the acting methods and interaction between the actors because of this. That's why on TEON when Lori Loughlin was cast, it was a big deviation in the standards. She was one of the first true "hair models" and it showed. She certainly got better and was very popular, but she was helped because she was surrounded by plenty of well trained actors.

[SFK]

Daytime is a lot more forgiving when it comes to the looks of female leads opposed to male leads, so it's hard to say. It lends itself to the idea of the every woman who represents the presumably "average" or "less than average" female viewer who can fantasize about herself in the place of the heroine, romancing the "hunk". GH would be a good example of this, Felicia's girls in particular. That said, there are plenty of average/good-looking guys driving front burner stories.

[Cheap21]

she was 24 when she joined OLTL? She always looked old to me....lol. I would have guessed 34

[SFK]

Erika, Beverlee, they always looked older than... Some of us are blessed to look younger than... #gladtobecarded

[amybrickwallace]

Yeah, Erika Slezak (who is exactly one week older than my dad) has always looked the same age throughout her 40+ year run on OLTL.

[SoapDope]

Eric Braeden was old even when he started on Y&R 35 years ago.

[StevieM]

The obvious answer here is Matt Ashford. There are people in the industry, like JER, Tom Langan and Gary Tomlin, who just won't accept him. As Matt once said about Reilly, "I didn't fit into his world view."

Nothing Matt did could change their minds. Being the most popular actor on daytime in the early 90s wasn't enough. Getting record amounts of fan mail for his 2000-01 return wasn't enough. Staying popular when they deliberately butchered him wasn't enough. Some writers/producers just couldn't accept MA's Jack as a major character on the show. Ultimately, they always got their way and sent him packing.

[Bright Eyes]

It was no coincidence that all the writers who disliked him have never written a complex male character in the history of their careers.