AMC: AM interview with SOD

[rem13]

http://soapoperadigest.com/features/amc/in.../aliciaminshew/

ALL MY CHILDREN Interview

Girlfriend In A Coma

Alicia Minshew's stint as comatose Kendall is coming to an end on ALL MY CHILDREN. The happy-to-be-vertical-again star submitted to our checkup.

By Mara Levinsky

Soap Opera Digest: It's been awhile since we've spoken, so of course, my first question is: How'd ya like the pregnant sex with Zach?

Alicia Minshew: The pregnant sex, yes! They actually cut some of it down. We shot a lot more stuff, but they trimmed the scene for whatever reason. Thorsten [Kaye, Zach] and I feel so comfortable with each other, it almost felt like second nature — just like, "Hey, here we are, two buddies, lyin' on the bed."

Digest: I was reading some feedback on message boards and a lot of people seemed to wish the characters were wearing less clothing.

Minshew: I know. They should have had Thorsten bust out with his shirt off at least. However, we have something coming up that's, like, the real deal. No belly, no nothing [laughs].

Digest: Did you enjoy your on-screen reunion with Ms. Eden [Riegel, Bianca]?

Minshew: You know, whenever she's here, I realize how much I adore her as a person and how much I love working with her as an actor. We fell right back into it as if we'd just seen each other yesterday. That comfort level was there immediately. I love having her here. I feel such a connection to her and I do feel like she's my sister, especially when we work together. She was lovely, man. She stepped right into doing monologues at Kendall's bedside and she was awesome! She wasn't rusty at all. One time, she was crying at my bedside, her and Cameron [Mathison, Ryan], and from listening to them, I started to cry. All I could think of was, "Stop crying! Kendall's in a coma — if you have a tear drip down, they're gonna have to stop tape!" And indeed, we had to stop because a tear dripped out of my eye. I opened my eyes and said, "You guys are killing me here!" But they were that good.

Digest: It was sort of funny to me how much dialogue you had even when your character was comatose.

Minshew: I know, everyone was like, "Leave it to them! They put you in a coma and you still have to go in every day with 20 pages of voice-over!" And every now and then, they had a fantasy where she popped up and wakes up. It wasn't as much of a break as I thought it would be, but it was still something; to not have to be fussed over and to just lie there was nice. However, I got salmonella food poisoning and was violently ill and for the first five days of Kendall's coma, I really was ill. How ironic was that? I was lying in that hospital bed and I was really not good. But I'm happy to be up and around and moving because I found myself feeling jealous that I wasn't up and around, acting. It was just the right amount of time.

Digest: Where did you record the voice-overs?

Minshew: In the sound booth every morning, I popped up there with my script. I've been doing it for almost a month, so I'm like a pro with the microphone now. I had to do a lot of it out of context because I wasn't sure how somebody would say a line. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes I would answer with a tone that didn't make sense because I didn't anticipate how the actor would say the line to me. It was a good learning experience for me, but by the time I actually had the baby, the banter was pretty right on with everything because we sort of timed it out. I did it a few times after the person had done the scenes, which was actually a better way to do it.

Digest: Where are she and Zach and Spike going to live after Kendall gets out of the hospital? It doesn't make sense to me that they'd remain living in smallish, separate condos.

Minshew: Thorsten and I said the same thing! Because I have scenes coming up in Kendall's condo and Kendall's bedroom in the condo, it looks like she's still living in the condo. I haven't even had scenes yet when she brings the baby home. She goes back to her place with Zach from the hospital, but in terms of bringing the baby somewhere, she hasn't done that yet. I assume it's going to be Kendall's condo because there are all these baby toys there, so I have the feeling that she and Zach will be living there together. And I haven't seen any new sets! But Thorsten and I are like, "Dude, we're loaded! We should get some fierce new place for this child!"

Digest: I'm not a big fan of the decoration of that condo, no offense.

Minshew: Honestly? Me, neither. She has some tacky-ass taste [in decor]! She thinks she should be sophisticated like her mom or something.

Digest: Julia took pretty excellent care of Kendall while she was unconscious. Will that have a positive effect on their relationship when she wakes up?

Minshew: It's funny because Julia is being so nice to her, taking care of her and crying over her, but the voice-overs are so great because Kendall is like, "Get this woman out of here before I get bored to death!" But when she wakes up, she sees how nice Julia is being to her and she's saying to everyone, "Wow, I must have really been close to death if Julia is being this nice to me." So far, she is being cold to her, but we had a scene where Kendall says, "Hey, Spike, it's okay if you want to give Nurse Julia some trouble," and Julia says, "I heard that," and Kendall says to Spike, "Just kidding." She is jokingly giving her a hard time, but right now she's not in a space to be nasty to her. I sort of want them to be friends because I want her to have a female friend again that she is sort of enemies with, like a Greenlee-type thing. Right now, she is going to be enemies with Babe and probably Dixie, too, so I think it would be sort of interesting for her and Julia to become friends. It sort of reminds me, not that anyone could ever take Greenlee's place, of that dynamic.

Digest: Last question: Will we see Miranda meet her cousin, Spike, on-screen?

Minshew: They meet off-camera, so we don't see the two cuties together. But they'll probably be teenagers in like a year, right?

[dayssux]

Cool interview. Thanks.

[dragonflies]

Love that interview, looks like some great upcoming Zendall stuff

[Adam]

I agree and Alicia seemes so psyched about it! Love the bit about Kendall's condo "tacky-ass furniture" and by the sounds of it we are gonna get more ZEX!

[rem13]

Let's hope that the writers/editors don't hack the scene this time.

[Laurie]

Love this interview..Lish is always a fun read!

[Daphne]

I wonder why Kendall is going to go back to hating Babe? I missed some of AMC last week but I do recall reading about some hostility between Babe and Bianca--I thought Bianca forgave Babe?