So there I was last May, in the middle of doing a very funny guest role on ARLISS in Los Angeles, when I was whisked over to Burbank in full make-up and costume during my lunch hour, to test on film for the role of a French Count--Guy du Pres--on the famous soap opera ALL MY CHILDREN in New York. The Producers and Writers were emphatic that the actor had to have genuine “Blue Eyes” which, luckily for me, immediately cut the field in half--including all those brown-eyed Frenchmen! To my pleasant surprise I was hired two days later, flew to New York the following Monday for a fitting on Tuesday and, by Wednesday, we were taping! [In the show, it transpired, literally weeks later, that the whole “is Leo my illegitimate heir” plotline was a matter of paternity, i.e. two pairs of blue eyes--mine and my ex-mistress--cannot produce a brown eyed son!].

Let me say emphatically at the beginning that I have nothing but the highest admiration and praise for the dedication, enthusiasm, friendliness and downright hard work that makes ALL MY CHILDREN such a success. Five days a week they shoot--on tape--an hour long show (80 pages) starting at 9am, with an hour for lunch, and finishing between 8 and 9 pm! The contract players, who are usually well paid, in my opinion earn every penny, as they usually have to learn 25-30 pages of dialogue per show. Jack Scalia, who plays Susan Lucci’s current love interest, told me the record number of pages he has had to learn for one show was 53 pages!

I have been a working actor for 30 years, but still felt a teeny bit insecure (a healthy sign for any artist, by the way) when Josh Duhamel, the 6’ 5” extremely talented and very nice young actor from North Dakota who plays Leo du Pres, my possible illegitimate son, won the daytime Emmy for Best Supporting Actor the day before my first day’s taping, beating out a very strong field! His girl-friend on the soap, the lovely 5’ tall Rebecca Budig who hails from Kansas and has the unusual name of “Greenlee Smythe” (Greens for short!), is also one of the best young actresses currently working in daytime television, so I knew I was going to have to “pull my finger out” acting-wise, as we say in Britain!

I mentioned Josh being 6’ 5” and Rebecca being 5’. I am considered quite tall for an actor at 5' 11" as many actors are midgets, but on this show there are no less than five actors at least 6' 4" and two more around 6'. Ironically there are at least five ladies, including the famous Susan Lucci, who are all 5' tall or less and all take dress size 0. Until I worked on this show I did not even know there was such a thing as a dress size “Zero!” Apparently they start at 0, go up to 1, then 2 and then 4, 6, 8 etc. The six camera operators on the show, five men and one woman, are always joking about the disparity in heights of the men and women, and how they have to be careful to get them both in frame at the same time!

As I mentioned earlier, ALL MY CHILDREN tapes about 80 pages of script per show, which boils down to an average of 8 pages per hour! You try doing that on a movie set. If a film director gets through 10 pages a day with overtime, he is considered a genius who works like lightning! So bearing this in mind, you will often see little gaggles of two, three, or sometimes four actors gathered in the corridors outside their respective dressing-rooms, feverishly running lines.

The average contract player has roughly 20-25 pages to learn per show. As I was a recurring character, I usually only had 12-15 pages. When you are called to the set, you do a “blocking run-through” for the camera. The camera operators have already been given their shot list the evening before, so this is to check on any changes the director or actors may want. You then do a taped dress rehearsal, often involving several scenes pushed together. The director (they have a different one each day from a pool of four men and one woman, all of whom are excellent) and their assistant then come down on set to give the actors notes, and after that you tape--all in one take unless someone screws up (which in my case, until I got used to the format, was quite often!). When that happens, to save time, they just go back to the place in the script where the mistake happened, and re-tape from there.

Its fast and furious stuff, not for the faint hearted, and certainly not for method actors searching for their “motivation!” Every actor has his or her Achilles heel. Mine, as my three great teachers (Charles Conrad, Milton Katselas and Larry Moss) over the last 25 years have kept on pointing out to me, is that I am inclined to “add layers” and be too theatrical, instead of trusting that I am a good actor, and being simple.

All actors are afraid of being boring, so they often over-act, but on film (which includes tape), particularly in close-ups, the slightest nuance seems huge. As Michael Caine said in his excellent book/video on THE ART OF FILM ACTING, “Acting on stage is like acting with a saber, acting on film is like acting with a laser.” For me personally, acting regularly on a soap was a wonderful exercise, as one was so busy getting the lines out on time and in the right place that you HAD to be simple, and I had no time to even think of doing any of my “bad habits!”

Well, “Count Guy du Pres” is now safely back in Paris, and I am back in L.A. and about to start a new film. I hope that after reading this piece, you will have more insight into the incredible amount of hard work and professionalism that goes into producing an hour long “soap” each day. The actors do not get anywhere near the respect they deserve, and ALL MY CHILDREN in particular has probably the best stable of actors and actresses of any day-time show, thanks largely to their brilliant casting director, Judy Wilson Blye, who this year was deservedly the first ever winner of the daytime Emmy for best casting.

The costume department (also daytime Emmy winners) and the make-up artists and hairdressers were some of the best I’ve ever worked with, and I really have to thank everyone on the cast and crew who made my stay in New York such an enjoyable ride and useful learning experience.