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Chatting with two GL actors with very different opinions.
Carolyn: Is morale down with so many big actors leaving?
Actor: Yes, I think it started when we lost Laura Wright [ex-Cassie, now Carly on GH]
Carolyn: She told me she passed [a big exec] in the hall during her negotiations and [the exec] didn't say hello to her.
Actor: Yes, and Laura was really hurt. She thought. "That is not how you do business. You come up to me and you tell me how much you appreciate me and you hope I stay. You don't walk past me like you don't see me." It's never one thing that makes you leave. First they do this, then they do this, and then they are offering this. Sometimes people just say, "How can I not go?"
Carolyn: Especially if morale is low.
Actor: Yeah. The people at As the World Turns are the only other people that understand how the people at Guiding Light feel; demoralized. You feel every single day you go to work that nobody appreciates you. You're treated with no respect.
Carolyn: Can you give me an example of what you're talking about?
Actor: Getting changed in the backseat of a car without the windows tinted on a busy street while trying to run lines with the actor in the car with you, because you don't have any other time to rehearse. Holding your own lights. Stuff that's just laughable. And they want a good product from this? The system is there for a reason, so people are taken advantage of and exploited. We all need to have our jobs respected,
Carolyn: Why hasn't the union gotten involved in this?
Actor: The problem is that when you read the union rules, which we all have they say, "actors will not have to blah, blah, blah, except serials." Every single rule is amended for soap opera because we've never left the studio before so there are no rules about being on location. They're negotiating all that stuff now. I'll tell you this: Anybody would be lucky to have GL's actors, because we memorize as much dialogue as they want us to and shoot it out of order in really difficult conditions, and we've been doing it for a year,
Carolyn: It's a scary time.
Actor: Yeah and that's how they keep people in line- they instill fear. Everyone's afraid the show is going to get canceled, so everything's fear, fear, fear. I run into people on the street who tell me, "I can't watch anymore. I don't care about any of those characters and I don't know what's going on." That's not what any of us want. We love the show and we want it to be great.
On the other side of Springfield
Carolyn: Are things getting better at work now?
Actor #2: Yes. It feels better, as though there's a little more meat. The stories seem more grounded. We have a new writing team. They are cleaning up and wrapping up a lot of the old stories so we can move on the next stories they want to tell. There's always that transition period of cleaning up, ending, and then beginning again. We are int aht place tight now, getting the new stories going. That really is the bottom line - just tell a story, give the human condition and do it with style.
Carolyn: Do you think the growing pains for the new production model behind you?
Actor #2; I hope so. The thing that a lot of people - critics - didn't seem to get was that we were working out the kinks on the air. It's like going to a play out of town before it's ready for Broadway. You can't imagine how many changes there are before it's ready for opening night.
Carolyn: It would have easier for the audience if the stories has been good, to keep us hooked. Because the sound and production quality were not good in the beginning.
Actor #2: Believe me. I hear you, and I totally agree. We fell down on the story end. Things didn't make sense. But I do think it's all coming together now. There are some good scenes coming up. It feels good. All the changes were tough for a lot of people. We lost some of our fans, and I understand that. If we can get a story now that is electrifying, we hope they will come back.
Carolyn: So your message to fans is give GL another chance?
Actor #2: Yes! You won't be disappointed.
