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Пятница, 31 декабря 2010, 02:22:52
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Про Лэйна не знаю
Если и было, то только в теме про Джу. А я её перерывать не буду.
Для истории. Вдруг удалят с сайта.
Если имеется перевод - дайте, пожалуйста, знать. Хотя бы относительно СБ.
WE LOVE SOAPS TV Interview Archive: Lane Davies
Saturday, November 27, 2010 Posted by Damon L. Jacobs
Labels: Damon L. Jacobs, Days of our Lives, Guiding Light, Santa Barbara, The Bay, The Bold and the Beautiful, WLS Interviews
Lane Davies is beloved by soap fans for his brooding, complex, and hysterical portrayal of Mason Capwell on SANTA BARBARA. He is also regarded by critics as one of the greatest actors in daytime history. But how does this acclaimed thespian perceive his life and career? Please join us for this interview from August, 2010, in which Lane Davies discussed his roles on stage, daytime, and the exciting new web series THE BAY.
In Part One - The acclaimed actor of the hit webseries THE BAY discussed his drive to perform, and how that drive led to his first daytime role on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
In Part Two - Davies shared memories of his time as Mason on SANTA BARBARA, as well as revealed his turbulent relationship with his SB costar Nancy Lee Grahn.
In Part Three - Davies recalled his decision to leave SANTA BARBARA, his never having been nominated for an Emmy, and the dumbing down of network television.
In Part Four - Davies discussed his time on GENERAL HOSPITAL, his new role on THE BAY, and making peace with Nancy Lee Grahn. Plus, who did he almost play on GUIDING LIGHT? Find out here!
THE BAY Series Interviews: Lane Davies, Part One
Monday, August 16, 2010 Posted by Damon L. Jacobs
Labels: Damon L. Jacobs, Days of our Lives, Indie Soap Beat, Santa Barbara, The Bay, WLS Interviews
Lane Davies is beloved by soap fans for his brooding, complex, and hysterical portrayal of Mason Capwell on SANTA BARBARA. He is also regarded by critics as one of the greatest actors in daytime history. But how does this acclaimed thespian perceive his life and career? Please join us for this interviewed in which Lane Davies discusses his roles on stage, daytime, and the exciting new web series THE BAY.
We Love Soaps: How did THE BAY come to you?
Lane Davies: Gregori Martin was casting, and put out feelers to find out who people wanted to see back from daytime, and he said my name kept coming up. I have been somewhat semiretired for the last four or five years, doing mostly theater while getting my boys into college. So the timing worked out well. I was just about to head back out to L.A. and earn some college money anyway when I got the call from Gregori. I also wanted to do it because of the other people involved. I figured if Mary Beth Evans, Tristan Rogers, and Charles Shaughnessy were willing to take a chance on Gregori, then I’d be willing. Plus, I have always like the nature of serial drama.
We Love Soaps: What do you like about it?
Lane Davies: The problem I’ve always had with theater, which I do love, is that I bore easily. As sublime as material can be, it doesn’t take long for me to want to move on to other material. So the constantly changing material is part of it. The other part is the pace of the work. You can get hooked on the adrenaline of the daytime schedule if you’re on a busy part on a busy show. That’s part of the attraction of it for me. If you’re shooting film, or even episodic television, the pace can be glacially slow. I tend to fidget.
We Love Soaps: Has working in theater and drama always been a passion for you?
Lane Davies: My mother and father were extremely active in community theater in my hometown. So I was always around it, probably for want a baby-sitter. I was dragged to rehearsals at a tender age. My father had been in radio for years, it was probably in my blood.
We Love Soaps: Was there ever any other work appealed to you?
Lane Davies: Not from the age of about 15 on. There was a period of time when geology was fascinating to me. But as I got older and caught “the bug,” that fell by the wayside. I also came to realize that there was more math and science involved with geology than I wanted to throw myself into.
We Love Soaps: So you moved to California from Georgia?
Lane Davies: I moved to New York first. I rattled around the East Coast for awhile. I was in Atlanta selling real estate and doing theater. I was New York based for my first few years after leaving the Southeast.
We Love Soaps: Did you ever audition for any east coast based soaps?
Lane Davies: No. I auditioned for east coast soaps when I was living in California but not while I was in New York.
We Love Soaps: Did you find theater work in New York?
Lane Davies: I kept finding work in regional theater, dinner theater, summer stock. I never actually worked in the city when I was training there. Most of the work at that time were for guys who could sing and dance. I could act and sing but barely dance. If you were six feet tall, and could carry a tune, then you could find work as a leading man, and that’s what I was doing.
We Love Soaps: Given that you are very serious about your theater work, did you have any trepidations about starting work on a daytime soap opera?
Lane Davies: Not by the time I did it. I had been in Los Angeles long enough by then. The first soap I appeared on was THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS for a couple days work, and then got the offer from DAYS. By that time I was hungry enough. I would have taken any work that was offered. I came to find out that I loved the nature of daytime work once I started doing it.
We Love Soaps: Do you remember who you played on THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS?
Lane Davies: He was a doctor. The storyline involved Julia Newman (Meg Bennett) and Victor (Eric Braeden). I just played a young doctor. At the time, instead of testing people, the Bells would bring you on and see if they liked you and how the audience responded. Before any of that fell out, I got the offer from DAYS to play Evan Whyland.
We Love Soaps: I interviewed Suzanne Rogers last year. She told me how Maggie's story with Evan was groundbreaking in that it was the first surrogate baby storyline on daytime.
Lane Davies: Yes, it was.
We Love Soaps: Maggie had been the surrogate for the baby Evan had conceived with his dead wife.
Lane Davies: For years it was thought that I was the father. Then they needed to change it down the road. Years later it was Joe Gallison (Neil Curtis) who fathered the child. For years I thought I had a baby on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. Then they took her away from me. I thought that was cruel [laughs].
We Love Soaps: Your character lasted one year. You have said in other interviews that Evan did not exactly make an impact.
Lane Davies: That would be a euphemistic way of putting it.
We Love Soaps: The story was new and different. You were working with great actors. What happened?
Lane Davies: Aside from the fact that I was learning the ropes with daytime and multi-cameras? Beside the novice mistakes, the character started out as this brooding misanthropic young neurosurgeon, and I latched on to that. The writers at some point decided that that really wasn’t working for him, and wanted to change him into someone a little more generic. I resisted that. But it happens. Writers either respond to a character of they don’t. Audience either respond to a character or they don’t. Somewhere along the way I started blackmailing Joe Mascolo (Stefano). That’s when I knew my days were numbered.
We Love Soaps: When I first moved to New York in 2005, I waited tables with a 23-year-old named Evan who told me he was named after Evan Whyland. I guess you had more of an impact than you thought.
Lane Davies: How funny! I know there are a lot of cats and horses named Mason.
We Love Soaps: After the experience on DAYS, did you have any hesitations about signing to do SANTA BARBARA?
Lane Davies: None at all. The agent called, told me I had an audition for "SANTA BARBARA." In my head I thought it was the Santa Barbara Music Theater. Then I got the material and realized it wasn’t musical theater. I went in, read, screen-tested, and the rest is history.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Please come back for Part Two during which Lane Davies discusses his legendary role as Mason on SANTA BARBARA. How did he learn so many monologues? And which whom did he vacillate between "strangulation and copulation"? Find out in Part Two.
THE BAY The Series Interviews: Lane Davies, Part Two
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 Posted by Damon L. Jacobs
Labels: Damon L. Jacobs, Days of our Lives, Santa Barbara, The Bay, WLS Interviews
In Part One of our interview with Lane Davies, the acclaimed actor, who will be appearing on the new web series THE BAY, discussed his drive to perform, and how that led to his first daytime role on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. In this revealing second part, Davies shares aspects of his time as Mason on SANTA BARBARA, as well as a turbulent relationship with his costar Nancy Lee Grahn.
We Love Soaps: SANTA BARBARA, especially between 1984-1989, remains such a beloved gem of daytime history.
Lane Davies: That’s nice to hear you say that. I’ve heard it in other places but you are never quite sure if people are just saying that because you’re standing there and they have to say something nice to you. I do think we had something unique going on.
We Love Soaps: The pacing, the dialogue, the rhythm of the dialogue was so different. Were you aware of what a unique and non-typical daytime show this was going to be when you agreed to do it?
Lane Davies: No, I don’t think anybody knew. The Dobsons [SANTA BARBARA'S creators] met resistance when it wasn’t formulaic. But the audiences responded to it. I think it was the humor, that we had a sense of humor when it was sadly lacking in the rest of daytime. We all had great respect for the nature of the work, but with out tongues-in-cheek when it came to the storylines we were playing out. We didn’t spoof them. We were just always aware that we were having fun and creating fun, as opposed to taking the material too seriously.
We Love Soaps: The caliber of much of the acting was unusually high. There was you, Nicolas Coster, Louise Sorel, Nancy Lee Grahn, Jed Allen, the list goes on and on.
Lane Davies: In all modesty, I think we had the best ensemble cast in daytime. It didn’t last, but we were hard to beat. We had tons of energy and lots of humor.
We Love Soaps: You said earlier you made novice mistakes on DAYS. By the time you started on SANTA BARBARA, did you feel more secure with the cameras?
Lane Davies: Somewhat, but I was still apprehensive since things hadn’t gone that well on DAYS. Early on we were losing lead time. The first executive producer was trying to give it a film look with all these long shots that had to be done over and over. We got behind, and it started costing huge amounts of money. So they started loading the show on a few of us that could handle heavy loads of dialogue. Besides learning the work itself, we earned a lot of favors early on. It’s much more relaxing to be on a show that you have been on for several years than to go on and be a guest star because you have earned the right to screw up. You’re not as worried about screwing up. Plus, we were good at learning dialogue. We had massive amounts of dialogue on that show.
We Love Soaps: Especially Mason!
Lane Davies: I was always complaining to A [Martinez] about that. I had scene after scene of these long diatribes and then he and Marcy would have a love scene at the end and just do, “Kitchy, kitchy, poo-poo...” The show would end on them after I worked my ass off all day long. They’d give us 70 pages a day, and I’d have 20-30 of that on an average day.
We Love Soaps: Clearly the writers were writing to your strengths, which was the ability to convey so much subtext with the words. One of my favorite scenes took place in the summer of 1985, when Mason revealed to C.C. that Channing was gay by bringing his ex-lover to the house. C.C. starts to register who this guy is, and Mason offers him a piece of fruit while saying, “Fruit? Have one, I mean.”
Lane Davies: [Laughs] I don’t remember that. It's amazing, there are things that are burned in to my memory. I watch The Mason Chronicles, which is basically a collection of tapes of my story that our nanny had. Some of the scenes I can watch and remember what side of the stage that set was on that day, and others things I watch and it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time. It’s like watching yourself in a dream, a much younger and handsomer self.
We Love Soaps: What made that scene and so many memorable is that Mason could be horrifying, cruel, even homophobic, yet we still enjoyed him, we still rooted for him. You couldn’t help but be on his side. That’s a delicate balance.
Lane Davies: That was the fun of him. He was a vulnerable villain. You always understood why he was the way he was. For that I credited the Dobsons. Bridget Dobson had similar issues with her own mother and transferred that into Mason. Because I was able to get those layers across, she kept writing it.
We Love Soaps: One of the reasons I believe they gave you so much dialogue had to do with the musical cadence in your voice. The way you speak words is nearly melodic. Is that from training, or is that natural?
Lane Davies: It’s probably a little bit of both. After awhile you lose track of what is learned behavior and what came naturally. Acting was really never all that hard for me. I’m still of the opinion that you can’t teach it. You can improve somebody’s acting, but if they can’t act, you can’t teach them how. There comes a point where you’ve been doing it so long you can’t remember what you learned how to do and what you did because you were born to it. I came to that show having worked with some of the better dramaturges in this country. They paid close attention to words and to nuance. They were big on dictionary work, right down to grinding the word down to its etymology. I always put great stock in nuance of the individual word, and that was a learned behavior. By the time I got on SANTA BARBARA, I had been doing it so much it was second nature.
We Love Soaps: That certainly explains why you were the go-to guy for long passages of dialogue.
Lane Davies: One day they wrote me into 58 pages. A lot of it was trial stuff. I went up to Jerry Dobson and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I’m sorry you have finally written one I can’t do. I’ll have to read half the show off [cue] cards.
We Love Soaps: Do you remember which storyline that was for?
Lane Davies: It was probably during Ted’s rape storyline. It was a big trial scene. So Jerry cut the speech, and then the show was ten minutes short. It gives you an idea of how much material I had. But all they did was load that material on to a different day. I didn’t really get out of the work.
We Love Soaps: Part of what worked well was the chemistry you had with so many of your costars. The fireworks between you and Nancy were electric.
Lane Davies: I watch them and I find myself trying to remember if we were even speaking off camera at the time. We always had this chemistry that audience liked. But we are both such hard headed individuals. We often crossed lines in terms of personal and work relationship. It led to fireworks on and off screen. My running joke is that no one could tell if we were closer to copulation or strangulation. But they seemed to like it, whichever one it was.
We Love Soaps: Of course, love and hate are opposite sides of the coin. What kind of things did you argue about?
Lane Davies: At this point I don’t even remember. I was constantly fighting, not just her, but the domestication of the character. Here was this guy who started out changing pregnancy tests so he could sleep with his stepmother, and later on they had me folding diapers. I’m afraid I resisted it a bit too vocally. Looking back, I would have been more diplomatic about it. But I was getting really frustrated because the writers and Nancy wanted Mason to be a lot more domestic than I wanted him to be. That was really what led to a lot of friction between us.
We Love Soaps: And you were there 12-16 hours a day.
Lane Davies: There was always a fatigue factor. There was a blood sugar factor. A lot of dynamics at work. Then you try to maintain some sort of personal life outside the studio and it can lead to some behavior that is less than professional. I look back on a lot of those times and there were times when I would be less than professional. Not that many, but enough that I would apologize. There were times I could have behaved better but I was just so frustrated. It was difficult.
We Love Soaps: Are you talking about tantrums, outbursts?
Lane Davies: No, I tend to be more passive aggressive. Once I learned where Nancy’s buttons were, I would push those buttons and sit back and let her throw the tantrums. If you look at the genesis of the tantrum it was me getting her to do it.
We Love Soaps: That is passive aggressive!
Lane Davies: It was very Machiavellian. And then there was the boredom factor. We had been doing the show for four years or so. I have never been a person to create drama for the sake of creating drama. But I think there were times we were so bored, that’s the downfall of daytime. That’s the drawback of daytime, you can get bored with the routine, so any drama becomes exciting. Even if it’s inappropriate.
We Love Soaps: Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently on SANTA BARBARA?
Lane Davies: There is stuff I would have taken less seriously. I would have said, “They are paying me a lot of money to do this and I should just do my job.” I would have picked my battles more carefully. I am very good at picking my battles now. At that time I wasn’t as good at it.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Please come back for Part Three in which we discuss Davies' exit from SANTA BARBARA, and the dumbing down of daytime.
THE BAY The Series Interviews: Lane Davies, Part Three
Saturday, August 21, 2010 Posted by Damon L. Jacobs
Labels: Damon L. Jacobs, Days of our Lives, Santa Barbara, The Bay, The Bold and the Beautiful, WLS Interviews
In Parts One and Two of our interview with Lane Davies, the critically acclaimed and beloved actor shared memories of his early career, his stint as Evan on DAYS, and his indelible role as Mason on SANTA BARBARA. In Part Three below, Davies discusses his decision to leave the show, his never having been nominated for an Emmy, and the dumbing down of network televsion.
We Love Soaps: When you hear the words, “Milk, butter, ground beef” what comes to mind?
Lane Davies: Cholesterol?
We Love Soaps: Those were Mason’s wedding vows to Julia in 1989. He thought he had his vows in his pocket, and pulled out a shopping list instead.
Lane Davies: [Laughs] Oh my God, I had forgotten that.
We Love Soaps: This was an example of just one of these hysterically unexpected things that took place during an otherwise traditional soap event.
Lane Davies: Well, you know when you’ve been shot by Abe Vigoda playing the world’s oldest hit man that the writers have a sense of humor, even if they are somewhat disturbed [laughs].
We Love Soaps: What led to your leaving in 1989?
Lane Davies: It was time for a number of reasons. Career wise, I felt it was time to make a move before something homicidal happened between me and Nancy [Lee Grahn]. Then there was the boredom factor. I have never regretted leaving the show. There are times I miss the character and times I miss the work. But I never thought it was the wrong career move. I just left and traveled.
We Love Soaps: How did you hear that Mason was being recast with Terry Lester?
Lane Davies: When I left I made it clear I probably wasn’t coming back, but everyone knows that’s not necessarily set in stone in daytime. I was in the south of France when Louise Sorel told me. We were taking French. I think we were in a pool when she told me. I didn’t know Terry at that time. We later became fast friends. He did several things for me at my theaters. I didn’t know him, but I knew he was a great actor and thought he would be great in the part.
We Love Soaps: How did you find out about SANTA BARBARA having been canceled?
Lane Davies: By that time I was so involved in sitcoms. I only have the vaguest memory of hearing it was going off. I hadn’t really watched it since I left. It was like hearing about an old friend that you hadn’t seen for awhile had passed away. That was the feeling.
We Love Soaps: It seemed tragic that a show that had so much intelligence and passion never did well in the American ratings. It garnered many awards and attention world wide, but not in Nielsen ratings.
Lane Davies: That was back when show loyalty was almost patriotic. We were up against GUIDING LIGHT and GENERAL HOSPITAL in most markets. Daytime audiences used to be very forgiving, and a show could be awful for months and the audience would stay with it because they knew it would eventually get better. It was very hard to win viewers away from an existing show, and we were up against those two powerhouses. And then there was the launch. Brian Frons’s theory when we launched SANTA BARBARA was to launch in during the 1984 Olympics, with the theory that women would rather watch a hot new soap than sports. That turned out not to be the case. For some reason in 1984 everyone wanted to watch the Olympics during the day and at night. We never really got the boost a new show could have gotten.
We Love Soaps: Speaking of things that seem unjust: There were many years SANTA BARBARA was nominated and won Emmy awards. To my shock, you have never been nominated.
Lane Davies: But that was back in the days when you had to put yourself up for nomination. I just never did. I didn’t really agree with the Emmy process. And I was so busy with the other stuff. It’s a lot of work to win an Emmy. You have to put the tape together, you have to put it out, I just never did it. I knew that producers were pushing for A [Martinez] to get one and I made the decision early on that I wasn’t going to pursue it. There was a period of time where there was work I was proud of. Maybe if I pushed it, who knows. But I have never been that big on awards. I wouldn’t have refused one if someone handed it to me, but it just seemed like a lot of work that I wasn’t willing to do.
We Love Soaps: In 1993, you filled in for Ronn Moss on BOLD & THE BEAUTIFUL. That seems strange to me given you appear to have very different styles. What was it like to fill in a roll on a temporary basis?
Lane Davies: I was never really comfortable filling in for Ronn. I’m crazy about the Bells, and I don’t know Ronn well. We are very different actors, but they continued to write for him. I was never quite comfortable in that skin. It was only a six week gig. Bill Bell called me in and offered me quite a nice amount of money to come in and make out with Ron Moss’s women on the show. I thought, “Well, I can do that.” I had shot a pilot that spring and was waiting to hear if it had been picked up, so it was really a nice interim gig. The Bells have a great understanding of the genre and their audience, and they are great people.
We Love Soaps: But nowhere on daytime now do you see the intellectual complexities and subtle nuances in dialogue that were written on SANTA BARBARA in the '80s. What do you think happened? Some people theorize there has been dumbing down of our culture in general.
Lane Davies: Yes, I would sort of have to agree with that. You had the reality show juggernaut there for awhile, it’s not as bad now. At one point you had eighteen hours of primetime programming devoted to reality television. You don’t need writers for that, nor actors, nor casting directors. A lot of good and talented writers just got out of the business. That’s part of the problem. And then, at least on network television, subtlety and nuance is not their strong suit.
We Love Soaps: It’s a question of chicken and the egg. Is that dumbing down a reflection of the audience or are audiences being conditioned not to expect and desire intellectually stimulating entertainment?
Lane Davies: I think it’s both. It’s a problem I have across the board with all the media. People tend to be mentally lazy and they don’t necessarily want to be challenged. It’s really up to the creative people to challenge them, to lead them, to push them a little bit. If they don’t, then the common denominator gets lower and lower until you are basically producing for six year olds.
We Love Soaps: I remember being able to see ALL IN THE FAMILY, MAUDE, and MARY TYLER MOORE on primetime. These were shows that made you laugh, but they also made you think. That doesn’t seem to happen now.
Lane Davies: Well, you would have a tough time getting Archie Bunker on the air now. Political correctness is so out of control. At the same time, you’ve got “the suits” running the business. It’s all about the numbers, the bottom line. They’ll pick shows based on numbers, not based on what that show could do for the public if it had time to find an audience. They don’t give good shows enough time to find an audience.
We Love Soaps: Fortunately, cable, pay TV, and the internet seem to be thriving on doing new and different continuing stories.
Lane Davies: And I’m optimistic for that very reason. I think in three or four years we’ll have more good television than we used to have. In the “good old days” we had only had three networks, and a lot of that stuff was pretty awful. We tend to remember the golden years with the golden shows but there was a lot of dreck on at the same time. Now we have all these different outlets, including the internet, and there’s no telling what quality of work will be out there.
We Love Soaps: You have been performing classical theater and Shakespeare on stages for decades. Have you noticed changes in your audience in that area?
Lane Davies: No, I think they remain more consistent. But I think that’s because there is more effort involved in getting up and out to a play. It’s not nearly as passive as television, so they tend to be more discriminating and less forgiving of stuff that doesn’t make it worth while to hire the babysitter.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Come back for Part Four in which Davies discusses his role as Cameron on GENERAL HOSPITAL, and shares reflections and insights into his great career.
THE BAY The Series Interviews: Lane Davies, Part Four
Monday, August 23, 2010 Posted by Damon L. Jacobs
Labels: Damon L. Jacobs, Days of our Lives, General Hospital, Guiding Light, Santa Barbara, The Bay, WLS Interviews
In Parts One and Two, and Three of our interview with Lane Davies, the critically acclaimed and beloved actor discussed his career on DAYS OF OUR LIVES and SANTA BARBARA, as well as thoughts about the dumbing down of daytime. In the final part below, Davies discusses his time on GENERAL HOSPITAL, his new role on THE BAY, and making peace with Nancy Lee Grahn. Plus, who did he almost play on GUIDING LIGHT? Find out here!
We Love Soaps: How did the role of Cameron Lewis on GENERAL HOSPITAL come about?
Lane Davies: I had a call from Jill [Farren Phelps] one day. We had stayed in touch over the years. She said, “I think I’ve got something for you.” At that time my friend Lucky Gold over at GUIDING LIGHT had also called and said, ‘We have something for you.” That went back and forth for a bit.
We Love Soaps: Do you remember what the role on GUIDING LIGHT would have been?
Lane Davies: They were looking for someone to work opposite Joan Collins (Alexandra). I’m not sure what happened with that.
We Love Soaps: That probably turned out for the best, she only lasted a couple of months on the show.
Lane Davies: That’s what I heard.
We Love Soaps: Over at GENERAL HOSPITAL you were reunited with many of your SANTA BARBARA costars, including Nancy Lee Grahn. What was it like to work with her again?
Lane Davies: It was fun. It was difficult to get the storyline off the ground. We were taking it very slow. I’m not sure if it was political, but there was always an obstacle to making our story move forward. Either Alexis’ child was at death’s door or she was suffering from Dissociative Disorder, or she was dressing like a man and wearing a beard. In the brief time I was on the show there were not a lot of opportunities to get a romantic storyline off the ground.
We Love Soaps: It seemed your character was ill-defined.
Lane Davies: They couldn’t decide. So I looked at it as a nice job for a year. I was at a point where I was ready to get out of L.A. anyway so I wasn’t crushed when it was over. But it was a little bit frustrating. The writers never got a handle on the character.
We Love Soaps: What surprised you about the way a daytime show was being shot in 2002 versus 1989?
Lane Davies: The way the shows were shot was different. We used to start blocking in the morning and not get around to taping it until four in the afternoon. It took your whole day, and you had no real life off the show, but you got a much more finished performance because you had the whole day to rehearse it. Whereas GENERAL HOSPITAL was block-tape. You go in, you get your blocking, you get your make-up, then you go out there and shoot it. I always felt a little bit like we were shooting a rehearsal. And it felt a little more mechanical than SANTA BARBARA did.
We Love Soaps: Some theater actors have told me they prefer the newer way of shooting, that it’s like doing live theater every day.
Lane Davies: It was nice because you could have a life outside of the studio. At the age I was, I preferred that schedule. That being said, if I had had the dialogue load that I had had on SANTA BARBARA, I don’t think I could have done it. We tried block-tape on SANTA BARBARA for about a week and we all went screaming. It just wasn’t written for block-tape. You could not possibly get a performance like block-tape together unless you went home and spent the entire evening learning lines. So you would end up with less of a life. You’d leave the studio, you’d go home, and you’d have to learn your lines at night in order block-tape them the next day. Whereas on SANTA BARBARA, I didn’t have to look at a script before I went in because I had all day to learn it. On a good day I would read through my stuff three or four times the night before and then not start learning it until after dry blocking.
We Love Soaps: So you’re telling me that some of Mason’s long monologues were learned the same day? How?
Lane Davies: [Laughs] Oh yes. And when I watch The Mason Chronicles I can see some of those days that I was more diligent by the whiteness of my eyes. A [Martinez] and I, just to keep the adrenaline in our system, would not learn a scene well, so we would get out there and be edgy because we were looking in the other guy’s eyes trying to figure out what our next line was.
We Love Soaps: Did it feel more peaceful with Nancy this time around?
Lane Davies: We got along fine. By that time it was her show, it was her part. I wasn’t going to rock the boat. Looking back I probably should have collared her at some point and said, “I think we need to do more to get us noticed.” But hindsight is 20-20.
We Love Soaps: You also had a lot of great scenes with Tony Geary (Luke).
Lane Davies: I loved working with Tony!
We Love Soaps: He is also known as an actor who is able to be spontaneous. Did you find you had a lot in common as actors?
Lane Davies: I know we had a good rapport. He is a very easy guy to work with. I have never met anybody more casual about the work, and as good at it. He has reached a point in his career where he can basically do it with his eyes closed, but his work is always worth watching.
We Love Soaps: He is also someone who has fought against the domestication of his character.
Lane Davies: We are kindred spirits in that regard.
We Love Soaps: Earlier this year, fifteen different critics ranked their choices for the greatest actors on daytime and you came in at #27 on our 50 Greatest Soap Actors ever.
Lane Davies: That’s interesting. That’s amazing, especially considering I was only on SANTA BARBARA for five years. A lot of guys have been doing this longer. I am flattered.
We Love Soaps: So now your work has brought you to THE BAY. Will you and Nicolas Coster be sharing scenes?
Lane Davies: I would assume so. I’m an upper level policeman, and he’s the mayor, so I’m assuming we will. I will also have scenes with Tristan Rogers. And Mary Beth Evans is tied into everyone on the show. I imagine I’ll be working with Charles Shaughnessy. We weren’t on DAYS at the same time, but we go way back. I did an episode of THE NANNY. It will probably be boring for the crew to listen to these old soap dogs trade stories.
We Love Soaps: Oh to be fly on the wall!
Lane Davies: It will be fun.
We Love Soaps: If you could go back to the beginning of your career 30 years ago and give yourself a piece of advice, what would that be?
Lane Davies: Probably to “relax.” I think I was much too earnest early on, especially on DAYS. I would just relax and have more of a sense of humor about it. I would have watched myself more. But at the time I didn’t have the time, and I didn’t want to make myself self-conscious.
We Love Soaps: Is there anything you want our readers and future viewers of THE BAY to know?
Lane Davies: I’m just so flattered that Mason is still so fondly remembered and that somebody is interested in seeing me get back on a screen on a new soap.
We Love Soaps: Do you ever doubt that?
Lane Davies: Yes. You look at a calendar and you realize how many years it has been. You think, “Good heavens, there are only a few people alive who will remember that particular show.” When people say they remember me on DAYS, I am stunned. We started SANTA BARBARA twenty-six years ago.
We Love Soaps: Mason connected with the part of all of us that wants to be able to be clever, witty, even mean, yet redeemable. You’ve made an unforgettable impact.
Lane Davies: That’s always good to hear. You can never go wrong telling an actor good things about himself [laughs].
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