All My Children/One Life To Live online (cast info, discussion, etc)

Seemed like since this is actually happening, it was time for a new thread away from the "ABC Cancels AMC/OLTL" thread.

Full casts for both shows posted--these are the contract roles only, recurring roles (including some previous vets like, reportedly, Jennifer Bassey as Marian on AMC) aren't listed. Filming for AMC started this past Monday, with OLTL meant to start in two weeks. The soaps are meant to film in cycles of 4-5 each after that, and as mentioned will air on Hulu (free), Hulu Plus (with apparently extra bonuses and less commercials) and iTunes, Mon-Thurs, 30 mins each, with a Friday recap/Behind the Scenes type episode

AMC:
Julia Barr (Brooke English)
Ryan Bittle (JR Chandler)
David Canary (Adam Chandler)
Lindsay Hartley (Cara Castillo)
Vincent Irizarry (Dr. David Hayward)
Francesca James (Evelyn Johnson)
Thorsten Kaye (Zach Slater)
Jill Larson (Opal Cortlandt)
Ray MacDonnell (Dr. Joe Martin)
Cady McClain (Dixie Cooney)
Debbi Morgan (Dr. Angela Hubbard)
Eric Nelsen (AJ Chandler)
Jordan Lane Price (Celia Fitzgerald)
Eden Riegel (Bianca Montgomery)
Heather Roop (Jane McInttyre)
Saleisha (Sal) Stowers (Cassandra Foster)
Denyse Tontz (Miranda Montgomery)
Jordi Vilasuso (Griffin Castillo)
Darnell Williams (Jesse Hubbard)
Robert Scott Wilson (Peter Cortlandt)

Daniel Covin has been cast as recurring teen, Hunter.


A lot of teens, though they are at least largely tied to established characters, and AMC has a long history of having a big teen scene--including the initial Erica/Tara/Chuck/Phil main starting off story, and the popular teen scene of the early 80s with Tad/Jenny/Jesse/Angie/Liza/Greg--something they haven't done well for the past decade or so (AMC will start 5 years, soap time, after the finale.)

I'm thrilled with the vets even if Susan Lucci says she can't do anything till after filming Devious Maids. Still, I never thought I'd see David Canary, Ray McDonald, and especially my all time fave Julia Barr back headlining the show (the way Julia Barr was uncermoniously fired without even an exit due to her age was beyond awful.) The brilliant David Canary came out of retirement, as did Ray, it seems partly because the show will now be filming in Stamford, CT (which has cheap tax breaks for TV and film production), close to NY, since both left partly due to the idiotic move to LA for the show's final 18 months.

I like what I've seen of the recast teens in terms of photos and demo film reels, although Robert Scott Wilson (the handsome but dull seeming male model from Price is Right) playing formerly geeky Petey seems just... Well typical soap model casting I guess. Since Jacob Young won't leave B&B, I actually think Bittle isn't a bad choice (OK, as a kid I had a crush on him in the awful Sweet Valley High...).

Oh and completely random about Francesca James, who played Kitty Shea and then Kelly Shea for much of the 70s into the 80s, but had given up acting (except for cameos at funerals etc) to work as an Exec Producer and a director for AMC and other soaps. I assume this character somehow will be tied into those (maybe they were triplets... Which with Agnes Nixon back involved in the show woduln't seem all that unlikely.)

OLTL:

•Melissa Archer (Natalie Buchanan Banks)
•Kassie DePaiva (Blair Cramer)
•Jerry verDorn (Clint Buchanan)
•Robert Gorrie (Matthew Buchanan)
•Laura Harrier (Destiny Evans)
•Josh Kelly (Cutter Wentworth)
•Florencia Lozano (Tea Delgado)
•Kelley Missal (Danielle Manning)
•Erika Slezak (Victoria ‘Viki’ Lord Buchanan)
•Hillary B. Smith (Nora Buchanan)
•Robin Strasser (Dorian Lord)
•Andrew Trischitta (Jack Manning)
•Tuc Watkins (David Vickers)
•Robert S. Woods (Bo Buchanan)

(The original actors playing Vimal and Rama Patel, as well as Sean, Destiny's uncle, are meant to be recurring. No word on Roxy, but I can dream.)

RH as Todd is meant to spend a few weeks filming episodes before returning to General Hospital, no word on Starr or John, but frankly they dominated the last decade of OLTL so much, that I'm glad to take a break from them (I'm even more glad to take a break from Ryan, Greenlee, and Kendall on AMC even though all the actors have said that when current projects finish up--and if the show is still on--they'd welcome a return.)

OLTL has a smaller contract cast, but less new faces since it ended more recently and more of the actors were able to return. Some fans are worried about the recasts, but I think, especially in the case of my fave AMC, it needed a bit of a reshuffle.

Cast has also tweeted that this show will be slightly more "mature" not being on network tv, light nudity and heavier language implied (ironic because some soaps--like Y&R and GL experimented with some minor male backside nudity for a bit until networks got scared off by Janet Jackson Nipplegate.) I think that's a good idea, as long as it doesn't start looking like the Red Shoe Diaries... And hopefully the promised lack of interference from execs--which killed the ABC soaps the past decade when they were controlling story, etc--will help creatively. Initial leaked stoy ideas sound pretty promising.

I still hate getting my hopes up, and these could turn out awful, but I admit, I'm kinda excited to have two of my all time fave shows resurrected. No set premier date yet except "Spring" though late April has been mentioned.

As mentioned, the brilliant Agnes Nixon who created both soaps is Exec Story Consultant for both--although that can mean various degrees of involvement, right now, especially as she's been on set, it seems to have a lot to do with the initial setup. (I suspect she'll be more involved with AMC which she's remained with in some capacity for most of its 40 years--excepting the Pratt headwriting years when she was apparently locked out of--since she's been much less involved in OLTL since the 70s.)

OLTL's writing team consists of Thom Racina and Susan Bedsow Horgan as Co-Head Writers with a writing staff of Jessica Klein, Alex Douglas, and Jeff Wilber. Thom is famous for some of the more campy and successful soap stories, notably Luke and Laura and the Ice Princess on GH, but I think that camp will balance out nicely under Horgan who was a writer during the brilliant Michael Malone/Josh Griffith OLTL revamp from '92-'94 and then was Exec Producer for the show, and helped with writing from '95-'96. The writers under them are new to One Life but Klein worked at As the World Turns as a script writer.

It'll be Exec Produced by Jennifer Pepperman who worked as a director at World Turns for 10 years, and directed episodes of One Life for 3.

AMC's less impressive sounding writing team consists of Marlene McPherson and Elizabeth Snyder as the show’s Co-Head Writers. Their writing staff will consist of former “AMC” writers: Chip Hayes, Lisa Connor, Rebecca Taylor and former ABC Daytime member Sue Johnson. Marlene won an Emmy a year back for Days of Our Lives (starting the gay story, etc), but was quickly replaced and hasn't built much of a reputation otherwise (she says her stories were tampered with constantly by NBC so I'll give her a chance, especially since she's working with Nixon.) Elizabeth has has 20+ years on various soaps winning a number of awards, but never as a headwriter.

AMC will have Ginger Smith as its Executive Producer who has been a producer of various sorts with AMC for its last 21 years.

I'm bummed (but not surprised) that we are not getting Trevor St. John. I really want them to wrap up that s/l with him being alive at the very end of the show and held by Allison Perkins. I also saw something about a re-cast for JR Chandler since Jacob Young is on B&B now.

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I am glad he's staying at GH too (and I'm sure the actor isn't complaining--he's on contract with them so will get paid for that, and for his OLTL month at the same time.) It's nice to see him with a new group of characters--I admit, since I started watching One Life a year or so before Todd led the gang rape (I started during the Ryan Philippe gay teen story), and have seen all the controversial attempts they've tried to do to "redeem" Todd, ones that apparently initially made Roger so uncomfortable (with fans shouting things like "Rape me Todd") that he left--twice--I have a hard time with him being the focus on One Life for so long. (And even if it was retconned to be his brother--having the "rapemance" with Marty was a huge mistake--Ron Carlivati does some great writing on GH and did on his four years on One Life but the man needs to just stay away from rape storylines...)

So I think placing him away from the town he repeatedly terorrized makes the character more viable again--and the on/off Todd and Blair thing was getting old. While a little John McBain goes a long way for me (has there ever been a cop on tv who, at least on One Life led to so many people getting killed and yet was always praised as an amazing hero?), I also prefer him on GH. Starr is a non issue either way for me...

Stockard, I am in the huge minority (and it may be because I was sick of Roger constantly coming and going as Todd, as I mentioned) but I prefered Trevor St John in the role, myself. While the actor has always been awkward around fans, he has said he'd consider coming back--so it could still happen (both shows also claim they will have some surprise casting especially after the first few weeks are filmed).

That OLTL cliffhanger with him drove me crazy. Yes AMC ended theirs with the gun shot (which was forced on them by the original plan to go online) but they thought they'd be right back online, which I assume is one reason AMC is now fast forwarding 5 years so we can see JR out of jail for attempted murder or something--One Life had already changed some of their finale when they found out the online deal was canceled, and I wished they had ended the show with Vicki. Unfortunately, I've heard that for the Alison Perkins shock ending with a kidnapped "Victor JR" Ron Carlivati had no explanation--he just wanted a shock ending, so if the new writers were to write it they'd have to think of some bizarre excuse. Honestly, while entertaining, I found it bizarre that the OLTL finale was entirely done as Alison Perkins reading from a story she had written, to Victor JR, about every single person in Llanview. She'd always been psycho, but never omnicient before.)

He seems content to stay in Spokane at the moment--at least as his base. I get the feeling he doesn't really like being too well known--the soap fan reaction seemed to scare him a bit (I thought he would easily move to primetime but maybe he's not interested--or has had no luck, I remember he played Peter Krause's father in flashbacks on a few episodes of Dirty Sexy Money and that was it.)

As for "too good," I dunno--I think David Canary is one of the best actors they've ever had on TV, though he is quite old now and has had a long career (including long runs on primetime shows like Peyton Place and Bonanza,) sobeing able to do a soap, online or not close to his home seems to be enough for him. Ditto the great Julia Barr--I guess I mean I kinda get your point but at the same time these online soaps are paying the same equity wages they would get for a network tv show (one reason it took so long to negotiate) etc--so it's a paying job (and one with pretty decent hours due to the filming schedule.)

But I'm glad you agree in regards to his talent I know he was unhappy with some of his Todd stories (including the Marty stuff) and sometimes it would show on screen--you could tell when he wasn't fully comitted, but.

Susan Lucci is not sure if she is returning to 'All My Children', but she's hoping that she will. It's strange because she originally said that she was not going to continue with the show if was to air online. I don't think it's going to happen though. In the original series finale, it was implied that her character was shot.




Is Susan Lucci Returning to All My Children?

Actually, from all I've heard, the original cliffhanger was NOT going to show Erica shot but someone else. Back then Susan was planning on coming back to the online show--that was before she booked Marc Cherry's basic cable show Devious Maids. She sounded like she did want to come back, at least on a recurring basis, when she's done filming--at least she seemed honest on her The View interview this week. I'm ok with no Erica--for a while, though I hope we do get appearances--but knowing we have Adam, Brooke, Angie even Opal and Joe and other long term vets anchoring the show, makes me less concerned.

La Lucci has always been very grateful and loyal to Agnes Nixon and the show (even taking huge pay cuts the last few years) I think will try to at least do a few story arcs when she can. But trust me, there was *never* any intention to have her shot dead in the finale.

There was a press event and photo shoot yesterday held at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club (apparently Sleepy Hollow is close to Stamford where it films). Pics prob won't be released till next week but Jordi Velusoso and his cute dog Mister Peanut tweeted a bunch of behind the scenes photos (mainly for AMC but some of the cast of OLTL was there as well even though it doesn't go into production for another few weeks.)