The Wit and Wisdom: PRESS ARCHIVES

Inside the Actor's Apartment (SOW 9/28/04)
Robin Strasser invites Tuc Watkins (and Weekly) into her home to dish their craft -- and their crafty characters
by Kathryn Walsh

While One Life to Live's David and Dorian may be birds of a feather, their portrayers, Tuc Watkins and Robin Strasser are polar opposites on at least one subject: publicity. She likes it, he doesn't.

"I find it very enjoyable," offers Strasser, "because I have been fortunate with the people who come talk to me." She also feels a responsibility to promote the show. "I think it behooves us all to pull together as a team. I know how much the fans have responded to David and Dorian, yet I open up the magazine and I don't see that you have material. I want to do my part in correcting that."

When asked if Strasser encouraged him to do this joint interview, Watkins says, "Robin didn't encourage me, she invited me." He not only accepted, he came up with the theme for this Inside the Actors' Studio-type interview. "I thought, I would love to sit down with Robin and talk about our process, and how we work together." So Weekly met up with the actors at Strasser's Manhattan townhouse for this, plus an extravagant lunch cooked by the actress herself. Talk about being press-friendly!

WEEKLY: You do realize that James Lipton (the host of the Bravo series Inside) often asks his subjects to dance. Was this what you had in mind?
WATKINS: (blanching) That's only if the actors have a background in dance!
WEEKLY: Just kidding. Before we talk about your process, can you tell us why you don't do many interviews? Are you press-shy or do you just feel you have nothing to talk about?
WATKINS: I have plenty to say, but I think one of the problems that our culture has is that actors talk too much. The actors I'm most interested in are the ones I don't know anything about. I shy away from letting people know who I am, personally, because I don't want them to. I want them to know the characters I play.
WEEKLY: When Frank (Valentini, executive producer) asked you to come back, did he tell you that you would be working with Robin again?
WATKINS: He never said that, I just assumed it. I don't think you bring David back without putting him with Dorian. Playing David without Dorian is like playing with matches without kerosene. It's fun to play with matches, but onice you add the kerosene it becomes a lot more fun.
WEEKLY: One of the things viewers love about David and Dorian is that you are so natural together and it looks like you're having so much fun.
STRASSER: Tuc has a very agile mind. He's smart, he's funny.
WATKINS: Both of those statements are true.
STRASSER: It's like when a really good ballroom dancer asks you to dance. It doesn't matter if you took the 12 classes at Arthur Murray, if the person that is leading knows how to dance, then the other dancer is following.
WATKINS: What's nice about what we do is, we trade off the lead. There is a give-and-take that becomes a rhythm. You don't have that with everyone that you work with. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn...there are teams throughout history that do that, and I think I would be complimenting us to put us in that category. But I have that sense when I work with Robin that we get into a sort of tango.
WEEKLY: Do you stick to the script or do you come up with things on your own?
WATKINS: I look at the script and think, "Can the same line be said with a different intention that takes it in a different way?" Often it's just punching a different word than is intended. A lot of times in rehearsal when you're reading it together for the first time, you notice where the problems are. When we run into a problem, Robin and I say, "Let us work on it and we'll present you with what we think would be a good solution."
STRASSER: The first, second and third time we did it, they liked it and appreciated it. We've been encouraged. We've been endorsed to the extent that our executive producer says, "If thye've got a good idea let's take a look at that on camera."
WATKINS: When I read our scripts the first thing I usually do is try and find where it's funny. That's not always the best choice, but it's what I naturally do. Robin tends to ground me. If I want to go too far with something, she makes it very clear that I may want to reconsider. She's right. That's part of working with someone that you trust.
WEEKLY: Dorian and David seem like an odd couple, but they work. Why is that?
STRASSER: So nobody gets scared about doing it, let's use the A word. The age difference seems irrelevant. Dorian loves his energy. Oh, yes, he's young, goregeous and sexy and all of that, but it's the surprise and how alive she feels in his presence.
WATKINS: That's never come up in our relationship, that's never come up in the dialogue. Our characters are more interested in the excitement and the hunt than we are in settling down and being in love. I think if we settled down and just watched movies we would have to hold a gun to each other's head.
WEEKLY: Are you friends outside of work? Do you have a lot in common?
WATKINS: I'd say we're becoming more and more friends.
STRASSER: Let's tell them the truth about the schedule: We are locked up in the studio with the people we work with for so long, that when we leave we tend to go out outside the studio life. We need to protect that or else our outside life will disappear.
WATKINS: That's Robin's nice way of saying she doesn't want to be my friend.
STRASSER: Oh, no, that's not true. We have tons in common. Fixing up houses is one of them. When he was finishing with the renovation of his place, we talked (and I said I wanted to see it). He said, "Wait until it's complete." I said, "Come on, I'm your buddy, I can se it before it's all finished." I was just in awe of how great it was.
WEEEKLY: And you both like to cook?
WATKINS: I like to experiment. I like to have friends over and cook. I learned when I was living in Vancouver for two years. I was bored and lonely up there. So I took a cooking class, tennis lessons, tango lessons...
WEEKLY: Ah, so you do have a dance background!
WATKINS: I only took four lessons! Four lessons in tango ain't nothing.
STRASSER: For me, cooking came about because when I was a child I lived with my grandmother. I observed her cooking and enjoyed all those smells. Then my mother was a working mother and I was a latch-key child. I was adept at being able to go out and buy the food and prepare dinner for her. I enjoyed it.
WEEKLY: Tuc, what would people be surprised to know about Robin?
WATKINS: She is extremely thoughtful to the actors that she works with, whether it's me or someone who's just there for a couple of lines. She's the first one to make sure that everybody around her looks and sounds good. She's very good at looking at the big picture as opposed to just her part in that picture. She's also funnier than I think most people would guess.
WEEKLY: And Robin, what about Tuc?
STRASSER: They may be surprised from his character's persona that he has a spine, a backbone made up of the part of this country that he comes from (Kansas), and the fact that he does have a nuclear family made up of two loving parents. That translates into a really warm person. When Tuc walks into the studio people are more at ease. He's an extremely classy guy in the best sense of that.
WATKINS: These are really questions you should ask us when the other one is in the bathroom.

A Few of Their Favorite Things
An Inside the Actors' Studio interview wouldn't be complete without some personality-probing questions -- and, of course, the signature curse-word question.

WEEKLY: What's your favorite word?
WATKINS: Beverage.
STRASSER: I'm very big on integrity these days.

WEEKLY: What's your least favorite word?
WATKINS: Nice.
STRASSER: Prejudice.

WEEKLY: What's your favorite sound?
WATKINS: Rain on corrugated metal.
STRASSER: Wind rustling through the trees.

WEEKLY: Least favorite sound?
WATKINS: Loud people on public transportation.
STRASSER: A dripping faucet.

WEEKLY: Your favorite place?
WATKINS: The backyard I grew up in on 51st Street in Mission, Kan.
STRASSER: Wherever my friends and family can gather together.

WEEKLY: Least favorite place?
WATKINS: Any waiting room that precedes an audition.
STRASSER: I am claustrophobic and I do have panic attacks, so any confined, uncomfortable, airless place.

WEEKLY: What's your favorite thing to do?
WATKINS: Complete a project.
STRASSER: Hike.

WEEKLY: Least favorite?
WATKINS: Organize my desk.
STRASSER: Vacuum.

WEEKLY: What do you worry about?
WATKINS: Other people's perceptions of me.
STRASSER: Not being good enough. Leading a life that doesn't have meaning.

WEEKLY: What ideas now popular in our society do you consider potentially dangerous?
WATKINS: The opinions of celebrities.
STRASSER: The expression "casual sex" is one of the most appalling oxymorons in our culture. Good sex is never casual. All of this pressure on young people is dangerous.

WEEKLY: What's your idea of a perfect vacation?
WATKINS: A double serving of eggs Benedict, then scuba diving, then horseback riding, followed by lunch in Tuscany, followed by a one-on-one conversation with Cary Grant's ghost, followed by dinner in Paris and sleeping under the stars in Tahiti.
STRASSER: To visit a country and stay long enough to learn the language. I've never been to Normandy or Italy.

WEEKLY: What's your favorite curse word or phrase?
WATKINS: G-- damn son-of-a-bitch.
STRASSER: I'm an old-fashioned girl. I don't do a lot of cursing.