The Wit and Wisdom: PRESS ARCHIVES

Q&A — Robin Strasser and Tuc Watkins (SOD.com October 2005)
By Kathryn Walsh

Soap Opera Weekly: Would you say your first impression of Tuc was accurate?
Robin Strasser: I was thrilled. I said, "Now that's what acting is about." It's interesting, because actors see [in the script] "Well, he kisses her passionately; she resists." These guys were honestly trying to get the job by deep throating me. His choice was brilliant. I was so, "I hope it's that guy." And I now realize he was the wild card because he was a lot younger, handsomer, taller, and had a sense of humor.
Tuc Watkins: Then again, had I been the first guy in the room...and she didn't resist the kiss...?
Strasser: No, I swear I did it because you looked like you could handle it. I swear it wasn't "Ick, ick! Not another guy!"
Watkins: There are so many different variables that go into casting and making choices and pairing people together. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. I think that this happens to be a time when it did work out and it worked out in the long run.
Strasser: If we can go into that INSIDE THE ACTORS' STUDIO thing, I believe that you want to deliver the Domino's pizza in the required amount of time with the ingredients that were ordered but if you can somehow slip in a surprise ingredient, an element, that really makes them suddenly go, "This is beyond just quick take-out food, this is delivered, home delivery, this is...ahhh, who knew pizza could be this interesting?", this will often get you the job. So, with the encouragement of my acting teacher in L.A., I don't even go to an audition unless I've got one unexpected thing I'm tossing in.
Weekly: Is that what you do with your scenes? When you're rehearsing, you're trying to find that ingredient?
Watkins: Every day. I'd say every day.
Strasser: Every day is opening night as far as I'm concerned.

Weekly: Do you find this job creatively fulfilling?
Watkins: I find it very fulfilling because a lot of leeway is given to us to be creative. A question that's asked to us frequently is "Do you guys rewrite the things that you say?" It's not so much that we write. We look at it. I think I look at the script and think, "Can the same line be said with a different intention that takes it in a different way?" I think that is what has created our relationship, the David and Dorian relationship. I'm usually trying to find where I can surprise Robin and I think she's doing the same thing. The actors I like to watch — Cary Grant, Kevin Klein — the reason they are interesting is because you don't really know what they are going to do next. You know the type of parts that they play but you don't know what they are going to do scene to scene. I guess that's magnetism, that's what makes them the stars that you know them to be. That's what I try to do in a scene.
Strasser: How do we assist in the storytelling? What are the writers... what is their intention here? How does this advance the show? Then, take it and just put a little jet fuel into it. Yes, it is very creatively satisfying because we have been allowed some space, some very generous space, and trust to do that in. And that's cool. The work is nothing if not personal. Whether you yourself are as b-----y as the character you play is irrelevant. It's how much you identify and own and like this person and are totally prepared, with very little rehearsal time, to step into that character's shoes and go flying.
Watkins: Daytime is full of archetypes; it's a medium of archetypes. There's no getting around that, but it's how you deliver that archetype unexpectedly that creates a character as opposed to a cookie cutter.

Weekly: What has been your most fulfilling work experience?
Strasser: In the whole career?
Watkins: Well, let's see, the time that I felt most excited to be acting is the first time I was cast in a really good part in a play in college. And the elation that went along with that was so fulfilling that it made me want to act more, and it turned into a career.
Strasser: It sounds like you're describing when you realized you wanted to be an actor. It was an epiphany.
Watkins: I never decided I wanted to be an actor. In school, I did it for fun and I was always trying to cut up around my friends and it wasn't until that experience that I thought, "This is something I would like to 'do.'"
Strasser: What did your folks say?
Watkins: Unfortunately, it's a really boring story, because they've always been so supportive of everything I've ever done.
Strasser: That's not boring to me. That's beautiful. I already suspected it when I asked the question.
Watkins: They encouraged me to get a practical degree in college and my dad was paying for my schooling so I agreed with him. I got a fairly practical degree in telecommunications.
Strasser: This qualifies you to do what?
Watkins: I'm not really sure because all my free time was spent in the theater. I got the degree but I spent all my free time working as an actor.

Weekly: Now are you a cook as well? I know your resume says you're a gourmet cook, Robin. I hear you throw a mean dinner party?
Strasser: Did you fall for that?
Weekly: Well, I know it says that.
Strasser: We said all sorts of stuff in the resume.
Watkins: I would never say that I was a gourmet cook because then it could come back to haunt me but I like to experiment with different stuff. I live on the West Side and we have a great produce market, meat and fish. It's fun to go in there and say, "Give me some of that, I'll give that a shot!" I like to have friends over. I like to cook but it's sort of "anything goes" once you show up. Sometimes, it works out sometimes it doesn't work out.
Weekly: Did you learn to cook out of a creative urge or necessity?
Watkins: I learned when I was living in Vancouver for two years. I was kind of bored and lonely up there. I didn't have a lot of friends up there, because I was basically an expatriate and the other people on the TV show I was working with were older and had families. So, I took a cooking class, I took tennis lessons, and I took tango lessons but I only took four. Four lessons in tango ain't nothing.
Weekly: Unless Robin took some and then she could lead.
Strasser: That is a life long delayed ambition, to seriously take ballroom dancing.
Weekly: What about cooking for you? What does that bring you?
Strasser: When I was a very little child, I lived with my grandmother. My grandmother was an old world immigrant; a woman was in the kitchen. That's it. When she wasn't cleaning the rest of the apartment, she was in the kitchen. So, I observed her cooking and enjoyed all those smells. Then, my mother was a working mother and I was a latch key child. One of the things I was really adept at was being able to go out and buy the food and prepare dinner for her. I really enjoyed it. We didn't have a lot of dough. Somehow, I liked the challenge of how could I make dinner for the two of us for under a few [dollars]. Oh, pork chops are on sale, or oh, I'll do this, I'll do that. So I got very creative. I'm an intuitive cook. I cannot follow a recipe. A friend of mine was telling me how to make a risotto and she's a fabulous cook. I said, "Can I just come to your house and be your sous chef some night when you're cooking dinner and I'll learn it just from watching you?" I want to be in the kitchen with you. It's just easier for me to learn by being there, smelling it, seeing it.
Watkins: In a nutshell, Robin is much better at taking direction than she is at reading directions.
Weekly: Do you have a specialty?
Watkins: I'm pretty good at preheating the oven to 400 degrees when Stouffer's says to.

Weekly: Why did you return, both of you?
Watkins: I returned because I wanted to live in New York City again and I saw that Robin was back on the show. I thought the timing was right.
Strasser: I had trouble letting go of the show from the moment I cleaned out my dressing room to leave. I was like, "Doesn't anyone want to shout down the street, 'Come back, it's only a misunderstanding!'?" It was fabulous that Frank Valentini had become the executive producer, so there was no question that I would say yes. It was a chance to live in New York again, but it was the part. I love the part, I guess it shows. If you said what's the secret, it's how much I love the part.
Watkins: Yeah, it's a great part on my behalf also, because if it was your standard run of the mill character, no one wants to sign up for an extended period of time to do that. I think we're both pretty lucky to play the characters that we play.

Weekly: You minored in French. It says so on your resume. Do you speak French?
Watkins: I minored in French, psychology, and theatre, which simply means if you take five courses at a Big Ten school you get a minor. I can't say that I'm fluent, but I can get by. I could get lost in Paris and probably get directed to London.
Strasser: You just bet, Sweetheart.