TUC ON ACTING AND OTHER ROLES

On Playing Bob Hunter on "Desperate Housewives" (2007-present)

(on going back and forth between OLTL and Desperate Housewives) "Things have actually been working out really well, so that I have been able to continue to be David Vickers by day and [Housewives'] Bob Hunter by night... Neither one of them is a masked superhero, however." (SID 11/20/07)

"So far, it's been working out, between the Desperate Housewives schedule and the OLTL schedule, that I've been able to serve both masters. It's strange to play the comedic character on the dramatic show, [while] on Desperate Housewives I play a pretty strait-laced character (Bob) on a comedic show. It feels a little schizophrenic." (SOW 1/6/09)

"It is a lot of fun to work on that show. It is the funniest set I have ever been on. That's probably because you go to work on a neighborhood street where it's mostly sunny, and they have really good snacks, and you just hang out. And any drama that happened on that show, happened a long time ago. And everyone in between takes are playing games and catching 'rays.'" (Michael Fairman on Soaps 1/30/09)

(on Bob and Lee) "The thing that I like about the way Marc Cherry brought that couple on was, he brought them on as a gay couple, and one of the first lines they say is, 'We're gay. We are life partners.' So there was no dancing around that, and it was not issue-oriented. I think a lot of times when they brought in gay characters, or minority characters in the 70's or 80's on television, black or Asians had to explain why they were there! We don't need that anymore. I thought it was great that we got to go on...everyone knew we were gay...but that wasn’t the story. Why we went there was part of the story, and how we get involved in other peoples lives is the story. We are not this cookie-cutter, great super hero, gay couple, where everything we say is kind and friendly. We are not that couple from 'American Beauty'. They were the only normal people on that street, but we are kind of mean!" (Michael Fairman on Soaps 1/30/09)

"I would say most of the characters I play, especially in television; you are usually hired to play pretty close to who you are. So, I would say Bob on 'Desperate Housewives' is very similar to me, because I am a neatnik in a way, and I maintain a sense of humor. But I am fairly straight laced in what I think." (Michael Fairman on Soaps 1/30/09)

"What is strange is on One Life to Live, which is a drama, I play the funny guy and on Desperate Housewives, which is categorized as a comedy, I play a pretty serious guy, so it's kind of a challenge to go into each medium and play the opposite of what the medium is supposed to be." (SOD 2/10/09)

"They signed Kevin [Rahm, Lee] and I up to play the gay couple and it was written in a very comedic way, but when you're writing for a pair, classically there's the one that's funny and there's the one that sort of sets up the jokes, and it took me a little while to realize, 'Oh, I'm not really the funny guy. I'm the one who helps the funny guy look funny.' So Kevin says the one-liners and I stand just over his shoulder and roll my eyes, sort of similar to what I do with Robin Strasser." (SOD 2/10/09)



On Playing Dr. Dorman on "General Hospital" (1996)

(on playing the role of GH's Dr. Dorman) "I'm no longer playing the hypocritical David Vickers. I'm now playing the Hippocratic Dr. Dorman [on General Hospital]." (SOD 10/22/96)

(on playing Dr. Dorman) "I always wanted to walk into an operating room with my hands up in the air, like they do on TV. I did that today and said a bunch of medial jargon, so I'm feeling very official." (SOD 10/26/96)



On Various Other Roles

(on his most fulfilling work experience) "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. ... 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.'" (SOD.com October 2005)

"Well, I did a movie called The Good Shepherd that Robert De Niro directed, which comes out in December. I got to work on it with Matt Damon. And I did a pilot last spring for Fox called 13 Graves. So I'm basically back on the track of looking for stuff like that." (SOW 11/28/06)



On Acting in General

"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." (SOW 9/28/04)

"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." (SOD.com October 2005)

"I will tell you this: I am not a method actor. I studied that in school, and I think that's how most students of acting learn about acting. That's where you become the character and eat for breakfast what that character ate for breakfast, and you think about how that character was treated when they were a child. That didn't work for me. I am more of a behaviorist. I am more about how a character behaves in the environment he is in." (Michael Fairman on Soaps 1/30/09)

(the movie role he wished he played) "I would love to have played Kevin Kline's character [Otto] in A Fish Called Wanda." (SOD 2/3/09)

(on "30 Rock" and "The Office") "I've learned a lot about comedy from watching shows like that." (SOD 2/10/09)