I'll never look down on and I love running into actors who say 'Oh yeah, I did a soap.' I say 'Tell me which one!' It's like being a member of a secret society.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Soap Actors are fun and interesting. They all have something special that you want to be around.
I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don't get very much approbation for it.
The general view is that actors start on soaps and then maybe graduate to prime-time television or film; normally you don't see a film actor going to do a soap.
Soaps are a great springboard for any actor but if you want to be taken seriously, you have to be careful.
If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.
A director recommended me for the role on 'Soap.' They said, 'She plays heavy roles, murderesses and the like.' He said, 'On stage, she could be very very funny.'
It's funny in the U.K., where I'm not really known because I never did a soap. My English cousins in the Lake District think I'm not a real actor because they've never seen me in 'Home and Away' or 'Neighbours.'
There is a bit of a 'once a soap actor always a soap actor' thing, but I do think people still recognise talent. If you're good at something, then people have no choice but to accept it.
I like soap opera acting. If it's done really well, there's nothing better. It's old school. It's like what those melodramas in the '30s and '40s were like.
It irritates me so much the way people talk about soaps because it is far more difficult working on a soap than it is on a big studio film.