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I think it is understated (or at least not adequately explored by soap critics) how the actors' living arrangements affect story. Once upon a time it was understood that if you wanted a career in soaps, you had to live in New York or Los Angeles and work for the soaps produced in those cities. For various reasons some actors have opted to move out of those hubs and still pursue soap work....leading to situations where storylines get "held hostage" to an actor's schedule and the troubles of long commutes.
My introduction to this phenomenon was a situation with Jensen Buchanan, who was playing Vicky Hudson on Another World in the 1990s. She was the darling of the then-producer of AW, Jill Farren Phelps, so Phelps regularly gave in to her increasing demands. Buchanan opted to move from New York to Vermont. To keep Buchanan happy, Phelps gave her a salary increase that offset the cost of a helicopter service to help Buchanan with her commute into the city, causing a lot of eye-rolling at the time. They also scheduled all of JB's scenes as Vicky to be filmed on certain days of the week, which had the side-effect of throwing about a dozen other actors' schedules into chaos since they had to tailor their schedules around Buchanan's. Over time Vicky got isolated from the rest of the characters due to Buchanan's work schedule, and after Phelps was fired the successive producers were much less charitable.
Phelps ended up at GH, where she had a similar "playing favorites" situation with Steve Burton, who moved to Tennessee, I believe in the late-2000s but wanted to continue working for GH. Phelps made the same types of concessions with Burton that she had with Buchanan (even trying to hire Buchanan to be on GH, though that was a disaster). When Frank Valentini took over GH in 2012 he was all about cutting out unnecessary spending, so he gave Burton the boot (literally--Jason was kicked into the harbor after being shot by Faison) rather than continue to subsidize his commute across the country. And yet over time even Valentini has allowed certain actors to come and go at will due to their long commute, with the effect of the schedule (and thus the budget) and the narrative of the stories being held up by these concessions.
There was James Patrick Stuart (Valentin) going back and forth for years due to outside projects and, ultimately, a move to Oregon. His unavailability left Finola Hughes with no leading man for long periods, and even now that JPS finally quit, Anna is still rudder-less and ineffectual. When Kathleen Gati moved out of California (to Arizona, I think), Liesl Obrecht was de-emphasized to the point that most people just assume KG quit. In fact, KG had been hoping to return but the show was just not writing for her (until now, apparently---rumor mill has her coming back to be part of the Professor Dalton story, and of course the return of Kelly Thiebaud). Many noticed that Scarlett Fernandez's Charlotte returned to Port Charles only to disappear again. The actress's family apparently moved to Idaho, which is why she isn't seen much at all, though she's supposedly just upstairs. Given the extremes Lulu went to in order to get Charlotte back, it's weird to now have her unseen and unmentioned. Scott Reeves, the last actor to play Steven Lars Webber, expressed interest in expanding upon his brief return last year but lives in Tennessee with his soap star wife Melissa, limiting his availability. Rena Sofer (Lois) lives on the east coast someplace, so Sofer would tape a large number of scenes, then head back east while "Lois" would go to Bensonhurst or go on a publicity tour for Deception for a few weeks to help spread out Sofer's scenes. And now it's Jonathan Jackson, who agreed to return as Lucky but since he lives in the Midwest had a situation similar to Sofer's. He'd fly to LA and do a stack of scenes, then fly home for a few weeks. Which would have been fine if the writers had been able to write a storyline for him rather than...scenes. I'm guessing they realized "Liz and Lucky Reunited" wasn't working as well as they would have liked, and since 70-80% of JJ's work has been with Becky H, it was better to call it all off rather than try to re-direct Lucky on the canvas. I can't help but think that if JJ was a "local" in LA, they could have repositioned Lucky to any number of purposes in stories involving his mother, sister, or son, but since the actor was commuting a long way for very little reward they chose to just pull the plug.
My introduction to this phenomenon was a situation with Jensen Buchanan, who was playing Vicky Hudson on Another World in the 1990s. She was the darling of the then-producer of AW, Jill Farren Phelps, so Phelps regularly gave in to her increasing demands. Buchanan opted to move from New York to Vermont. To keep Buchanan happy, Phelps gave her a salary increase that offset the cost of a helicopter service to help Buchanan with her commute into the city, causing a lot of eye-rolling at the time. They also scheduled all of JB's scenes as Vicky to be filmed on certain days of the week, which had the side-effect of throwing about a dozen other actors' schedules into chaos since they had to tailor their schedules around Buchanan's. Over time Vicky got isolated from the rest of the characters due to Buchanan's work schedule, and after Phelps was fired the successive producers were much less charitable.
Phelps ended up at GH, where she had a similar "playing favorites" situation with Steve Burton, who moved to Tennessee, I believe in the late-2000s but wanted to continue working for GH. Phelps made the same types of concessions with Burton that she had with Buchanan (even trying to hire Buchanan to be on GH, though that was a disaster). When Frank Valentini took over GH in 2012 he was all about cutting out unnecessary spending, so he gave Burton the boot (literally--Jason was kicked into the harbor after being shot by Faison) rather than continue to subsidize his commute across the country. And yet over time even Valentini has allowed certain actors to come and go at will due to their long commute, with the effect of the schedule (and thus the budget) and the narrative of the stories being held up by these concessions.
There was James Patrick Stuart (Valentin) going back and forth for years due to outside projects and, ultimately, a move to Oregon. His unavailability left Finola Hughes with no leading man for long periods, and even now that JPS finally quit, Anna is still rudder-less and ineffectual. When Kathleen Gati moved out of California (to Arizona, I think), Liesl Obrecht was de-emphasized to the point that most people just assume KG quit. In fact, KG had been hoping to return but the show was just not writing for her (until now, apparently---rumor mill has her coming back to be part of the Professor Dalton story, and of course the return of Kelly Thiebaud). Many noticed that Scarlett Fernandez's Charlotte returned to Port Charles only to disappear again. The actress's family apparently moved to Idaho, which is why she isn't seen much at all, though she's supposedly just upstairs. Given the extremes Lulu went to in order to get Charlotte back, it's weird to now have her unseen and unmentioned. Scott Reeves, the last actor to play Steven Lars Webber, expressed interest in expanding upon his brief return last year but lives in Tennessee with his soap star wife Melissa, limiting his availability. Rena Sofer (Lois) lives on the east coast someplace, so Sofer would tape a large number of scenes, then head back east while "Lois" would go to Bensonhurst or go on a publicity tour for Deception for a few weeks to help spread out Sofer's scenes. And now it's Jonathan Jackson, who agreed to return as Lucky but since he lives in the Midwest had a situation similar to Sofer's. He'd fly to LA and do a stack of scenes, then fly home for a few weeks. Which would have been fine if the writers had been able to write a storyline for him rather than...scenes. I'm guessing they realized "Liz and Lucky Reunited" wasn't working as well as they would have liked, and since 70-80% of JJ's work has been with Becky H, it was better to call it all off rather than try to re-direct Lucky on the canvas. I can't help but think that if JJ was a "local" in LA, they could have repositioned Lucky to any number of purposes in stories involving his mother, sister, or son, but since the actor was commuting a long way for very little reward they chose to just pull the plug.
