Some interviews end up feeling more like good old fashioned girl talk. Speaking with Annie Wersching (Amelia Joffe) most definitely falls in this category. We talked for an hour the other day! In fact, I have so much good stuff to share with Soaps.com readers that I’m going to split it up into two articles. First, I’ll tell you what I learned about Annie, the actor who IS Amelia and IS returning to General Hospital very soon. (In fact, she’s already back from shooting her pilot, but her episodes don’t start airing until May 11.)
When you read a person’s bio and learn that they graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in Musical Theater, you can’t help but be curious what their voice sounds like. Fortunately Annie’s website has an audio link to a performance from the Pasadena Theatre so I could put my curiosity to rest. I was blown away by her voice. (Click on “Moon in My Window” in this link. Annie’s is the first voice you hear: Annie Wersching’s singing voice ). I’ll wait until you come back…okay, isn’t she amazing? If only still we had the Nurses’ Ball (which I’ll come back to because Annie and I had an interesting chat about that very topic.) In any case, Annie earned her degree in from Illinois University in 1999. She is originally from St. Louis and goes back there often to visit her mother, whom she is very close with. After graduating, she toured with a musical and became quite chummy with Gloria Loring from Days of Our Lives. Annie told me how funny life can be because she remembers Gloria telling her about life as a soap actor and “…how crazy it is learning all those lines every day.” Well, by 2001 Annie moved to LA and here she is today learning all those lines every day!
As it turns out Annie wasn’t really a soap watcher before she became personally involved with the show. Guess what? Four years ago she tested for the role of Mary Bishop! As part of her preparation, she figured that she should check it out and she ended up watching GH ever since. Oddly enough, she has also tested for roles on All My Children and The Young and the Restless but never good hooked on those shows. (Okay, I’m not afraid to admit it, we’ve known all along that GH rules, right?)
Annie tells me that acting in a soap and appearing in a prime time show (she has been in Frasier, Cold Case, Boston Legal among others) is “crazy different”. She enjoys player a character for a longer period of time — much like she’s used to in theater. “Soaps are a new world for me. There are SO many lines to learn,” she goes on to say, “Soaps are putting me to the test. People have their pages hidden behind a pillow!” She explains that how the scenes transform from words on a page to the tape that we see on TV. “It’s pretty intense how fast it moves. The night before I’ve crammed all those words in my brain. We block a bunch of scenes in a row, do one rehearsal and then one taping,” she tells me. Then she laughs and says that they do another taping if “there’s a really big mess up.” She tells me that GH
has offered to take pity on her and will “thin out” her lines if she needs them to, but she proudly says that she hasn’t had to take them up on it yet!As for Amelia Joffe, Annie says that when she was away shooting a pilot [Company Man] (I’ll tell you more about that in Part Two of my Annie interview) she realized that she is “defensive of her…protective of her.” She explains that there was about a three-hour window of time in which she thought she wasn’t going to get to return to the role of Amelia. Then it worked out that GH would use a temp for two weeks and Annie was thrilled. “I wanted to be around for the big reveal,” she told me.
Next week I’ll tell you want Annie said about working with Kelly Monaco, her chemistry with Stan Johnson, inside scoop on Bradford Anderson (Spinelli) and much more. And get this, she had no knowledge of the fan favorite from years gone by – the Nurse’s Ball, so I filled her in! I’ll tell you more about that chat, too. In any case, I hope you give Darby Stanchfield’s Amelia Joffe the respect she deserves until Annie reprises her role on May 11. She has had some pretty big shoes to fill.
Welcome back Annie (Amelia #1)! It was a pleasure to see your face last week as you stepped back into “your” role. (And right into Sonny’s muscular arms I might add!) As promised, I have more scoop to share from my great talk with Annie Wersching. One of the first things I knew Soaps.com readers would want to know is what it’s like to work with Kelly Monaco (Sam McCall). Here’s what Annie told me, “We’re just kind of a good match. I’m not really a ‘girly girl’ and she’s not either.” Annie says that the twosome is really comfortable together. And it’s a good thing because most of their scenes are together. I told Annie that it looked like the writers were exploring a little fling between Amelia and Stan Johnson a while back. (Of course, I was hoping that she would give me a big scoop!) She told me that she didn’t get that sense; it was more like a demonstration that Amelia would use her flirty charms with anyone that would give her information. She also said, “Oh my God, those eyes are so beautiful in real life!” (She was referring to Kiko Elsworth, who plays Stan.)
While we were on the subject of discussing the General Hospital cast, I had to ask her about Bradford Anderson (Spinelli). She hadn’t done a scene with him at the time of our conversation, but she had one coming up and was looking forward to it. I asked if the actors laugh as they try to shoot his scenes and Annie said that there was a rap scene in particular that they all giggled through during rehearsal. But in real life? “He’s normal,” reports Annie. (Which reinforces who I’m hoping gets a Daytime Emmy nod next year!)
When preparing for our interview, I checked out Annie’s resume and it lists some pretty “useful?” talents. For starters, she can burp on cue. When I mentioned it, she laughed and said that she needs to take that off of her resume, although it has landed her a few jobs! Not that she actually had to burp for the gig, but seeing it on the resume has lead to a few casting calls. A Toyota commercial was a happy result, in fact. And, she can perform “face contortionism”, but I would think that anyone who spends time with Jim Carey (Annie was in Bruce Almighty with him) would develop that talent if only to survive!
Among her many talents, it’s her singing voice that clearly stands out. I told her that Soaps.com readers often harken back to the wonderful days of the Nurse’s Ball and she didn’t know what that was! So I gladly filled her in about the annual event that showcased GH actor’s other talents. I told her that Wally Kurth has an amazing voice and one year he sang a lovely ballad to Lois (Rena Sofer) when she was pregnant with Brook Lynn. I told her that Anthony Geary and Jonathan Jackson (Luke and Lucky #1) did an awesome dance one year, and that Stuart Daman (Alan Q) has an amazing voice, too. Annie got excited at the prospect and said that Amelia would have to break out in Irish Dance if the Nurse’s Ball were to return! (Annie started Irish dancing at the age of 5 – long before Riverdance made it popular. In fact, she traveled the world to compete.) Before we changed conversation topics, I asked to to please put a word in with TBTB (that’s message board lingo for “The Powers That Be”) that we want the Nurse’s Ball back!
Annie is on recurring status on GH for now, but reports that there is talk of Amelia becoming a contract character. As we all know, Annie recently took a short leave of absence so that she could shoot the pilot for a one-hour drama for FOX. She’ll find out on May 17 whether it will be picked up for the fall schedule and she’s pretty excited about it because for one thing, it’s from the producers of the highly-acclaimed hit 24. (Sarah Brown, the original Carly Corinthos, is also in the pilot.) I asked her if she would be able to stay with GH if the pilot is picked up and she said that she’d would “absolutely love to, but it would be a scheduling nightmare.” She says that she would be happy, either way.
Selfishly, I’m hoping that Annie remains a familiar, if slightly evil, presence in Port Charles for years to come. In any case, it was a pleasure to speak with her and give Soaps.com readers another inside scoop to chew on at the same time!
