Stars: Linda Dano, Anna Stuart and Victoria Wyndham

Roles: Felicia Gallant, Donna Love, Rachel Cory Hutchins, ANOTHER WORLD

AW Debuts: 1983, 1983 (with a 1986 departure and an '89 return) and 1972, respectively

Birthdays: May 12; November 1; and May 22

Home Turf: North Long Beach, CA; Bluefield, WV; and Westport, CT

That Wily Rogue: The occasionally despicable, but always charming, Carl Hutchins has had a fling, a romp and now a deep love affair with each of these Bay City beauties. Say what you will about Carl, but he has great taste in women! <g>

SOAP DISH

While Felicia, Donna and Rachel have dealt with alcoholism, menopause scares, life-changing love affairs, losing a husband (or two), baby surprises (Guess what? You had twins!), evil look-a-likes (let's not go there)... Linda Dano, Anna Stuart and Victoria Wyndham have bonded on the studio island that houses ANOTHER WORLD. Here's your chance to sit in on lunch with three of Bay City's amazing ladies.

DIGEST ONLINE: When it comes to ANOTHER WORLD, you three epitomize endurance.

WYNDHAM: The three survivors. Of course, we are terribly superstitious. Now that you've said that, we will all get fired. The point to me what's interesting is that we are all on one show together.

STUART: and that we're brunet.

WYNDHAM: First of all, we're older than God, the three of us together if you added it up...

DANO: Let's not even go there.

STUART: But we are all brunet. I was saying that as a joke, but that's true. We're all brunet, we're all on the same show...

DANO: We all have money.

STUART: We are all strong characters.

WYNDHAM: And occasionally we all have stories.

DIGEST ONLINE: Did you think this gig would last so long?

STUART: Never!

DANO: Oh God no. I'm still shocked by it.

WYNDHAM: I was still nursing my second child, so I was not thinking beyond the next 4 hours.

DANO: I don't know how it went from 2 years being here to me now being here 14. I don't know why or how. I would have never dreamed. I keep saying. When am I going to leave?

STUART: Fourteen? When did you start?

DANO: In 1983. Almost 14 years.

STUART: I started 6 months after you did...

DANO: So you've been her almost 14 years. Did you not know.

STUART: Absolutely, I didn't know.

DANO: Well, wrap your brain around that.

STUART: I did leave for 2 years....

WYNDHAM: Well, wrap your brain around 25. I'm looking at my 25th year. That I never thought of. I was just too busy trying to raise the children.

STUART: In the big picture, it has flown. Some days, it doesn't seem to fly. It seems like you're in quicksand, but in the big picture, it flies.

DIGEST ONLINE: How have each of you changed?

WYNDHAM: Not one whit.

DANO: [Anna] and I have more than her.

STUART: I've changed, I definitely have. I've mellowed.

WYNDHAM: I haven't. I've gotten worse.

STUART: The other day, I said, "I really used to be into sex, now I'm into carbohydrates." That's a big change for me.[Everyone laughing]

DANO: For me, I have always been into carbohydrates, but I've mellowed too. I am more at peace with myself now. I am more relaxed about where I am and who I am. I feel very safe within these walls. I think that is probably why I stayed. It's like leaving a family, not leaving a job. It's hard to imagine what it would be like not to come here.

WYNDHAM: What would we do? We'd get into trouble.

DIGEST ONLINE: How has AW evolved?

WYNDHAM: The show has gone through enormous changes. But that's because it's like a little fish. It doesn't have a lot of water, so we're always gulping trying to get to the top.

DANO: We get change foisted on us whether we want it or not.

STUART: The day of this interview, we are in 8th place.

WYNDHAM: When I came on this show it took a year before we became #1. Then we stayed number one. I never thought when we got to 9th place that we'd ever see it move again. The show has changed a great deal, but the industry has changed also. It used to be a very small cast with the whole cast working all the time. Then there was a time when we were doing 90 minutes where it was 30 -- sometimes 35 -- people everyone working all the time with major stories for everybody.

STUART: The production wasn't so big. Now we compete with nighttime.

DANO: We all don't agree that that is the best way to go. But it's like the lemonade stand on the corner. You put a cherry in yours, now I have to put a cherry in mine. Now what happened with shows like THE CITY and new camera work and new sets, it gets very complex.

WYNDHAM: It has to be about great storytelling. The whole industry has sort of gotten away from what it was that made it compelling viewing. It is still a forum for stories about and for women. It's pretty good in this day and age that we survived. Now

you see nighttime being about women too. So I think we've had something to do with that.

DIGEST ONLINE: It's mirroring each other.

WYNDHAM: Nighttime now seems to understand story -- and they are great at story -- and daytime has forgotten all about it. The balance has to shift back again. Now daytime is struggling so hard with production values that we'll never achieve until we get a million bucks per episode.

DANO: It needs to be compelling enough that at the end of the [episode] you want to see what happens the next day and the next. It's about romance and feelings.

STUART: [Play acting] `Oh, John.' `Oh, Marsha.' `Oh, John...'

DIGEST ONLINE: How have fans changed?

STUART: They haven't. That is what's so incredible they go with us.

WYNDHAM: They want [to see] what they originally tuned into . They are saying that everyday on the Internet. These are children who have grown up on our show -- just the [demographics] we are supposed to be having. I still maintain that we have them. We are not giving them the stories they want to watch. When we start doing that we'll see we have them . Everyone is chasing a demographic that I know we are getting.

DANO: I don't believe that young people need to watch other young people.

WYNDHAM: How do you know how to be a grownup unless you watch grownups? Ina way storytelling provides that. When I was 14, I was reading adult books. I don't go to movies about brunets who are in the television industry who are exactly my age. I go to see movies to see how other people cope with their life. I read books to see how other people cope.

DIGEST ONLINE: Are soaps too youth-oriented?

STUART: I don't feel pressured. Maybe on my bad days, I go, "Oh, my God. Where is there a space for me?" But I really don't live in that place very often. Now, I am kind of having a good time embracing what has happened to me. I am saying `Yes! This is great.

This is a wonderful period of time.'

WYNDHAM: I miss being able to communicate what I'm going through [in real life] in my work. That's what an actor does. We communicate what we know about life through our characters and through the work we do. When you don't have a forum for [all ages], everyone loses. I like to get to know other people though their work, other actors through their work. Youth story is great, any story, good story. I don't care what kind of story it is. The way Linda approaches a scene is going to be different than Anna approaches a scene or I approach a scene. Three very strong women, very different women. That is what's interesting.

STUART: I was lucky. I specifically was lucky in two instances in the last year and one-half. They gave me the storyline with Matthew. And they didn't do it as the women who is aging and lusting after youth. They did it as something genuine. And as a result it brought up all this stuff. I kept on saying "More! Let's do menopause! I want to do this while I havethis young guy!" They did a menopause scare, but they didn't really go for it. But the writer du jour said, "Do you want to do that?" I said "Yes! Absolutely!" This is the meat here.

DANO: They seem to go to a generic place. Nobody is really any age. On other shows, older characters are intermixed with kids all the time and we get to see all of that. We seem to be battling that all the time.

DIGEST ONLINE: How do you feel about aging?

WYNDHAM: I don't know any woman that's my age who doesn't go, "You know, I'm smarter now than I was. I'm in better shape. I'm better mentally. I know what I won't put up with and what I will put up with." That is something to feed young people: Hey! Look

you can look forward to this. You have a chance to sculpt your life. So get smart, get wise, get independent, get real and get on.

DANO: I remember when I was a kid and asking my mother how old she was and she said she was 52 or something. I remember going "Uhhh!" like she was 180. I still remember the day. I remember what I had on, I remember how my mother looked and I thought she was as old as Methuselah. And now I'm 53 and I go, "Damn! Fifty-two wasn't that old." You're right Vicky, we should be an example for all women. Everybody always says life begins at 40 . It's actually true. There is another life that takes hold when you hit 40 that is quite glorious in a lot of ways that you've never dreamed of. I think it is important that we show that. And I think shows do show that. I think our show does that.

DIGEST ONLINE: Is there pressure to look good?

WYNDHAM: We feel that all the time. Cut your hair, get thinner ... We get that all of that.

STUART: That is the nature of the business.

WYNDHAM: For women.

DANO: No one has every done that to me. I keep waiting for them to. When you go down to the wardrobe room and try clothes on next to a 20-year-old, you want to kill yourself.

STUART: I want to kill the 20-year-old!

DANO: We are a very visual business obviously. You look at yourself and you remember when.

WYNDHAM: The point is, you can use only children and that's fine if that is the show you want to do, but the problem for me as a writer is that children haven't lived long enough to make me want to use them exclusively on a canvas. Unless the poor child has

had more life in 20 years than anyone of us would want. What kind of stories could you tell? Is there a place? Yes, I think there is a place on a canvas for all the generations. I get upset now when I go to movies now and I only see the only 60 set die. I go crazy. I go "How dare you use Jessica Tandy only to die.. Katherine Hepburn only to die. How dare you take a life time of work -- say Hume Cronyn -- and say, `You are only good for grandfather parts and for a cheap heightening of a story to die.' " Where you could take those characters and the wealth of wisdom....

DANO: The networks only reflect the society . They are only getting fed what they think the society wants.

WYNDHAM: I'm here. If I could say to you how integral my parents have been to the lives of my child; How integral every pair of grandparents are to the children that they interact with We've got a Peter Pan syndrome in this country that we better outgrow.

Because we are going to be pretty ancient Peter Pans.

DIGEST ONLINE: What's it like to see AW alumni you have worked with now on the silver screen like Anne Heche [ex-Vicky/Marley] and Ray Liotta [ex-Joey Perrini]?

WYNDHAM: It's great.

DANO: We are very proud. I think actors are a very generous lot . I think they appreciate and understand the difficulty of sustaining a career. I know very few actors who are selfish and jealous. I really do. Here we are a company of 25-30 actors on the show and almost all of them are genuinely thrilled if you get another job.

WYNDHAM: We take a proprietary interest in our alumni.

DANO: When I went to do THE ROSIE O'DONNELL SHOW, the whole place taped it watched it. I came in here and they all went "God you were so great!" Actors are a generous group. We do watch and follow and hear about and ask about. I'll come in and say I talked to John Aprea [ex-Lucas] and he got a movie. Or so and so got this.

STUART: Everyone went to see Annie Heche and everyone was talking about how great she looked

DANO: Jose Ferrere [ex-Reuben Marino] was playing a lawyer on ANOTHER WORLD when I came on. About 6 months later, I said to him, "Why are you doing a daytime soap?" And he said because work is work. And if I'm not working and you call, I come. Now I believe in my heart that most actors feel that way. A job is a job is a job. And if you can go to a job and have nice people to work with and have a nice little part to play, that's fine. And you're going to pay me, too? Hey, I can do this. And I think that is

what actors do. I don't think it matters that you do this or go do a play...

WYNDHAM: And it is really fun to go out and visit L.A. When Charles [Keating, Carl] and I were out there last month we went out and visited out friends on ER and over at the MURPHY BROWN set. It was really fun. We follow all the directors, too. They leave

AW, go on and become stars. We have this adage around here that if you get fired off this show you're going to have a great career.

STUART: It's a good omen.

DIGEST ONLINE: What have been some of your most memorable days on the set?

STUART: When Chris Rich [ex-Sandy Cory] dropped his pants in rehearsal. What could be a happier moment.

WYNDHAM: One of my funniest moments was during a very early morning. I was raising my coffee cup, hadn't quite gotten awake yet and I was grumpy. Douglass [Watson, Mac] and I were rehearsing down where our present wardrobe is. It was also a property are where some of our bigger props were stored and one of them was the shower. It was a morning scene and a maid comes up and says "I think he is taking a shower and he'll be down in a minute." That was supposed to be Douglass's cue to say "Oh, no I'm not showering darling." All of a sudden two grips started moving the shower unit. As they moved it, they rotated it, I heard Douglass singing and then there he is there stripped right down, starkers. I fell off my stool laughing.

DANO: Some of mine have to do with Brett Collins [Wallingford], stuff with Stephen [Schnetzer, Cass] all of that. The day that Cecile [Nancy Frangione] and I dressed up as nuns. The happiest moments have been with John Aprea. So I've had a lot of great

moments that have been funny and sad and real and monumental in my life. The times that I've grown as an actor. Back to the thing about not leaving the place. It is hard to leave a place that has so many attachments

WYNDHAM: One of my funny/sad days was when George Reinholt [ex-Steve Frame] had been fired and it was a big shock to him. Actors take that in many different ways and this was one of the most graceful. It was his last day. It was very abrupt and he had been basically the lead of the show since it had started. Douglass and I were in the other studio getting ready to go into a scene. The whole rest of the place was dark and George wandered in to that dark room -- sort of like the end of The Jimmy Durante Show -- saw me and did this whole thing like he'd forgotten something. And he said, "I can't remember where I packed my tap shoes." Is that adorable? It made me laugh and that was it -- he left. One of the funniest, cutest exits. Douglass and I fell down laughing.

DANO: A lot of people have died that meant a great deal to us. Douglass, certainly. Brent Collins.

STUART: Connie Ford [Ada]. And it is a family. I know I felt a tremendous loss when Douglass died. To this day, I miss him -- his presence and the tone that he set.

DANO: When I arrived on my very first day, there was a bouquet of flowers for me with a little note from Douglass.

WYNDHAM: He would do that all the time.

DANO: He and his wife Jeannie went all over the world and he would come back and bring us all little tiny presents. He bring something to everybody. He was a very dear man and still missed to this day. There has never been a real patriarch on the show since. I don't know that there ever be.

WYNDHAM: [The day he died] was the worst day of my life. If I hadn't come in that day, I would have never come back. [Linda] was the first person I saw. I took one look at her -- and I had just gotten it together, I had been weeping in the car the whole way [to work] -- and wham. If it weren't for the people here understanding, I would have walked out the door and kept walking. You get very attached when you see people all day long, five days a week, year in and year out.

DANO: You see them more than your own family.

WYNDHAM: It's not only that it's actors need to act and you can't act in a vacuum. Actors are actors because they like the group activity and they need people to work off of. They understand they're most secure around other people who have that same need. When you add to that directors who feel protective for actors and producers, it becomes a very, very close working relationship. One of my friends works for IBM and she said "Your cast is so close and most of you have nothing in common outside." I said I know it is hard to explain, but we know each other even though we don't have a lot in common. We know each others soul because we have the same need to act. We share an art form and there is nothing closer than sharing an art form.

STUART: There is a very special thing that happens down on the floor. We all joke around and we are pretty unrelentless. Someone could be doing a scene and we are laughing and talking, but somehow when it's really important -- like when Ryan died or Frankie's death -- there is a reverence that comes over the stage. It is just an unspoken agreement where you go "Oh, now we are really working."

WYNDHAM: Then everybody comes out of the scene usually with some joke or insult and everybody laughs

DANO: You have to or it's too grim otherwise.

DIGEST ONLINE: How has been being an actor affected your relationships outside work?

DANO: I need no therapy.

WYNDHAM: None of us do.

STUART: I need lots of it. My astrologist just said I have no earth in my chart nor does Jesse [Doran] the man I've been with for years. She said, "Who grounds you?" I said "We pay a lot of people a lot of money."

DANO: I have nothing but ground. I'm all ground

STUART: That's why she cries when she brushes her teeth at night.

DANO: I'm the healthiest one here, because I cry at card tricks.

STUART: And she's [pointing to Wyndham] always pissed off at something. She gets all of her aggressions out.

WYNDHAM: That's why Charles and I get along so well. We both feed on rage. My thing is rage. Apparently, I sublimate anything gets turned into rage. Of course, Rachel has been pretty happy for a while and that is pretty God damn boring

DIGEST ONLINE: Do you hate when your characters are happy?

DANO: I like it.

STUART: I like anything.

WYNDHAM: I like being happy; They just don't know to write it.

STUART: I like being happy; I don't like being content. Being content is dangerous. Yesterday, Donna saw a tea set and said to Michael, "Oh, my grandchildren are boys. I am gong to buy it for Charlie." And his line was: "Oh Donna, you've got the kindest heart I've everyone seen." I said to Kale [Browne, Michael], "Don't you dare accuse me of being kind. I don't want to be accused of being kind until I'm in my 60s." I said nobody would accuse Donna of being kind

DANO: I love being considered kind.

STUART: Donna has a heart -- she's got a lot of things -- but you wouldn't consider her kind. This is like putting the nails in the coffin here. We had a good laugh about that, but it's true, I sort of bristled at that.

DANO: [Laughing] What did he say, "Oh Donna, you're such a piece of sh*t!" You're gonna buy a tea set for Chrissakes!

STUART: No, he said something like "You've got a really good heart." You have to constantly fight for your character. After all you're the only one who has been doing the character all these years.

WYNDHAM: With all the producers, and all the writers and the wardrobe who come in and say "Okay, today Rachel is going to be this person." And you're saying "Excuse me? I'm Rachel. Hello! I know who Rachel is."

STUART: And you always hear them say "Oh well, she would do that" and you go....

WYNDHAM and STUART: [Simultaneously] Excuse me!

STUART: Linda got very protective with John and Felicia. She said I'm not letting them take me down with this. I am not going to do it.

DANO: We're still battling that. I will protect her.

WYNDHAM: And God forbid you shouldn't protect your character...

DANO: That 's why we are all here so long -- We protect our characters.

WYNDHAM: You have to maintain some consistency because there is no one else here to do that. If the actor doesn't do that, you're sunk. There is also a generic kind of writing that is just by virtue of the fact that the writing team changes so frequently. You can't be good as an actor if you are generic. Acting is all about being specific.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do you throw in Donnaisms or Feliciaisms?

STUART: You have to. That is the only way you can survive.

DANO: When in doubt I wear a hat.

WYNDHAM: And sometimes [TPTB] come out and say "that is too Linda" or "too Vicky." Then you've got some problems. Because sometimes you think to yourself wait a minute, is that an element of Vicky that Rachel needs right now. So people say to me how has Rachel changed over the years. I try to use more and more Vicky Wyndham to keep [Rachel] from dying.

DIGEST ONLINE: Are you more like your character, or is your character more like you?

DANO: The character is getting more like me

WYNDHAM: I think everybody finds that. That's why I found it so lovely to play Justine. It was another part of Vicky Wyndham that has been stifled for years. At least when Rachel was naughty, I could get some of [those emotions] out, but this is ridiculous

DIGEST ONLINE: Is niceness for the birds?

WYNDHAM: No, I like the fact that she is a decent woman after learning how to be one since she was not decent for so many years. That's a good message. That is something I am for.

DIGEST ONLINE: What characters do you miss?

WYNDHAM: My mother, Ada.

STUART: Cecile. They brought her back for a little bit, but they didn't keep her.

DANO: Walter Trask, played by Reed Birney. I loved him. What a wonderful actor.

WYNDHAM: I wish they would bring Justine back. There was a lot more to that character than they chose to play. Unfortunately, she became a gargoyle and once you become a gargoyle you have to go.

DIGEST ONLINE: How have these characters stayed so strong?

WYNDHAM: By virtue that you have three strong actors.

STUART: I think is has to do with us as individuals.

DANO: When Felicia was kidnapped by Walter, the audience did not buy it. Nor did I -- except for Reed -- because it didn't make any sense. I remember starting the scene and the innocent that I am -- because I really am -- I have a healthy ability to pretend. I remember asking, "Why don't I just pick up this lamp and hit him over the head?" It made perfect sense. Linda would do that. And they said, "You can't do that. Because then we won't have any story." They could have had me kidnapped that would have worked, but they should have kept me tied. up. That's what the audience said when they saw it. That's what I said. But that's what is wrong with it. The audience is much hipper, much stronger than we give them credit for. What they felt is exactly what I felt. So for three months, we played out this ludicrous story and every time viewers saw it they just thought "This is stupid." When you have strong characters, you have to write for those characters.

WYNDHAM: You cannot be arbitrary with your storytelling.

STUART: When they told me that Donna was going to go crazy, I was like "Okay," but there's gotta be a reason. I went in to Jill [Farren Phelps, then executive producer] and she gave me a long list of things and said, "Look, the bottom line is, you're having a weird reaction to medication." That alone allowed me to say, "Okay I'll go to this place where they want me to go with some kind of justification." In the beginning, I had a scene where I was just a total mess and I said to Michael, "I don't know what is happening to me! I don't know why I am feeling this way." I was weepy, sobbing, weak and weird and I

couldn't remember things, but they gave me the beginnings of that so for the next month it enabled me to play it so I didn't feel like a complete idiot.

DANO: It's awful to play a story and know in your heart it is stupid.

WYNDHAM: You can't rewrite a long story. You can rewrite speeches, but you can't rewrite astory. And that is what happened to Justine. A story was turned in that was totally different. You weren't supposed to see her. Ever.

DIGEST ONLINE: Really?

WYNDHAM: She was supposed to bear a resemblance. Then stuck with how improbable is this, I went, "Wait a minute, twin stories are a staple of soaps so this is a device and maybe people will buy it on that. And it will give me a chance to do something different." They didn't really have a female heavy on the show. Then when they were making her so extreme, that was the terrible thing. When the story gets sillier and sillier...

DANO: It gets out of hand...

WYNDHAM: Then, if you read your mail, you do it great peril. Because you mail is telling you how stupid your character looks. And you feel like a jerk.

DANO: The viewer blames you. My mother does that. "Why did you say that to her today?"

WYNDHAM: My mother takes me to task. She'll say, "You're so stupid." Sorry, Mom I don't write it.

DIGEST ONLINE: Let's play name association. David Forsyth [John]

DANO: He's a joy. I've really had a great time with him. He's been supportive. He comes in and he's got ideas. I have just loved it. I have been on a real ride with him. He's kept me loving the story when I've been afraid of it since the beginning. So I've adored it.

WYNDHAM: That's worth everything when you have a partner that helps you stay in there.

DIGEST ONLINE: Charles Keating

WYNDHAM:: Oh, the beloved infidel. Same way. Same support system. There is a superstition in the business: You are lucky if you get one great acting partner in your life. I've been lucky to have two. Charles is so different than Douglass and yet the same type of support system. And he's an actor who brings my work up. An actor who feels that what we do together is greater than anything one of us can do apart. I feel very fortunate. Our only frustration is that we don't have a story. It is a shame to waste the two characters. The writer in me sees what a waste. You're wasting a collaboration that won't go on forever. The characters really work well together. I feel that way about any collaboration. Donna and Michael is a great collaboration. The Aprea one was great one. That's why I've been grateful for Linda having that shot this year. I also don't blame her for being worried about it. I was worried about it for her. The fact that she could rely on her partner makes it work.

DIGEST ONLINE: What made you worry about it?

DANO: Well, it's very dangerous for my character and for David's. We are two very solid upright citizens. Good guys. Sharlene [Anna Holbrook] is real well-liked character. Suddenly, they take my character and break that marriage apart, I'm now the other women. This is really out of character for me . And I got a lot of mail about it and a lot of people didn't like it.

WYNDHAM: It would've even worked better if you were still the alcoholic when you were doing it.

DANO: Yep.

STUART: Maybe we'll find out she's nipping.

DANO: Even though I think everyone wanted her to be with someone -- it was time, she's been a widow too long and all of that stuff -- they were not thrilled. And the rippling affect that it had... Part of the support system of that was that Jill was here and guided that story. She made it complex. This can happen in real life with nice people and we told that story. With Jill being gone now I'm really nervous, because I don't have an overseer. It scares me.

DIGEST ONLINE: Kale Browne.

STUART: Because I'm not as tall as Linda and Vicky, I have a very different relationship. I'm the short one here. I adore Kale. He is an insane jewel. He is not always easy to work with; He is not always there.

DANO: That's true.

STUART: Kale and I agree that we have had past lives together. We must have been married, because we really know each other like married people. I sort of know when to back off. I know when to smack him around. We sort of keep a check and balance system with one another. It's not one of those "Oh, we're so supportive and we work so well together." No! It's not that. It is like a marriage. We adore each other. Kale is an extraordinary individual. and I am so happy that he's here. Before they cast him, I talked about Michael for a year at least a year before they decided to bring him on as a character. They had me down in a basement in this little room where they locked me up when I was pregnant and I would talk about Michael and our love for each other. I never had a face that I pictured, but when you talk about somebody that much you kind of get a feeling of what that person might have been. Then they started the Michael auditions and my heart just dropped to the floor. I went "Oh no. this is awful."

DIGEST ONLINE: Not what you envisioned?

STUART: Not anywhere close. I was so disappointed and they did screen tests but they didn't hire any of them, so a second batch came in. I hadn't met them and I saw this guy walking down the hall that I didn't recognized and I thought "That's him. That's Michael." I grabbed somebody and said, "That's the guy!" It was Kale.

DANO: I never heard this story.

STUART: I'm just remembering it now. I was very excited. I said what's he here for and they said he was going to audition for Michael. Well, he gave the worst audition. Audition scenes are usually very deadly. So he gave the worst audition and he knew it, but they knew that he was Michael. I said to them, "You've got to know this," and the rest is history.And we've never had and affair! We've both been single at the same time, and we never crossed that boundary. Which makes it even more extraordinary because knowing me and my past, you wonder why we didn't.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do new actors ask for help?

STUART: The ones that care do.

WYNDHAM: The other ones ... we take them aside.

STUART: Some say, "Thank you, but no thank you." And you say, "Okay that's the end."

WYNDHAM: They get one shot.

STUART: And you never try again.

WYNDHAM: Then they are on their own, man. Because none of us care that much.

STUART: Anne Heche was one of those people who was hungry and lustful to be taught and to glean every single thing that she could. She was always available and I loved that because I love to teach. And Dahlia [Salem, Sofia] told me about a fan letter she got that said how much they loved her and her work and they only hope she can grown into the kind of character or person that I have on the show. I was so flattered by this. I didn't start out on this show as young as she did, I started out on daytime as young as she did. I thought that is so lovely.

WYNDHAM: Also, the young people see us working with each other. As peers we still say "Do you think I should do it that way?"

STUART: "What do I do? I'm dying here."

WYNDHAM: They see we are not shy and we don't have any sense that it can't be better. We can work on it. They'll watch Charles and I work on one tiny bit endlessly. "No, let's try this..."

DIGEST ONLINE: Is it strange to be giving the advice?

WYNDHAM: No, because I come from an acting family. There is never a time when an actor stops growing. Once you stop growing as an artist, you're over. Time to become a waitress again. I think there is a maturity [and a belief] that I can always do better.