It's a slate-gray fall afternoon, and Tom Eplin has taken his 52-foot Hatteras Sportfisher, the Sandshell, out on a cruise around the Statue of Liberty. With Mark Mortimer at the helm, Eplin offering boating lessons and Eric Morgan Stuart bemusedly flipping through nautical maps, there's plenty of laughter, unprintable joking and dodging of hidden reefs to keep everyone occupied. After the tour, the trio opened up about why they're friends, why youth is overrated and what it's like to be a sex object.
Digest:So, how did you go from working in a Brooklyn studio to sailing the high seas together on your days off?
Mark Mortimer:Well, Tom and I are very attracted to each other.
Tom Eplin: And I was very attracted to Eric.
Eric Morgan Stuart: Good-night folks!
Eplin (laughing): I just immediately got along with Eric as far as a kindred spirit, and Mark and I just grew to be best friends.
Digest: The friendship really translates on the show.
Eplin: It's like an old shoe. Almost from day one with Eric, I felt like I had a relationship with him.
Stuart: Mark and I make up Tommy.
Eplin: You what?
Stuart: If you could put me and Mark together and make us one person, we would be Tommy.
Eplin: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Stuart: I'm just saying that Mark has the qualities that are probably the most like Tommy in the sense of things they like to do, the boats and... [Eplin laughs wickedly.] I'm not going to go any further.
Mortimer: Can I just say thank you right now for that?
Stuart: And in some ways, I think I'm opposite from Tommy...
Eplin: Irresponsible....
Stuart: I'm boring as hell -- I don't smoke, I don't drink, I'm married.
Eplin: Not that I do smoke and drink, of course. Just making an observation. Where is that bottle?
Stuart: I don't know how to say it without sounding corny as hell. It was just ... easy. At work, [Tom] would encourage me. Having somebody saying, "Use your instincts, don't hold back" helped me out.
Eplin: Watching and listening to Eric so much makes me a better actor. Also, I have a particular way of working, and Mark came to me and we shared ideas about how to work like that. A lot of it is awareness, and that's what Eric brought to it. Something I haven't felt for years with a male co-worker.
Digest: Do you ever offer specific advice to each other?
Eplin: We had some emotional scenes about five months ago [for Michael's funeral], and Mark said, "Well, how do we get into this?"
Mortimer: I wasn't ready to be emotionally avaliable.
Eplin: I said, "Just stay up all night." So he stayed up until about 4:30 a.m. And you know, he did not look good. But what did ever woman write about? "They were great scenes; I loved him; he's such a hunk."
Mortimer: My eyes were all red and bloodshot .. I bawled my eyes out. I was definitely emotionally avaliable.
Digest: So, Mark, you were Digest's choice for AW's sexy man this year. Is this something that you rushed right out and told your good friends, Tom and Eric?
Eplin: I discourage Mark from sharing any of that kind of information.
Mortimer: He does! He's like, "Hey, don't worry about that sexy s---. Don't take your shirt off."
Eplin: In this business, Mark's cursed because of the way he looks. He'll do a great scene, and people won't see the work. Eric and I don't get the same kind of response. Mark won it this year for Digest; I hope 25 years from now, he's on the cover of People magazine as an older man winning it. Sean Connery is not as good-looking as Mark, yet every five years, the guy wins "Sexiest Man," and he's 70. Richard Gere is not a classically good-looking guy. His ears are turned out, his nose is too big, he's got a slight build, with gray hair and wrinkles. I saw him on OPRAH yesterday, and as soon as he came on, people went crazy. And Mark is going to be the same thing.
Mortimer: Tommy's been telling me for the past year now that you can ride on your looks as long as you want, but you'd better really be an actor when they're all gone. So if a "sexy guy" [nomination] comes along, I'll take it, but I'm not going to pop my shirt off in every scene. I fight it tooth and nail unless the scene needs it.
Digest: Soaps are really women's worlds. Do you think mean often become background scenery?
Mortimer: Women want to see men, but they want to see stories about things they relate to about women.
Stuart: One thing Tommy said when I first started [at AW] was, "This isn't about us. This is about the women on the show."
Eplin: Oh, the old prop speech.
Stuart: Right. I don't know if we're just scenery, but I think it comes down to fantasy. A lot of soap operas deals with trying to heighten fantasy levels for women. And it seems like in order to do that you have to have some guys around to help that out.
Eplin: And when you see buddy scenes like Eric and I do, it's like, "Hey, they're just like regular guys!"
Digest: So if soaps were written soley for men, would it just be pro wrestling?
Eplin (laughing): No, I think it would be equally as successful. I there's a misinterpretation [in daytime] of the need to have everything youth-oriented. We need to generate new viewers. If you're going to see a soap every day, it's a slice out of your life. And if you're going to put young people in these situations, they can't take over the whole city. Yes, you can cheat -- you can have a 27-year-old plastic surgeon. But YOUNG AND RESTLESS
hasn't abandoned all of their people that make their stories work, and that's what other shows are doing to pursue those demographics. It's not going to pay off.
Mortimer: If you look around the industry, you can see that youth demographics don't work. I don't want to name any shows, but it's not about young guys taking their shirts off.
Digest: There's a lot of time invested in love realtionships on the show. Do they ever seem ... real?
Eplin: For me, it's hard to answer.
I
married [and divorced Ellen Wheeler, Marley] in real life! So there's got to be some attraction there. And Jensen [Buchanan, Vicky] is ... nobody has a scene partner as good as Jensen. Eric's got a scene partner that good, but Jensen is equally as responsive to Mark and Eric. Short of Jensen being married -- the other day, Mark would have made it with her in a minute! There was a whole mutual admiration going on with them. I had to go hang out with Eric. [Drops into a droll, bored voice.] "Hey, Eric, what's going on? Mark's flirting with Jensen, and Jensen's flirting with Mark...."
Digest: How do you square it with your significant others when you have to get up close and personal?
Stuart: The thing about it is that Rhonda [Ross Kendrick, Toni] is very married. I think one of the things that Rhonda likes is the fact that I am married, too. I think she feels like there is some stress off her because it makes it easier for her to go all out, and not think she's sending the wrong message.
Digest: So is it like kissing your sister?
Mortimer: I dont know. I've never kissed my sister.
Eplin:No way. I tell Jensen, she better never fall drunk in front of my fireplace with no clothes on. Every guy on my show thinks Jensen is the sexiest beast they've ever seen.
Mortimer: She's just incredible.
Digest: I'm sure she appreciates the word "Beast"!
Eplin and Mortimer (together):You just don't know! You don't know!
Mortimer: That is the biggest compliment you can give her: "You sexy beast!"
Eplin: Jensen likes the idea of knowing that she's coming in with just about the same amount of ammo you are.
Digest: Have you learned anything from your character?
Mortimer: This is an easy question for me -- absolutely nothing. [Everyone laughs.] Nick's a young guy, and I've had a much tougher life than he has.
Eplin: It's like this boat. This is Jake. This boat goes there when I tell it to go there. You decide, if you're an actor, that you'e leading, you're not following in those stories. Take your character where you want it to go. Teach your character. You have a responsibility. Eric and I can instantly take a scene and play it exactly opposite of what was meant by the writer.
