"Getting to the Heart of Cassie"
Romance Report: Cassie and Kevin
Miss Demeanor's advice to the lovelorn Cassie
"We are family" might be the new motto for One Life to Live's Cramer women. United in the pursuit of fame, fortune, and a fabulous wardrobe, these ladies have decided that they can get what they want without the help of the opposite sex. Kassie DePaiva (Blair), Gina Tognoni (Kelly), Robin Strasser (Dorian), and Laura Koffman (Cassie) sat down with Soap Opera Digest for a no-holds barred chat at the chi chi Cafe des Artistes restaurant in New York City. --by Karen Swanson
Digest: What's the best thing that's happened to you this year?
Strasser: It's a little self-serving, but winning the Soap Opera Digest award has to be right up there. That was a big thrill.
DePaiva, Koffman, and Tognoni (in unison): Very well deserved.
Strasser: I hate that expression, girls.
DePaiva: Robin hates any compliment you give her...
Tognoni: ...while she's working.
Strasser: And I'm a little superstitious, too. After dress rehearsal, they'll say, "Oh, that was so good." I'm like, "Don't tell me."
DePaiva: She thinks we're complimenting her, but we're not. I'm trying to tell her she sucks.
Strasser: Thank you for sharing, Kassie.
DePaiva: Actually, her wardrobe is what's working [smiles]. There have been some dresses she's worn that I'll say, "I'm sorry, I cannot work with this. She has those big boobies; I can't work with her."
Strasser: [Ray, the stage manager] always says, "We're just trying to make the material more uplifting."
DePaiva: It's like, never work with babies, animals, or Robin's breasts. You just can't compete.
Tognoni: You should see her when she has that negligee stuff on.
Koffman: Thank God, Cassie never walked in on it!
Strasser: All right, was that dress too low-cut for the Soap Opera Digest Awards? Yes, it was, but I had never worn anything like that. Even my mother was astonished.
Koffman: Everybody said you looked so fabulous.
Tognoni: You looked great.
Strasser: I got nailed by the New York Daily News for wearing too low-cut a dress and they said Gina's was...
Tognoni: Too frumpy. We both made the paper.
Strasser: Patricia Mauceri [Carlotta] and I once made "Worst Dressed" in the Enquirer. We didn't deserve it. It was the hottest day, 104 degrees, and we were at a blood drive. We were giving up our time for a fund-raiser and we got nailed for wearing flowered dresses.
DePaiva: If I wore Blair's dresses out in the street, I would be accosted!
Strasser: Just because they don't cover your rear end?
DePaiva: They don't cover my rear end, they don't cover my boobs. I love Susan Gammie [OLTL costume designer] but she...
Strasser: ...undresses you.
Digest: And how about you, Gina?
Tognoni: I was nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award--that was fantastic. It was the first time I'd ever been nominated for anything.
DePaiva: Won't be the last, honey.
Strasser: She's the best young actress I've ever worked with--and I've worked with plenty.
Digest: Which OLTL actor would you like to work with that you haven't already?
DePaiva: I think Laura [as Cassie] should have a fantasy sequence. In each scene a [different] actor comes in and takes his clothes off and she sleeps with him. The first scene should be with Kevin Stapleton [Kevin].
Koffman: I like him.
DePaiva: There was this scene where Cassie is supposed to be speechless when she sees Kevin without his shirt on. [In real life] Laura said, "Oh, my God."
Koffman: I was so mortified, he opens up the door and I was like [shows a stunned look]. I blew all my lines.
DePaiva: It was right on cue.
Koffman: And Robyn Goodman [supervising producer] said, "Nice chest, huh Laura?"
Strasser: Does he have a nice chest?
DePaiva: Yes.
Digest: Who would you like to work with, Gina?
Tognoni: Susan Haskell [Marty]. I think she's awesome. And Thorsten [Kaye, Patrick]. I had a few scenes with him. Man, he's so there. He's sooo there.
Koffman: I never worked with Roger Howarth [Todd].
Digest: You'd like to work with Roger?
Koffman: Oh yeah, in a minute.
Strasser: I would love to work with Bob Woods [Bo]. Years and years ago, Dorian and Bo went on a date. He took off his cowboy hat and planted one on me. It was enjoyable. They never let me do a scene with him again. Broke my heart.
Digest: Let's do male word association. I'll name a co-star and you tell me the first word that pops into your head. We'll start with Thorsten Kaye.
Tognoni: Sexy.
Strasser: Wow. Wow.
DePaiva: Lovely.
Digest: John Loprieno [Cord].
Tognoni: He's really sweet.
Koffman: Brilliant.
Strasser: Dreamboat.
DePaiva: Precious. He's going to hate us, you know that.
Digest: Nathan Fillion [Joey].
DePaiva: Nathan is the best.
Tognoni: He's a brilliant comedian.
Koffman: He gives a lot of love and he needs a lot of love.
Strasser: Look how much he's changed in just the last year and a half. He's a major player and we'll all be very proud to have known him.
Digest: Phil Carey [Asa].
Tognoni: Curmudgeon. Hilarious.
Koffman: I love him. He's great.
Strasser: Bigger than life.
DePaiva: I love him. And I love working with him.
Digest: Let's move on to dressing rooms--whose is the messiest?
Strasser and DePaiva: Probably mine.
DePaiva: Laura and I share a room. She is clean. When I moved in with her, she told me where I could hang my pictures.
Koffman: I did not.
DePaiva: Yes, you did. You hung them for me, actually.
Digest: Let's talk wardrobe.
DePaiva: We need to get Dorian a new wardrobe. I'm taking her shopping.
Strasser: My mom thanks you. Actually, if there's anybody who needs to be taken shopping, it's Cassie.
Koffman: Agreed.
DePaiva: When you start doing Kevin.
All: Oooohhh.
DePaiva: I see that coming around the corner. Of course, last week, Dorian says, "Come on Cassie, aren't you tired of that reverand?" I thought I would...
Koffman: Die.
Digest: What film actor would you love to work with?
Koffman: Kevin Bacon. I find him amazing.
DePaiva: He's over at my gym all the time. I would love to work with John Travola. I think my energy could work off him. That'd be fun.
Strasser: Robert DeNiro and Liam Neeson. In separate scenes. And Tommy Lee Jones. Yep, darn it, I didn't play the part then, but Dorian apparently had an affair with Tommy Lee Jones's character [Dr. Mark Toland, 1971-75].
Koffman: I love Harrison Ford. I saw him once in Sloan's [supermarket] at 10 o'clock at night. I said to him, "I love your work, forever." Forever? S--t! He looked at me and said, "Thanks." For three days, I kept thinking, "What a jerk I am. What a jerk!"
Digest: Is there an initiation ritual you go through when you do your first love scene on the show?
Tognoni: They took my underwear and hung it on the flagpole.
Koffman: Ugghhh!
Tognoni: Joking.
Digest: Is it awkward doing a love scene?
Koffman: They're the hardest.
DePaiva: Love scenes are not ad-libbed; they're choreographed.
Strasser: You wouldn't want to do a love scene with somebody who you didn't like the taste, smell or feel of--that's a lot like life.
DePaiva: I worked with an actor for a year and a half who didn't want to do love scenes with me. He was very uncomfortable with sexual scenes. That's very difficult, but you have to do the best you can and try not to take it personally.
Digest: What's the most revealing outfit you've had to wear on the show?
DePaiva: I had to strip down to a bra and panties. You feel extremely naked. I've also done love scenes where I just had pasties on.
Tognoni: I just did that last week.
Strasser: I don't wear pasties.
Tognoni: You don't wear anything?
Strasser: No.
DePaiva: Good for you.
Strasser: If something showed, I would rather they have cut the tape than have that Band-Aid shot.
Koffman: So you don't wear anything?
Strasser: I wear underwear, but I don't wear anything above.
Digest: What do you think about the Cramer women uniting?
DePaiva: I think it's very interesting and very dynamic.
Strasser: It's a good family unit.
Koffman: I'm just hoping that it keeps developing. It's so powerful.
DePaiva: I think women's issues can be dealt with. And we could talk about self-esteem.
Tognoni: Even though Kelly doesn't have any.
DePaiva: See, that's something. Neither does Blair. I think the Cramer women can put the "fun" is dysfunction.
Digest: And what would you like to do as a united family?
Tognoni: Kick some butt!
Thanks a million Courtney for sending me this interview! It's from a couple years ago, but enjoyable all the same! Happy reading!
THE SKY'S THE LIMIT by Debbie Schafer
September 20, 1994
You might as well add a fourth "C" to Cassie Callison Carpenter: "C"atastrophe. Tragedy seems to follow the poor girl everywhere: to the altar (she was abandoned); to the hospital (she lost her baby); the the sanitarium (where she wound up after she lost baby #2). But in real life, there are better "C" words to describe Laura Bonarrigo, the actress who plays Cassie on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, like: captivating; charismatic; candescent; and caffeinated (naturally). The ambitious actress is much like the Energizer Bunny, she keeps going and going, packing a power punch into practically every millisecond of the day. In fact, she had exactly an hour-and-a-half of "free time" in her day to complete this interview...
"Oh forget it, I'm extremely scheduled. I get picked on all the time. I am booked three weeks ahead of time usually. I rarely find myself with nothing to do-I don't even remember the last time! I may schedule 45 minutes literally to sit down and read the newspaper because that's my down time.... "I have been slowly, slowly incorporating hot baths at night into my regimen just because I don't quit. I get yelled at by people all the time that I don't quit. That is a problem: slowing down, taking a few minutes. I walk: I *race-walk* (get the picture?)"
"I work very hard at rounding out my life. And yes, when I'm not working in the studio, I spend those days somehow constructively working on my career-like going in for coaching or something. But I also do a lot of other things. I have a personal life. I work out and I take courses and I go the the theater and I do other things as much as possible... I'm taking a dance class..ballroom dancing. The fellow I'm seeing is a very good ballroom dancer. He took classes when he was in college with some of his buddies, and I never did, so I was stepping all over his feet! He yelled at me that I was leading and that was *his* job, so therefore aid, 'You know what? Let's go and take classes!'"
"I'd love to have a family. That's something i think about a lot. I've always wanted to have a family; be a mom. I think importantly it was that I didn't know if I was going to be able to love a child enough. I was never afraid of the responsibility as much as I was afraid that I'd be too selfish and I couldn't give enough of myself to a kid. And now it's coming to a point where I think I could actually do that; that I'm actually becoming ready to put my attention on another individual. That's a neat feeling. And I know this storyline (a 'stabilized' Cassie as new mother to adopted baby River) has certainly helped develop that feeling. "I'm very, very proud of them-you have to remember, I have *two* babies: It looks like one, but there's really two(twins play River)! My executive producer says she's watching me fall in love with these babies; she says that's what happens. And I can't stop thinking about them!"
"I don't know if anything will really happen between Andrew and Marty. My point-of-view is a minister, as human as he may be has got to stop what I call the 'affair of the mind.' Krimmer (Wortham, Andrew) gets very defensive when I say, 'You're having an affair of the mind!' He says, 'I'm not doing anything with Marty. Andrew keeps stopping himself.' And I'm thinking, 'Well you know, that's close enough for me!" In some ways, an affair of the mind for a minister is like full-frontal nudity on daytime.
"Yes, Cassie was in a sanitarium..for about two weeks. The audience was so upset with her being so ill for so long, that (is why the story) crashed and burned real fast. People were so upset. I mean, everyone at the studio was upset-they couldn't watch! And I get to pat myself on the back about that because I made the story work. But they never should have let her out after two weeks, like she just got better. At least Cassie's been doing therapy off-camera. And i'm playing her stronger and more together..although I think there should always, always be that potential that Cassie cracks up!"
"Certainly, Cassie is a small part of who I am. (laughs) What you see is me; we're the same height. She has my laugh. She's much more religious than I am-that is a huge difference between us. I am more stable than she is, thank God. But for the most part, she and I are very similar. And at this point, after playing her for three-and-a-half years, I've really made her my own. People say it'd be really hard for any of the (three previous actresses who played Cassie) to come back and step into my shoes right now. I've never seen their work, so I can't say that's a true statement. But at the same time, I think what you're seeing is a lot of what I've brought to her."
This interview is from the May 1997 issue of Soap Opera News, and was given to me by one of the members of the ULKFC, Renee. Thanks!
Cassie Carpenter shocked everyone when she acted on her feelings for Kevin and broke up her marriage to Andrew and separated herself from her son River in the process. But Cassie wasn't always the quiet, stand-by-your man type, Laura Koffman (Cassie) points out in an interview with SON. In fact she's got quite a history! "That's right," says the actress. "Here's a woman who once slept with her mother's boyfriend--and in her mother's bed," she says with a laugh. She (Cassie) has been involved in many adventures in the past. She was married briefly to Rob Cornol and even more briefly to Bo Buchanan until Bo's presumed-dead wife Sarah returned. Alex Olanov tried to kill her, and Cassie was once a private investigator. Even after her marriage to Andrew Cassie remained strong. She stoop up for her husband when many residents turned against him when rumors sprang up that he tried to seduce teenager, Billy Douglas. After a quiet time. Cassie returned to her first love, journalism. As a brilliant investigative reporter she worked for the Banner then joined the Sun with cousin Blair, but after Todd returned and took over she returned to the Banner. Excited by being able to do what she loved best, Cassie found herself in constant competition with Kevin Buchanan.. Out of this competition an attraction grew. And that could no longer be ignored. "It's a good story," declares Koffman. "I think what they're writing is exciting, because it's such a twist in the characters. "As an actor, It's really interesting because I can watch the characters: Cassie really wanting Andrew, Andrew wanting Cassie--and yet the decision she's made doesn't allow them to go to each other. As an actor, I watch Cassie needing him more than ever before." I Cassie having second thoughts about leaving Andrew? "I don't think it's so much as Andrew as it is the situation," Koffman contends. "I had a scene with Maggie where I say: 'I left a man. I left a child. I'm in the arms of another man and I always swore I wouldn't be doing what my mother did." "But she is Dorian's daughter , which is something I've thought was missing for a long time," the actress adds. "So I think she's torn. I don't think Cassie's swapping one man for another, I think she's finally finding out who she is. And I think that can get very confusing. As an actor, what I think is interesting to watch is the dilemma. Often, decisions people make for themselves hurt the very people they say they love, because they don't live up to the image." But shouldn't love have something to do with it? "It's not that she doesn't love Andrew--I think she loves him very much totally loves him, but she's got to find herself," Koffman says. "You know, people can say she can find herself in the marriage and she can find herself in Kevin. You know what, if we fix her, there's nothing to watch and I really think that the last few years, she's sort of been fixed. I've often thought, 'Where's her passion? Who is this individual?'" Leaving your husband is one thing, but to leave your child? "Oh I don't even know what to say about that," she says. She admits her fan mail is 50/50 when it comes to opinions on Cassie's decision. She easily understands why some would be angry at Cassie. "Wouldn't you? I'd be horrified if I knew someone who did that!" declares Koffman. Does she really believe that her character would to this? "No, but Dorian's daughter would," she points out. "Dorian left Cassie. Bob Krimmer (Andrew) said something interesting about that. He said, 'No man will ever fill the hole that Dorian created in her daughter.' It's an interesting question. She is Dorian's daughter, which I've said for a long time." Cassie has often been critical of Dorian, will that change? "Of course you criticize what you fear the most," Koffman says. "There may be glimpses of that, but I really don't know if she'll be more understanding. I don't know that she can be more understanding of Dorian, if Dorian's not more understanding of her." Koffman is also aware of the controversial nature of the story because of Andrew's profession. That's fine with her. "I volunteered to be in this position," she says. "As an actor, I feel fine about taking on this role and this story. I'm not afraid of the issue at hand. I think it's a serious issue. She's human. There are ministers across the country who have had affairs on their wives and left them. But Andrew's never been painted like that, and people's image of a Minster isn't that." Koffman has nothing be praise for her costars. "Bob Krimmer's been amazing. We've been together over four years, and we have a good relationship, so the scenes I had to play with her were so painful. He was just beautiful to work off and to be with in scenes," she says. "Kevin Stapleton (Kevin) can go from sarcasm to tenderness in a second. He's charming. He is the best Kevin--they found what they were looking for in him. It's amazing. Just wait until you see what happens. It's all exciting and it's been emotional--and it certainly has been great fun to play," Koffman reveals. And to watch.
To fans of Cassie and Kevin: Bad news. Read on for details
-- There will be no smooth sailing for OLTL 's Cassie, despite the fact that she ditched Andrew and seemed headed for happiness with Kevin. When C confessed to her clueless hubby that she and K slept together, Andrew had the exact opposite reaction of what she expected. There was no big blowup, no scene; he just quietly moved to sever all ties. This week, Andrew's stragegy will start to pay off. "It certainly unhinged her,"confirms cohead writer ML. "It was not the reaction she expected. I think it had the effect that Andrew wants. It's not just about Andrew being hurt; it's about the mess she created for him, herself and her family. That family includes an adopted son, River, who becomes more enmeshed in the split every day. "Poor litte guy," sighs co head writer Claire Labine. "he's in the middle of a ghastly situation, and Cassie will become more aware of the impact on River." Luckily, Cassie and Andrew will be a little more rational than, say, Todd and Blair, who fought tooth and nail for custody of Starr. "They are not going to get into a custody fight," assures Claire Labine. "Andrew is being very clear about that." Is happiness around the corner for Kevin and Cassie? "Tea is suggesting to Kevin that Cassie used him, unconsciously, to get out of the marriage," hints Claire Labine, "I suspect that Tea may be more right than she knows - and certainly more right than Cassie is aware of."
Cassie and Kevin: One Life to Live
Relationship Milestone: Stormy weather lovemaking
The Scene: After squabbling with her husband, Andrew, a tearful Cassie went out into a torrential downpour and ended up at Kevin's house. When she got there, Kevin assumed that Cassie had finally left Andrew. After they kissed, he carried her upstairs a la Rhett Butler, and they made love for the first time. Afterward, he learned that she actually *hadn't* dumped her hubby. The arrival of Kevin's housemate(and Cassie's cousin), Kelly, forced Cassie to sneak out.
Stumbling Blocks: Cassie *is* still married. Despite the fact that she seems to want to be with Kevin, Dorian's daughter can sometimes be wishy-washy. And then there's Tea, who won't be so quick to forget her fling with Kevin.
Current Status: Cassie and Kevin are spending time together. Andrew has told Cassie that it's over between them, but they're not divorced. Tea is hovering.
The Odds: Currently one of the most interesting couples on daytime, Cassie and Kevin have a shot at...well, not happiness if the writers know what's good for them, but coupledom of some sort.
Dear Miss Demeanor, My husband is the minister in town and is the finest, most upstanding man you'll ever meet. I have a great job at a newspaper, a nice home and an adorable little boy, though I hardly ever spend time with him. So what's my problem? I am so bored with my life I could scream. The only excitement I ever feel is when my co-worker, Kevin Buchanan, brushes up against me at work, or uses my telephone and leaves the scent of his aftershave on the receiver. So I slept with him! Now that I've confessed this to my hubby, he hates me. What can I do?
Cassie Carpenter - Llanview
Dear Cassie, Having never been married myself, Miss Demeanor understands your wanderlust. If I had a nickel for every man who bored me to death after a week of two of blithe happiness, I could buy 10 copies of Soap Opera Digest. But you gave this man six years, and you do have a child with him. Here's my suggestion: Spend more time with your child. Children are less tedious than pious hubbies. And they smell better, too.
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