SUNSET BEACH's Clive Robertson Duels with a Dual Role

Daytime has a long history of asking it's strongest actors to tackle two or more roles. Currently, AMC's David Canary (Adam/Stuart), GL's Kim Zimmer (Reva/Clone Reva), and SUNSET BEACH's Clive Robertson (Ben/Derek) are pulling double duty. Here's a candid interview with Robertson, explaining allthe reasons why playing a twin is not necessarily a walk on the beach.

DIGEST: What has your schedule been like?
ROBERTSON: I feel completely brainwashed. It's been difficult, because they've been scheduling me last everyday. I've had so many scenes that I come in at 1, often don't get on [set] till 5 and go until we finish. We shoot late, and it's difficult to concentrate at that time. If we finish at 10 or 11 [pm], then I have to go home to learn all my lines and I don't get to bed until 2am. I've been getting up at 10 and trying to remember the lines I learned the night before. It's been a vicious circle and I haven't really had a life.

DIGEST: Do you think the story is working?
ROBERTSON: It gets better from what I've read. The way they've been writing Ben since he's been locked up has been annoying me. I'm really bored with him. Ben has never allowed anyone to get the better of him, and he's not been allowed to express himself in the way that he would. They've been writing all these great, great lines for Derek, but nothing for Ben. I'm looking forward to getting Ben back to himself.

DIGEST: Which would be what?
ROBERTSON: The interesting thing about Ben is that I never set out with the intention of making him likable. He's fairly abrupt, fairly anit-social, but with different people, other sides of his character are brought out. That's what the audience brought into him. He's a bit of an anithero.

DIGEST: Do you enjoy playing Derek?
ROBERTSON: Yes, I've had a lot of fun playing him. I find Derek a lot easier to play. Ben's quite difficult to portray, actually. Ben has this sort of economy with movement in the way he walks, talks, and does things, whether it's picking up a phone or whatever. Derek, I find much more liberating. I've purposely not given him that same ease with things.

DIGEST: What else do you do to differentiate Derek from Ben?
ROBERTSON: When I first played Derek, his voice was much posher. He was more sophisticated, brought about by the fact that he was trying to copy Ben, but not doing a very good job. Lately, Derek's become more comfortable with being Ben, so the differences are fewer.

DIGEST: Have you had any problems with how easy it's been for Derek to take over Ben's life?
ROBERTSON: Some situations are a but difficult to believe. They haven't made it very clear that Derek's soundproofed the room and put speakers in. That's how he's able to hear what's happening. And the password - the fact that Derek has all Ben's ID's, but can't access his password. I would have thought he could go to the bank with his passbook and credit cards and checkbook and get the money. I assume it's in a Swiss account and you need ID's for stuff like that. And Derek used to always have the same clothes as Ben. My idea was that he's been plotting this for a long time. He's been keeping such close tabs on Ben, he's probably broke into the house and bought the same clothes he saw in Ben's wardrobe, actually monitoring him so closely that he was able to wear [the same outfit] on any given day. But they sort of brushed over all that.

DIGEST: Anything else?
ROBERTSON: Meg is in the warehouse with Derek, so you would expect Ben to shout at her. But Derek has said he'll kill her if anything happens, so I guess that's fair enough; he's not going to endanger her. But then Casey shows up. Derek does have a knife in his hand, so I suppose Ben is thinking that Derek will kill Casey and then, kill Meg. But personally? I would have screamed.

DIGEST: What are you thoughts about continuing to play a dual role?
ROBERTSON: It's fun to play two completely different characters, and there are some interesting things coming up between the brothers that I am excited about doing.

DIGEST: Do you think the fans are buying the story?
ROBERTSON: They can buy anything now that Ben isn't the killer.

Hoping to capitalize on the success of the movie Scream 2, which opened to huge audiences in December, SUNSET BEACH launched it's own horror-filled muder myster on "Terror Island".

The story began in late December, when Ben gave Meg a house on a secluded island for Christmas. "He suggested she hold a New Year's Eve Party for all her friends," explains Ben's portrayer, Clive Robertson. "Minutes before everyone boarded the boat to go to 'Terror Island,' Ben back out for business reasons. Or so it appeared.".

Those who made the fateful (or is that fatal?) journey were Meg, Mark, Casey, Michael, Vanessa, Virginia, Sean, Elizabeth, Jade, Gabi, and Grogan (the boat's captain) and two of them are already dead. Tim and Amy pop up on the island eventually - as does Ben - and murder and mayhem ensue.

The SUNSET BEACH set designers were given the incredible task of designing the house and the island in the studio in just a few weeks. The crew, led by production designer George Becket, created enough gruesome interiors and spooky exteriors to rival those used in the typical horror flick.

"It was rustic and creepy, but cool at the same time," describes Dominique Jennings (Virginia). "There were a lot of gargoyle things outside and the forest area was very creepy."

"It's sort of THE ADDAMS FAMILY revisited," adds Director Peter Brinckerhoff. "There's a large living room and the furniture is old and very gothic. There are a lot of old weapons that look like they are from the Middle Ages - broad swords and axes of different types - ultimately used by the principals for their protection."

The gang turned to the rusty tools for self-defense after both Elizabeth and Jade were bludgeoned to death. "One of the things we try not to do in daytime is show too much blood," Brinckerhoff says. "But it was hard to justify not doing it here. So, we see the end result of the mayhem but we don't see the mayhem itself."

To add to the fear factor, the writers included scenes where the trapped participants dined on drug-laced soup, which caused terrifying hallucinations. Academy-Award winning makeup artist Matthew Mungle (Edward Scissorhands) was hired to bring the special effect transformations to life.

"I look in the mirror and my face morphs off," recounts a squirming Sherri Saum, in character as Vanessa. "They made a plastic cast of my face and Matthew worked on me for about two-and-a-half hours. People were shocked. I had to look at it and I was horrified. It's very frightening."

Other hallucinations included Mark seeing the silverware turn into writhing snakes and Tim envisioning Meg with blood running down her face.

"Using special effects - snakes, faces morphing, blood, dark lighting conditions, a lot of candles, smoke - adds to the complexity of the experience," Brinckerhoff explains. "I was incredibly impressed with the dedication of the actors, who worked 14-16 hours a day for two weeks."

"The days were horror in themselves but we all wanted the end product to be really good. So we put in those 16-hour days and grinned and bore it," smiles Saum. Adds Jennings: "The days were long, but Terror Island was an emotional rollercoaster and so much fun."

Last week, mark was attacked and he pulled off the killer's mask during the struggle - to reveal Ben's face. "It's pretty brutal, what I do to Mark," Robertson says of the stabbing. It looks really nasty. They had (a body double) in to do all the other attacks. I was just there for this gruesome attack on Mark."

Is the killer really Ben? Will he be found out? Tune in this week as the mystery of Terror Island continues...