Since joining Days, one of my most memorable guest appearances, and one that fans often ask me about, was my appearance on Friends in 2000, in which I portrayed an award-winning, diva actress on Days of Our Lives (of all soaps!).
On the set of this successful prime time series, I could see that the cast and crew were so dedicated to creating the best possible show. Similar to Days, Friends has a confident cast and crew who had created a routine that was professional yet comfortable and easygoing. The atmosphere at Friends is different than that of a first-year sitcom that’s just getting started and trying to prove itself. On the new shows, life can be hectic and even a bit chaotic as the cast and writers try to prove their worth to the network. It can be a high-tension, high-wire act with a lot of jobs on the line. However, on Friends, there was no tension—just a great time.
On the show, my character was a bit of a bitch, but really fun to play! I had a scene with Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc. During my first day on the set, we rehearsed the entire script. It was the first time I had met Jennifer, and she asked me, “Do you work with my dad?” (Her father, John Aniston, has been on Days for many years.) I told her, “Yes, in fact, we play bitter enemies. He’s tried to kill me several times on the show!” Both of us laughed until we got back to the serious business of rehearsing.
On Friday of that week, we rehearsed the show again until the director and producers were completely happy with everything and ready to put the show on tape. The actual taping took place on Friday night.
Friends is taped before a live audience, a setting that was mostly new and enjoyable for me, but also the source of anxiety. After all, you’re not only trying to be funny, but with an audience, you know right away whether you’ve succeeded. As an actor, you definitely feel a powerful energy from the audience, and since they’re on your side, it’s an energy that can drive you to perform even better. At the same time, even though I had been on Days for many years, it was a little jarring when I realized that a live audience would be out there, watching my every move. It had been so long since I had performed in front of an audience, and I did have a brief moment of freaking out a little, thinking, “Oh, oh, I’m not prepared for this!”
I remember standing backstage with Matt LeBlanc, waiting to make our entrance, and I half-jokingly whispered to him, “My gosh, what do I do differently here? Got any advice?”
Matt was so nice. “You’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s just the same as what you’ve always done. Just wait for the laugh.”
A Days Debut
Now for some Days trivia: Do you remember what character I played before Sami on Days? At the age of six, I played a character named Adrienne Johnson Kiriakis as a child, portraying her in a flashback scene when she was abused by her father. The adult Adrienne was played by Judi Evans for about five years (she later moved on to Another World, and as is only possible on soaps, she’s now back on Days playing an entirely different character, Bonnie). When Adrienne reflected back on what had happened to her as a young girl, I played her in those childhood flashback scenes. Judi and I had scenes together just recently and I reminded her of how we’d worked together before. She had no idea that little girl was me!
Judi (Bonnie) told me when she played Paulina on Another World she was a Days fan, and that Sami was one of her favorite characters! I was so flattered—but it was definitely a “mutual admiration society” I told her that when she came back to the show, I had to remind myself that her real name was Judi—in fact, “Adrienne” (her first Days character) kept popping into my head!
My Days debut as a young Adrienne was very exciting, even though it lasted just two days. At the time, Days was being shot at the Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood, several miles from where we tape the show today. I auditioned for the part along with a roomful of other kids, and when I was fortunate enough to get the job, one of my older cousins became more excited about it than I was (geez, I was only six!). She was a huge fan of Days, and so as a family favor, I got members of the cast (none of whom I had heard of at the time) to sign my script for her.
When I gave my cousin the heavily autographed script, she almost died! I gotta admit, she absolutely loved it!
Chapter 4
Although I’ve been an actress for almost as long as I can remember, my life is probably really not much different than yours. In fact, my motivation for writing this book is to relate some of my growing-up and life experiences to my fans while also describing some of my most interesting moments as an actress in Hollywood, particularly on Days of Our Lives. By telling my story, I hope you may be able to better understand issues that are relevant in your own life: finding friendships in a world where too many people don’t seem to care…coping with peer pressures when they’re taking you down paths that aren’t in your best interest…surviving in a culture that worships thinness…finding balance in day-to-day living when you’re being pulled in a thousand different directions…and discovering your inner self by examining your core beliefs and values.
Yes, I’ve grown up and still live in the public eye, and it’s not always fun. Because of the work that actors do, all of us come under the scrutiny of the media. But despite that higher visibility, I’ve still had to overcome the same problems and make the same adjustments that virtually every girl and every young woman has had to do. Adolescence and young adulthood do have a way of making life interesting—at times, truly amazing; at other times, downright depressing—but perhaps my reflections on my own experiences can help you find your own way through both the good and the rocky times as you discover where you fit into the world.
Making Friends Count
No matter what your age, your gender, or your place in life, I think we can agree on the following: There are few pleasures greater than spending time with friends. If you make friends easily, you’re very lucky. Not everyone is so fortunate. You might even find yourself taking them for granted—but that’s certainly not something that I’ve ever done.
I went to the same school for thirteen years—a small college preparatory school in a suburb of Los Angeles. It was very academically oriented, and I spent a lot of time cracking the books. Add to that the many hours occupied by my acting career—including auditions after school, and the making of commercials, TV shows, and motion pictures—and perhaps I didn’t have as much time to make friends as some of my peers did. Even so, judging by my social life at and away from school, I was never going to be Prom Queen. Far from it.
Here’s the bottom line: I always felt that a lot of my classmates didn’t like me. And I never really understood why. In elementary school, I didn’t have lots of friends, and that isolation only eased up a little in the middle-school and high-school years. I remember being shunned by most of the girls at school, and as best I could tell, the boys weren’t particularly interested, either. I was rarely invited to parties, and I spent a lot of Saturday nights at home with my family. I certainly wasn’t a very good athlete (that’s an understatement!), and at recess and in gym class, I was always the last kid picked for the kickball team.
You can imagine how painful that was. I’m sure a lot of you know exactly what I’m talking about or know someone who does. Like a lot of kids who often feel that they’re on the outside looking in, I would have done just about anything so classmates would like me. But I was shy and had trouble fitting in and making friends. That’s what happens to some kids, and for no apparent reason. I was one of them.
It can really hurt.
I remember one girl in high school—I’ll call her Lucy (I’m changing her name to protect the…well, whatever). She was something of a “ringleader,” and she tormented me throughout high school. She seemed passionate about making my life as miserable as possible. Not long ago, in an interview in Soap Opera Digest, I was asked if there was one person in high school who I’d like to “get back at” by “rubbing her nose” in my show-business success. Well, guess who came to mind? For all the pain she caused me, Lucy’s name was flashing like a neon
sign in my mind. But during the interview, I bit my tongue and thought better of naming names. I did mention that there was someone who had picked on me in high school. But I said that I had moved on, and hoped she was happy, wherever she was. Enough said.
There were some other girls who used me for target practice as well. Even when I tried to be cool, it usually seemed to backfire. I remember clearly one incident when I was in the seventh grade. The captains of the soccer squads in P.E. class were selecting their team members, and (of course) I was absolutely terrible in soccer. After everyone else had been picked, I was the last one left, standing alone in all my embarrassment. Well, lucky me, the captain (her name will be “Kim”) who “got stuck” with me didn’t hide how angry she was that I had ended up on her team. She apparently felt it was just fine to humiliate me, simply because I wasn’t very good. I’ll never forget how mean she was during our games. When I wasn’t playing to her level of satisfaction (which was most of the time), she didn’t even try to hide how much she resented having me on her team. Let’s just say girls can be very mean at that age.
I remember talking to some classmates after school that afternoon. I really wanted to be their friend, and perhaps as a way of trying to fit in and lash out, I complained bitterly about Kim. “She’s so mean!” I said. “What’s her problem? This isn’t the Olympic Games!” My rant continued on and on. “Why does she have to be like that? She’s such a bitch!”
As I spoke, I could see that the girls I was talking to began looking over my shoulder as if someone had walked up behind me. I turned, and was face to face with Kim.
She had heard everything.
It was like a bad movie. A very bad movie. I was absolutely speechless. I wanted to die. I don’t think I have ever felt so bad.
I cried all the way home, and when I told my mom what had happened, she was upset, too, at me. She insisted that I call Kim and apologize.
No, not that! That was the last thing I wanted to do. Just the thought of dialing Kim’s phone number made me shake. But I somehow mustered the courage. I called her at home. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
“You hurt my feelings,” I told her. “That’s why I said some very mean things about you, which was wrong. I’m really, really sorry.”
As you might guess, there were some awkward moments during that conversation. But Kim did accept my apology. In fact, she was quite nice about it. No, we didn’t become friends. But after that phone call, at least I wasn’t embarrassed to see her at school. I also realized something important: My conscience won’t let me belittle or put down people. (I’ll leave that kind of behavior to Sami for now!)
Boys to Men
Now what about boys? Well, I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school, if that’s what you want to know. I was a little overweight—not by much, but enough to make me feel self-conscious and cut my self-esteem down to size. By the time I was starting to even think about dating a boy, I was so consumed with anxiety about not feeling pretty, it was almost inconceivable to me that boys might find me attractive.
Did I ever go out in high school? Well, yes. But here’s the truth: The boy was more of a friend than a boyfriend (if you get my drift). As sad as it sounds, I actually kissed a boy on TV (on I Married Dora) before I kissed one in real life; I think I was a sophomore in high school before my first real kiss.
In that particular episode of I Married Dora, my character was the “best friend” of one of the regulars on the show. A 12-year-old boy. I was the “tomboy” who had hit puberty and was becoming a girl. At the end of the episode, my character was supposed to just lean over and plant one on the boy. I remember the director going over the scene with us again and again in rehearsal. He could see how embarrassed we both were, and since this show was taped before a studio audience, he didn’t want us to get messed up and forget the scene. The whole thing went off without a hitch—it was a really cute scene. Of course, how many kids invite their grandparents to witness their “first kiss”? Yup—my grandparents were sitting in the front row of the studio audience!!!
Actually, the best relationships I had with boys in high school were with a couple of guys who would jokingly steal my backpack, ask to borrow a pen, and tease me in good-natured ways. They made me feel good because they actually talked to me, which most kids in the school didn’t. It never occurred to me until I was an adult that they might have actually been attracted to me, and if I had shown the least bit of interest in them, one or both might have asked me out. But I never did anything to encourage them. I just didn’t get it! Yet all those uncomfortable and embarrassing moments of my childhood have been an invaluable part of my portrayal of Sami. When my mom sees Sami’s dark side on Days, she often teases me with lines like, “Remind me never to make you angry!” On soaps, the story-lines can be so farfetched that it’s often hard to “relate” as an actress to what your character is going through. I have to “replace” the storyline situation with something similar in my real life that creates the same type of feeling. And every personal struggle I’ve ever experienced is fair game when I face a challenging scene. So, in a very real way, I owe all those kids who tortured me in school a big “thank you”!
There were some benefits of having only a few friends, male or female, in school. Here’s one: I never went to the parties where the peer pressure to take drugs and alcohol was pretty intense. I spent most of those years in something of a haze of my own making—attending class, doing homework, going to auditions, and working on Days—but not much else. I didn’t even know that the kids in my school drank and took drugs until I was a senior! I was so naïve and felt like a real outsider.
In a lot of ways, the experiences I had on Days and with other acting jobs were more “normal” than my experiences in real life. Remember that on one TV sitcom, I got my ears pierced at 10 years old, an age when my mom never would have let me do it in real life. I had my first kiss on TV. The same with my first dance. The first time I made love (or at least acted like I was making love!) was as Sami on Days. When you think about it, it’s actually pretty amusing that many of my coming-of-age moments happened first on TV.
So if drugs and drinking weren’t part of my real life, what kind of “adolescent rebellion” did I go through? Well, don’t laugh: TV Guide once wrote about a transgression in my younger days when, along with some other girls, I ran up my parents’ credit line at the local grocery store. Not exactly a capital offense! Of course, it didn’t make my parents particularly happy, but it didn’t bring the FBI to my doorstep, either.
Breaking Out
Here’s the irony: I was actually very good at making friends everywhere else but at school. Go figure! I had good friends in all of my afterschool activities, particularly horseback riding. Maybe because they had no preconceived notions of me, I was able to be myself, which they seemed to like. I really connected with some of them. We’d go to horse shows. We’d have sleepovers. Normal stuff. I also made friends on the job, whether I was making commercials or on the set of Days of Our Lives.
But at school, it was different. Sometimes, I came home at the end of the day crying hysterically because (in my mind) no one liked me or ever would. Even after I started playing Sami on Days, I still struggled with my self-esteem, and felt pretty disconnected at school. On those rare occasions when kids would talk to me, I wondered if it was only because I was on TV.
So how did I overcome this lack of friends and the insecurities that accompanied it? As I grew older and felt more comfortable living in my own skin, I became more accepting of myself. As that happened, more people began to like me.
At the time, I was convinced that I was the only one who felt so lonely. But here’s what I didn’t know: Most kids feel the same way at one time or another. In fact, the most unlikely people at my high school believed they were just as friendless as I was. A few years after I graduated, I ran into a girl who I was certain was the reason they invented the word “popularity.” No kidding, everyone seemed to like her
. But here’s what she told me: She cried every day after school because she was convinced that she had no friends. I couldn’t believe it. Of course, she was wrong. A lot of kids liked her, and I would have loved to have been her friend.
Who knows? Maybe that was the case with me, too. And maybe with you as well.
Even many of the popular kids—the ones who always seem to be busy on weekends—are insecure. In fact, that may be why they sometimes behave the way they do. Maybe they’re often mean because it makes them feel superior and better than anyone else (boy, are they wrong!). As a teenager, of course, it doesn’t make you feel any better or any less lonely if you know your tormenter is just as unsure of herself as you are. But that’s probably the case.
In a sense, acting was an escape for me from some unhappy and insecure times in my real life. The characters that I played on TV (at least until I got the part of Sami) were pretty normal—much more normal than my own real life appeared to be. Acting let me get away from the classroom and the kids I didn’t feel comfortable around. It gave me the chance to pretend to lead a grownup life, and I was definitely a different person on the set than I was at school. There was something about school that brought out the shyest and most insecure parts of me. But with acting, there’s no place for shyness and modesty. You have to be bold and confident and believe in yourself.
All The Days Of My Life (so Far) Page 5