Tuesday, January 12, 2010

50 Greatest Soap Actresses: #33 Cynthia Watros

NAME: Cynthia Watros
RANK: 33
SOAP ROLES: Annie Dutton, GUIDING LIGHT (1994-1998); Vicky Hudson, ANOTHER WORLD (1998)

AWARDS:
2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
1998 Daytime Emmy win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
1998 Soap Opera Digest Award nomination for Outstanding Villainess

COMMENTS FROM THE PANEL:
Damon L. Jacobs: Cynthia Watros had the unenviable task of portraying the third woman in Springfield to try to win Josh Lewis' heart after his wife Reva's untimely "death." What easily could have been a cliched one-dimensional role quickly became a complex psychological powder keg in Ms. Watros's capable hands.  As the recovering addict Nurse Annie, she made us care for her and hope she would end up satisfied with the widower Lewis.  But when Reva came back from the Amish, Ms. Watros surprised and shocked us by making the audience love her even more, despite her diaphragm hole-punching, dead fetus-carrying, calculated stair-falling antics.  She raised the good-girl-gone-psycho soap staple to an art form, one that every other soap has tried to duplicate ever since.  In a just world we would be seeing Ms. Watros consistently on our television and movie screens.  Does anyone else hope to hear Wisteria Lane calling?

Roger Newcomb: What a talent. Her role on GUIDING LIGHT was written well and she acted the hell out of it. She matched powerhouse Kim Zimmer and created some unforgettable memories. After GUIDING, she appeared on a few episodes of ANOTHER WORLD subbing for Jensen Buchanan as Vicky. She was so fantastic, and so believeable as Ellen Wheeler's twin sister, I actually wanted to her to keep playing the part! I wish she had stayed in daytime longer.

COMMENTS FROM CO-STARS/CO-WORKERS/INDUSTRY:
Robert Newman: (worked opposite Watros on GL) Working with Cynthia was a wonderful combination of passion, joy, and lunacy. She played Annie to the ends of the earth. It’s not an easy thing, going toe to toe with Kim Zimmer, but Cynthia held her own and then some. As Annie, she managed to walk that fine line between sane and not. She was an absolute joy off-camera and wonderfully unpredictable on-camera. She somehow got us to both despise and adore Annie. We were blessed to have her for the relatively short time that we did.

1 comment:

  1. Annie's breakdown on the stand during the "Reva pushed me down the stairs and killed my unborn baby" trial was amazing TV! Rivaled only by Judith Light's courtroom breakdown.

    I can't imagine anyone else pulling that scene off besides Cynthia!!

    ReplyDelete