THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS star Eric Braeden visited Prince Albert at the Northern Lights Casino on Thursday for a fan meet and greet.
“I don’t know why but I still enjoy making something that someone else wrote real,” Braeden (Victor Newman) says. “That’s what we get paid for as actors. Why that doesn’t bore me yet, I don’t know. It is still fascinating to me, the whole process is still fascinating, why some scenes seem more real than others. I can’t put my finger on it.”
When asked if the lack of turnover in the major roles has helped keep the show on top, Braeden isn’t shy to wade in.
“The main players they have not touched,” Braeden says. “Trust me, they were tempted to, as all new studio heads are tempted to do. They want to experiment with things. They’re wrong, very wrong, and they’re beginning to realize that and that’s why the modern media is so wonderful. They hear it immediately on Twitter if they don’t like something or like something.”
"The story was just that the idea of putting out five hours of television a week into perpetuity was just a crazy idea that should never have worked, and if anybody had thought about it for more than a couple of minutes, they wouldn’t have done it. Eventually all of these shows turned into machines that just were running, and anybody that got on or got off had to match that speed. It was not nearly as smooth as it seemed on the screen. The odds were always stacked against these shows from the very beginning. It’s just a tremendous amount of work for everybody, and I can understand why some of the actors who have gone on to bigger and better things are still a little ticked off about how soaps are disregarded."
EDITOR'S NOTE: You can order "Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live" at Amazon.com.