All I Need...is Jack Wagner!

Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney Thorn Smith.

And daphnews Aniga an iHeartRadio podcast.

Hi, guys, we're so excited today Jack Wagner.

Excited Jack Wagner, So welcome.

To Still the Place. We're so excited to hear of you.

I think to see you guys. I don't know if you had video of it, clearly you may not. But just the greeting I got out front was like that.

That never happened at work. Girls. Okay, we're matured.

As we got older, we realized what we have.

Yeah, we realized thirty five years later.

You've been waiting thirty five years for that greeting. Yeah, yeah, but it happened to be chat.

What was it back in the day and the makeup don't talk to me? Yeah, yeah, it's right.

Hey, Laura, you want to talk to this. I don't want to run yet. Run them out there.

You guys were really great and uh listen, it was always I think we had a lot of uh the attitude seemed to be really positive, even the makeup trailers, right, I think people were beat.

Up, yeah, because we did a lot of work.

But I think overall it was kind of a fun group. I always remember it that way.

I think that there was so much drama on the camera, Like I would just read these and going like what that I was spending time like preparing getting these mental and emotional states that I was just relieved to see like a normal person at the at the you know, getting lunch or something.

Hi, guys, Jack, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joy very upset was upset.

It's been the consensus too.

I mean we've had other guests in and we've talked about it all the time, like we were just a happy group of people, like we liked our jobs, we liked pre each other, and that was just exceptional. And the fact that thirty five years later we're so excited to see everybody again, and.

I want to just to hear point daff and I think that that was We all really treated the material that way, really seriously, right, whatever emotional state, however crazy it was, whatever it was, we were all real pros, I thought, yeah, and did our best to make it exciting and believable and sexy and funny or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, And I think that was consistent throughout the cast, don't you well.

You know, I jumped ahead. We don't ahead. You came in season three, episode six.

OK, not that you needed to know that, but we figured that out, and you came on like the freaking soap icon that you are. You just did so much with your eyes and that hair, but I mean your eyes were so you came in with this power. I'm head of the hospital, your chief is chief of staff, and you just like put whoever came in in their place. Michael and h and Marcia for sure, but you were just I was like, Wow, this guy has done this before.

It's so true and it's hard to own a set because you're I mean, you were coming.

Now.

Did you know when you started that you were going to be on for so long? Was it an ARC or were you hired full time right away?

To my memory, I think I was hired full time and I knew I'd be a part of the cast. And my goal, to your point, was to make an impact, right. I really wanted to be this alpha male, you know, no matter what it was, so that mission accomplishment totally.

Did you audition?

Did you?

Well?

You know, last week we spoke and I thought about it and I was doing a guest spot on a Canadian TV show in Montreal, okay, And my agent called and said, I'm sending you a script from melrose Place and I was like soaped out. I'm like, no chance, I'm not doing it. It feels like a soap. And they said, well, it's a hot show and you'd be working opposite Heather.

Locklare and so I'm like, okay, all right, well, all right, all right.

So I took this script and flew across you know, a long flight from Montreal and changed everything he wrote, We did this that, and did you guys audition in Aaron's officer and Spelling's office. Okay, So you know the office, right, And for those who don't, it's this big, kind of white, shag carpeted big office, right, and it has a seating almost like bench like along the walls. Huge, huge, huge, right, So it's almost sort of like a Broadway audition with

And I went.

In and read with the casting director and this did this whole improvisational, completely offscript, you know, got right in her grill, grabbed your face, you know, with her hair, did everything right, just went for it and got the part.

Wow. Okay.

So my first day on set was this scene and I started doing what I.

Did in the audition.

Oh my god.

Yeah, you're all laughing because you know what happened, right, and I think that director. The director was like, uh, yeah, cut Jack, you need to call Darren Starr.

He's waiting to talk to you.

And I'm like, oh, okay, hey Darren, Hey Jack, what's going on?

I said, I don't know.

I'm just kind of doing that idea, just doing it the way I did in the audition. He goes, yeah, we do the lines that are written here.

Yeah, okay.

It was like, okay, well that was my first experience with that.

We do the lines, we do the.

Lines is written. But that's how I got the.

Point because we were season three and they had had so many people like winging in getting little maybe a little lazy, I don't know. I had an experience because we had fax machines back then where I had edited a scene as a good little girl that I am, and I faxed it to Derek to see ahead of time because I wasn't gonna like, you know, and he facts back Daphne. We don't make a habit good edits, but don't make a habit of editing the things.

We don't do that here.

Yeah, okay, I was the new kid on the block. Well that's that my train.

You did a lot with your eyes. I think you put all that in your eyes and you're staring.

Yeah, we've been watching the episodes again.

I think it was such a good acting exercise, though, because I can see myself struggling to make lines work, like taking pauses in weird places to add the whatever the weird end of.

The sentence was. You could see like it really was.

It really built that muscle, like we could make it work, anything.

Work because you had no choice. That's right, It wasn't going to change.

It.

Really is an acting exercise. I don't think people understand that. But when materials, we'll call it thin.

Right, if it's thin or over the top.

Or over the top, whatever it is, how are we going to make this believable?

That's really the exercise. So I totally agree.

Now, Jack was a different because you'd come from other soaps. You were such a star on General Hospital, So was this a different kind of soap?

Nighttime soap?

Or was it massive to go to nighttime television from daytime because I was really pigeonholed, you know, from General Hospital and having a number one record and never really being taken seriously as a musical artist, et cetera. Right, and I'm like a thespian, Okay, I'm like from drama school and classic theater and Stella Adler and here my first real big break was on a soap opera.

Okay, So this was.

Huge for me to score a nighttime series, whether it be soap esque or whatever.

You know, it was a big jump.

And soon if we'll talk about the schedule being challenging, but you were like, this is nothing compared to a daytime soap, right, yeah.

Pay seriously, girls like I. When you're on a front burner storyline on a soap opera, you can have fifty sixty pages of dialogue. Sometimes you'd have to do two episodes in one. And now they've condensed soap operas into doing four to five episodes a day, you know, the ones that have survived, right, But back then, you know, it was really Uh, if you're on a front burner storyline, you could have fifty sixty pages a dialogue, which I had quite a few times.

I mean Maro's we shot about eight pages a day total. What's been people, So it.

Was piece of cake, yeah for you different, Yeah, but it was still I prefer I like to move fast. I like to I call it power running. I love the run lines. I love to get the staging and

So you know, that's always the best.

Challenge for me is to be now that I'm older, more organic and available in rehearsal, especially in rehearsal because even on the show I'm on now when calls the Heart, I'm the only actor who's always in makeup, always in wardrobe for rehearsal.

It's just how I like it.

I just like to always be ready and sort of just to be available for what's going to happen.

You know, you're talking about how your Laura and Michael stuff was like a separate show.

Like that office was like a separate comedy in there.

Right, And we had a little comedy when you doctor said that different we could go there and you guys just had a ball.

Yeah, they were doing other stuff, like stuff was blowing up and set all the time, and we were like, this is really funny.

We had our un comedy shop, didn't we.

Up with your little crazy little matching outfit taking messages and like do you remember there was like some sort I would put them on a pencil and I don't know, it's just just prop fun.

We were like fun. Yeah, we were great at it, were you well? I mean I was always.

Trying to pull an apple in here or there, like what what's what's with the apple?

What's he doing? You know, we don't need an apple.

We don't need you might need an apple.

We should try that.

We actually might.

Yeah, so we I think we had a little comedy company there, right.

It was fantastic.

Yeah.

I was there saying where's the apple? Where's the apple was in this? It was in your right it was in your left hand.

There is that? Okay?

Then it always fun when someone comes up with a prop and then like but then we don't really know how to use it.

It was so organic in the moment.

They're like, well, you better repeat it four more times and make it seymore.

Make it a sh dick.

That's right.

Okay, So I have to add I haven't told this story, but I think, asking you if you remember it, is this is the perfect time to tell the story. There was a time, and it was while we were shooting all those scenes in that doctor's office, and it was comedy and fun whatever. I decided it was time to straighten my teeth, and so I got braces.

Do you remember this.

Talk about.

I got them on the inside of And then we went to have a scene together and poor Jack could not look me in the eye. Right now, I want to hear this from your you tell the story.

I think I think I remember one take, just stopping and going, can anybody understand her?

It sounds like you because I don't. I don't really know what she said. Okay, so you know I had to get you right away.

You were so great because you were you were like.

Really sympathetic to my plight, and like Jack, I can't talk, hang on, she's stribbling out of her mind.

Laura could I clean you up just real quick, because.

Help me, help me.

You're like, just cover I was so badly and you're like, what is wrong with you?

Yeah?

Fun day that your messages.

But I will never think of that time without thinking of it through your eyes, because it was your face that I was seeing the whole truth.

I was like, oh, this is mae.

I did have them taken off.

I think that night, like I came back to work the next day and they had been ripped off.

It always one day if she yeah, of listening and spittling all over the Jack.

Was Jack was the perfect scene partner to have for that experience, giving.

Me ideas for oh my god, if we ever do it again. I yeah.

Do you have a storyline that you remember, like as being either really traumatic or really fun when that sticks out in your mind?

Yes?

I think it was when Marcia was in the insane asylum Kimberly, you know, and that was, uh, yeah, it was. It was great because we really worked well together in terms of the thespian part of it. She was so committed to being insane, and therefore I was so committed to and it was physical, you know, like throwing things and really in a chamber and I remember specifically that storyline. I felt like it was a really strong acting exercise

And you just don't get to do You.

Get thrown in the pool, you get slapped, you know those things. But this was more of a state of being and she was great. Yeah, I think Marcia was really able to go someplace that she maybe hadn't.

Gone on the show. And so that remember that that was for.

Me just really working with another actor on another level than we usually had bed scenes or this or that.

This reminded me of, yes, that's really good day.

There were committed.

I saw that that's what it was and how to make it believable, right, and it just was really yeah, you commit, you commit, and we ran the lines a lot and were able to tweak things. I'm going to ask you guys this because you brought up who you've had on the show, right, So if whoever it was that was an executive producer that happened to write that show and then direct it. I always found that if

Try to act it out or whatever.

But if they're on set and you have an idea and you can show that, it was like, oh I love that, Yeah, let's do that. So I've found anytime that the executive whoever wrote it was also a producer and directing, it was so much easier to collaborate totally.

You guys, did you totally?

Like so many of the producer and writers, they were not on the set and it was a phone call, and so he said, like for him like that, it was easier for him to be on the set and to be witnessing what was going on, and so he felt a little bit more connected.

To Lake just getting a phone call from an act that didn't like this or something, because that's not really what it was. It was about this isn't working right, and I think this can work this it might be better.

Do you remember so much? Express if you can show them, do you remember any.

Specific because everything everything, the.

Crazy part we're talking.

About or no, this was this was really you know, Daphney, more just about just just normal structural scene work. I think that something could be funnier, right Laura, you know Courtney, or something could be a little bit sexier if we did this or said it this way, or maybe didn't use words right, really cut some of the dialogue and just let the moment play. It could be much more sexier sometimes and maybe a bit stronger. But that you couldn't always translate over a phone call.

Well, no, the problem was before you were there. In the very beginning, we were so far away. We're in Santa Clarita, they were in Midwis. They were in mid Willshre. Yeah, so that's about an hour drive away. So we would change things in the beginning and the meaning by accident. So that's what happened. We ruined it was our fault. Sorry, so sorry, we the first one's ruined it for everybody else.

So that's what happened.

They just felt too far away and it's too bad, Like it would have been great to have a producer on set. We had Chip, but a writing producer on set.

Right, Yeah, yes, you're right, but they just couldn't.

I mean, I remember writing quest that I had. I would ask Chip and then they he would make a call and they'd come back and they'd say, yeah, that's cool. But you know, to the writer's credit, writing has rhythm to it and it has you know, meaning, and it's nothing worse than like an actor coming and going I'm going to make this better and they're not making it better, I'm making it easier.

I'm not saying that what you did, mister Jack, but I think.

You make a good point.

Yeah, their job is yeah, and we don't really can't. That's why the call is about collaboration. Yes, like help me understand and then that would be it. Sometimes I would better understand where they're coming. So I've always been a big fan of that type of open collaboration with an executive producer or a writing team or a head writer.

Do you feel like it got more collabor or more open to that conversation over time, Like the longer the show went on, the more did they start to trust. Like, the three of us were not there in season six and seven, so we don't have a sense of like how that felt.

But.

In your you were there from three to seven, and so did you find that over time, it became a little bit more like trusting. Like you mentioned that on When Calls the Heart, there's just a level of trust and you can have that collaboration.

Did that ever happen?

Yeah, No, it happened because I think they started to understand, you know that I wasn't coming from a place of ego. You know, I'm coming from a place of how to raise the bar. And when they directed, like who were our executives that directed? It was Chip and Chuck Pratt and who else?

Frank never directed Frank South.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I think once that experience happened, they knew that this was coming from a place of like collaboration, right, So it was much easier as it went on because you know, they wanted the show to go longer, and I think they trusted me. It wasn't I wasn't coming from a place of trying to be controlling. My ego is coming from you know, this is a little clumsy, it's not working.

How did it feel in six and seven? Did it feel different? Feels like a different show to us because we weren't there. You feel different when you were there because there were only a few people who stayed.

Yeah, I mean, it always felt okay with me as long as Heather was there because I think she was the DNA of the show in terms of right and nothing to take away from you guys at all, but you know, I think that for this is for me. If she was there, I always had a comrade in arms, someone who was funny on set, you know, and someone I had a history with. My character had a history

And Jamie Luner.

Jamie, that's right, Jamie came on, and so that's all fine. I think you have to bring you know, new characters on, etc. But I think it lost. I think it lost some of its audience when you guys weren't there. I really do, because you're trying to bring on new people that audiences will root for.

And not only us, but they're behind the scenes.

People left. Darren had gone, you know, some other people left. They must have brought in other writers. I'm just wondering if there was a change in tone and in writing as well. It felt like, you know, maybe it was a little more and more over the top, more crazy, more Yeah.

I think it got a little crazier, yeah, and a little more far fetched a bit if you want to call it that.

You know, but that was part of the show's beauty as well. Yes, you know, that's what made the show work for sure.

I think when you start to bring on new characters and you're a bit far fetched, it's more difficult for an audience to engage and to connect to the believability of it.

And I think it also.

Happened also to connect to the characters. Like if you have the characters you're with from the beginning, and then like you can come in Heather, people can come in and then there's room. But when everybody's new, it's hard to figure out where your point is. Obviously they can still connect to you when Heather and Thomas, but I think it's hard to meet that many new characters.

I think you're right. I think that's what happened.

Did you know anyone on our stet, Melrose before you came on this show?

Do you remember you didn't know Heather already?

No? No, no, I didn't know anybody anything, but I do know ye to see you. I knew Chuck Pratt.

Chuck Pratt is the one who had me called in two auditions from general very good.

Yeah, he was fun to talk to you because he comes from the soapback soapbackground. He was talking about when the show took a turn, and that was also the exact word thing, because he said, you don't know where we've put a word that will come up six episodes

Kids trying to make Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I think to Chuck's credit, you know, and also what we've talked about about, you know, making a scene better, We don't really know what a writer or writing staff's intention is by putting something in there that's going to pay off, you know, later on in the season. So that's you know, they have to protect, you know, their storyboards, and it's not.

Only words, it's characteristics sometimes, so like they'll have in this script, you know, Joe is you know, meekly blah blah blah, and I'm like.

I don't want to play Meg, you know what I mean.

But there's a reason because some other devil and then she rises up against him finally, and it's more satisfying, who knows. But that also was frustrating where they are, you know, it's not just the words that they are thinking ahead with. But he said he did this really well. Did you work with him on you did on General Hospital?

I think so?

He said to us, he put us through the soap opera mill. Do you remember that? Oh, we put you guys through the mill, you know, like just cranked it. We cranked you guys through.

Yeah, well, I think yeah, he was referring to storey lions and jumping through. But then also that we had thirty two episodes a season is almost like a soap schedule, I mean, but in a different like long.

Haul, right, I mean, you're doing okay?

You have?

You did for perspective, you did one hundred and thirty nine episodes of Melrose Place in five years, in five over five seasons of General Hospital.

You did six.

Hundred and fifty four episodes just for perspective, you know.

Somebody else said said a couple of years back that I've done over fifteen hundred to two thousand hours of television.

Yeah, I don't know if that's true.

Well, because then on The Gold and the Beautiful you did thirteen hundred and thirty four.

Business, it's true. That's nice.

So you're shooting multiple episodes in a day to get to that number, and we think, wow, we had this long running series.

You had like five of them, Jack, that's amazing.

Three long running shows.

When Calls the Heart for thirteen seasons going on thirteen and Melrose, it's just like a drop in the bucket.

For you and.

A pro am golf career, Like, what's going on? Where do you get it from?

So I'm trying if you'll just it's just like, I don't know. I guess I was working with a guy, Daniel Listening was the original mounting on one Calls the Heart, okay, and he's Australian, so he always kind of struggled with the accent, and especially if I brought some props in, you know, he couldn't incorporate props. And he said, you know, my, this guy's done over twenty five hundred.

Episodes of television.

I can't and I'm like and I was like, just laughed it off and I'm going and so these statistics are a little mind blowing to.

Me, I guess.

And it's it's an adjustment from a daytime show, which most people, I don't know if they know, is three to four to five cameras and a nighttime show which is one camera. So that was the big adjustment for melrose Place to me getting used to that different shooting schedule, you know, turning it, turning a scene around and turning around and shooting film nighttime TV.

So it was a great educator.

Yeah, so we edit as we go, so it was like live scene work.

So it was a great educator for me.

You know, it was a growing, growing ground for me to you know, do nighttime television.

And but the whole your whole acting career came after a music career.

Like that, right am?

I correct, Like that was sort of your first you were pursuing music.

No, it's the opposite, was an actor.

Tell us all about that?

Well, I, you know, I'm from Missouri and I started playing the guitar with some buddies and you know, partying a bit and learning Neil Young and Seals and Crofts and Elton John and all those things. And uh, I started doing theater in high school. So I wound up. You know, I was an athlete as well. So it turns out, long story short, I go down to University of Arizona to try out for the golf team and I had never played structural golf team and there were

And so on the golf course.

He's on the golf So you know, the summer of graduation, one of the one of the actors was a tour guy at Universal Studios and said, you know, here's how you get. So I went and applied at spring break and I graduated and went immediately to La lived in my car and was a tour guy. Just went to became a tour guide at Universal.

Okay, it wasn't Jim Ward by the by chance was it?

Okay?

I lived with a we had a roommate of we had a house full of five roommates.

I start when I was at U C l A and.

Jim Ward, who was the voice of what was that show with the night the car that spoke with night writer and he did the tour to make you know the rent.

So I was just wondering. But a lot of people, I think very few of tour.

Got a great job because you're performing on the tram. I would do voices and characters and so that's that was my first real job in town. And I got a roommate, so I wound up having a normal life. Anyway, the first audition I went on, I got this agent through somebody, and I got the part. It was called A New Day and Eden on on TV, the first cable network, and it shot on Gower Lot and it had actually partial nudity and it was a soap opera okay, not for men, but it was just risk a and

Here, right.

So they call ABC calls and said do you buy chance play the guitars sing? And I said, well yeah, so I bring my guitar in. I do this Kenny Loggins tune this.

Wait a little while to welcome what your have to.

So I'm just knocking this tune out I put my guitar down, I do the scene work, I get the part.

Okay.

Now, I'm working at a clothing store in Sunset, and I got the call while I'm working there. And it turns out I wound up having them buy the wardrobe from this store, and they wound up branching out and having quite a few stories. But that's where I was when I got the call. So I have to go in the recording studio and record some songs, which I've never done. I've done musical theater, et cetera. And I have to sing on John Stamos's band, Blackie in the Riff Raff.

Okay, so I haven't even started work yet.

So the woman who was just in charge of ABC Daytime Music was from Mercury Records, and she was at the recording session.

She introduced herself.

So I knocked these songs out, sing them, and she goes, would you have yema men?

And I said yeah. She goes, would you be interested in a record deal?

Oh my, oh my god, this.

Is eight nineteen weeks all this stuff happened.

Oh oh yeah, within a week.

The park you were no longer living in your car.

And she says, would you be interested in a record deal, And I'm like.

Yeah, sure, why not?

And so two nights later I had dinner with Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock, and I signed with Quincy and Quest Records his label, and he assigned Glenn Ballard and Cliff Magnus to the Jack Wagner project.

You know.

And there I am meeting James Ingram and Patty Austin and you know, Quincy's people on Quincy's label, and my first record was All I Need that they wrote now they wrote it for you, they wrote it for me, No, Glenn Ballard and Cliff Magnus and David Pack and so all of a sudden it was on the show, you know, it was on they released it to and I started to do it on the show, and they released it to radio stations, and they called and they said the head of the label, not Quincy Colton.

Said the record's dead. And I'm like, are you talking like I am so?

And by the way, I'm very ambitious anyway, in terms of where I was in my life at the time. You know, I'm doing theater, I'm doing all kinds of little small stages. I'm studying at cell Adler I got this part on General Hospital and I'm like dead, and all of a sudden, radio station in Oxnard, Why one hundred played it, and then it's Cis Tutation in Miami Plate and it starts to snowball around the country and teenage girls started requesting all I.

Need because I was seeing it on.

And in three or four weeks, it was a number one record behind yeah, behind Like a Virgin. It was the number number two on the pop charts for three weeks, behind Like a Virgin Madonna's song, and it was number one on the AC charts.

And that's how it happened.

Wow, amazing. So they want to kill it before it even.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what the radio business was like, the record business if it didn't hit right away. And then it was the fans of General Hospital that really were calling.

And it must have brought more young viewers to General Hospital, Oh huge.

Yeah, because Rick Spinfield just had Jesse's girl, he had left the show. Luke and Laura had just happened, so and Johnny Staymos was leaving the show. So I was kind of taking over, you know, for these these storylines and these iconic you know, characters and actors that were leaving. So you know, that's where I moved into General Hospital.

And you did it for five years the first time, right or something, and then I.

Did it for about four years, three or four years till eighty seven. I did a national tour of West Side Story. Oh the eighty eight I did a national tour of Greece playing Danny Zuko. So I went back to my theater roots. Yeah, back to gh for eighty nine to ninety and then kind of uh, yeah.

It was a different time for soaps that people now probably don't know. But General Hospital was so hot, and it was like it jumped from soap opera magazines to regular magazines. Everybody was watching, and you had these music stars watching. As a teenage go at the time, I listened to that maybe a thousand times.

Hear you're talking about I'm like, oh my god, I'm seventeen again.

I was listening right on the way. I gotta hear his song.

Do you remember?

That's awesome?

Are you doing any music now? Are you? Are you do you song? Do you write songs?

Do you play?

You just played?

No? Not right now.

I was so plugged into music when I was doing the franchise of movies with Josie Bassett Channel.

Were you doing music for the show for the series.

For the movies, Yeah, I was.

Basically I rewrote my story as uh, I just told you as a you know, a guy who did music in college and this was his college sweetheart and I wrote songs together, et cetera. In any way that relationship ended, but he had a musical career and hit records and here he is owning a wedding lodge and so she comes up to do her wedding there they see each other and had to drop the platter moment, and so that's what created franchise. So I wrote and played a lot of music.

Did you bring the story to them?

Yes, I mean it was kind of the executive producer of When Calls the Heart said listen, if you sell this, I'll make you executive producer, you know, and blah blah blah, And so I kind of rewrote it and readjusted it and sold it. Like we're talking to the heads of Hallmark who were in Vancouver for a dinner, and I walked in and said, that story exactly to this, the music, they love each other. This he goes off on tour.

They split.

Twenty five years later, they see each other drop the platter moment and they went, you're in development, so.

You're clearly great at story and dialogue.

Do you write?

Not really, No, it's more about just I would say my forte is actually having seen work and then being able to feel and know if something needs to be adjusted or funnier, and and what we talked about earlier about changing things, et cetera. I really learned to incorporate writer, you know, like, can you help me? That's my first word, that's the first thing out of my mouth. Can you

It my way right.

That's good, Okay, lessons out there for people.

It works better than what the hell are you trying to say?

Yeah, this is all.

Yeah, maybe take some notes by the way, to take note we ever wants to take notes of Jack.

And on another note, in selling that movie idea. I don't know about you, guys, but I just have found that this business is really about relationships. I mean, sometimes you you can do audition cold auditions and get parts. But once you maybe establish yourself or have a career, it's really about how you pitch an idea and yourself and how.

You humanize it.

That's what I found, because when you humanize something and kind of tell the story truthfully, I think it resonates.

It doesn't also, Matt for the young actors out there, it also matters how you act on the set, like people know you, they go Jack is great, He's collaborative, he's funny, he brings joy to the sets.

Here early in wardrobe and knows his line cards.

You know what you're doing. You were so much fun to have on set.

Why you know we're talking like we're lying. You don't know the real you we're talking about.

And I said this to you and our lovely the Melrose minute. But you used to because Heather was such a huge star, and you used.

To say Helen is Helen here?

You always pretend you didn't know her name, which killed me every single time. And then do you remember when they brought you like you asked for a touch up or a mirror before a scene and Loana Jeffers brought out a full length mirror.

It was decorated. You remember that, like they were teasing.

You've actually but you'reone generally teases, but you can take teasing, which is so important, right, Like you just love to laugh, Like let's keep the banter going both ways.

Yeah, so much fun to.

Have in a fourteen hour day. Somebody who's determined to have fun.

Well, thanks, I mean I I always tried to have a pocket mirror.

Yeah.

Yeah, you have to be a bit self deprecating, right, you know. I think I heard Grant Shows say once in an interview. He says, Yep, when you're working with Jack, you just got to remember it's about the hair.

Don't mess with is it.

You know, your hair and opening scene.

In your opening scene, it was slipped back.

It was like hair enough for three men, which is very unfair, and it slipped back in this really dashing way.

Was it dashing?

Well, it's so Jack, like no one could read, you know. Then they cut to Thomas and you're.

Like, oh boy, hair an effort.

Look at me.

I'm still keeping the floppy top going double process.

I'm keeping it.

It was amazing in the suit and you just had these lines like I'm the boss here, you know, I moved in, I'm chief of staff.

I'll be making changes. And I loved it. You know why, because we've been watching since episode.

One see for the podcast, you had to start getting.

What's like you guys, it's weird.

Well, it's very weird in many reasons. We're cringey on our own, like what was I thinking? But but for me, Thomas makes me so, I'm sorry, Michael Mancini.

We find that we blend doing this.

Courtney especially really is irritated with the whole Amanda Billy thing at this point thirty years.

You know, like Heather keeps kissing Andrew like it's Amanda kissing.

Interest was great, so we were.

Also Andrew and I were dating in real life. So I'm having this thing.

I'm defending Allison, also defending like, get your hands off my man, also off Alison's man.

It's a lot.

You didn't start a lot.

You didn't start dating Heather till years after you went even though you were like this on characters, really.

Really close, really funny friends. Yeah, but what took you so long? Dude? You're married?

That's sorry.

We say that supp for Melrose know that you were dating him.

Oh that's so funny. And then you wound up with Doug.

Well, I married Doug, but I had dated Grant, like Grant going on, Yeah, yeah, stated Grant.

Did you date Grant?

I did not know.

I think just I did. Yeah, we did for a while and then you know, Doug and I've been married.

For twenty seven amazing, I know. And you met their son Jack outside. Isn't that the sweet? I think they named him after you.

I don't know if that's uncomfortable for you, now do for me, thank you.

They'll call you uncle Joe.

Doug high and was like, Doug.

I will, I will.

And he reminded me of something.

I think you you sang at a rap party or a Christmas party?

Did you sing jailhouse rock? And you performed at one of our parties? Do you guys remember that?

Do you remember that?

Do you remember it was season three or you don't remember it?

No?

Maybe it was by hotel or something like that. I think it was hard, just kind of whip out a little elviss.

Every now and then.

Yeah, that's amazing.

That's so fun though, Like maybe it was just a spontaneous moment, like there was a stage, there was a mic, and you can handle it and you.

Just did it.

Yeah, you're a rock star, okay with that, Yeah, that sounds it.

You have more experience at the time than we did.

But one of the things to talk about a lot is that we wish you could have appreciated it more in the moment, like we were. It was so overwhelming. There was press on weekends, you remember, there was so much. It was so intense that I wish I could have realized, oh, like, this is incredible. I just thought, well, I guess this is my life now. I didn't really get it then. I wish i'd appreciate it more, did you? Because you've been working so long, could you really appreciate how special it was?

I think that's really normal, Courtney, to think now you didn't appreciate it then, And I don't know if I agree with that. I just think, you know, you're young. We're all we were younger, right, We were entrenched in the show, in our lives and in the populace already. It was high demand, especially for you guys. I mean, you guys were doing Rolling Stone, you were doing you know, you guys were really really in demand, and everybody was

And I think we were all on top of it.

And to say we didn't appreciate it, or I didn't appreciate it, or maybe you didn't appreciate it.

I don't know if that's true.

I just think at our ages, this is just who we were, right, And maybe we were just weren't just as evolved as we are now in terms of self awareness and maturity and appreciation and compassion. I think that comes with age. Ye.

One thing that I had was when I finally was living my dream because I always wanted to act, the only thing I've ever wanted to do. And I remember, like, you know, you have the nice car and you're driving to work and you're you know, and I remember.

These thoughts are going.

It's very different longing for the dream and being in the dream. You're working twelve hours and like you said, things are coming at you and you still have insecurity and you're still there's still stuff going on.

It's very different being in it.

It is, you know, so it's it's I think it's in hindsight that you really get to go, oh, I appreciate both, you know, But in the moment, it was you're still like going.

When's it get you know, And I.

Was like, oh, the red carpets, even the red carpets, everyone going, well, you're on red carpet.

But it was like so stressful, stressful.

I think it's going to be versus what it yeah, feels.

Like yeah, yeah, that's a good point too about the hours. Because you're there so much, you kind of can't get perspective. Like I remember I had to have an assistant because if a pipe burst in my house, I wasn't there. You're gone from five thirty am to eight pm. You can't do your real life.

So maybe that's right.

You don't have the perspective because you don't have another life. And then on weekends we had photo shoots, and then of course in the beginning I was dating Andrews.

It was really all.

All the time.

So that's a good point because it's so overwhelming. That experience was so overwhelming that maybe you can't see it from the outside.

I think it's perspectively. I think you make a great point.

We're the way that we can look back at your career. It just seems like you've done and then you've filled it in with even more highlights and working and your creativity.

But when you were.

Actually doing it, were there times that you were, you know, afraid the phone wouldn't ring, or were there big breaks that were stressful for you?

Or has it always been anytime there's a two ninety two, I was out of work, two thousand and two, I was out of work. Twenty twelve, I was out of work.

That's how I look at it, right.

The three whole years you've been out of the.

Devastating I can't imagine, and reflecting back on that, but like if I'm reflecting back myself, when I've looked back, it's like, Wow.

What's with these twos?

Because I've bet gratefully, you know, kind of been working primarily on these shows you've you mentioned earlier, right, and I've but you know, I've never and it's okay, I've never like I have never auditioned for a pilot. I've never had a pilot, And I know all you guys have had pilots and pilots, and it's like, I gratefully have always been they've been ensemble casts, but I've always been, you know, working, and I've never done a pilot, right.

How many pilots have you guys gone? Like a bunch? Right?

And so yeah, but so I I but years two is anything with the two in it?

Okay? Interesting?

Usually been not twenty twenty two, I was on.

So then are you cast into existing shows? For the most part, they're already going and then they bring you in? Yeah, of course missing Jack Wagner and then.

I guess so they just sort of moved me in there and that that's been the pattern.

And I know that golf through all this has been still a love of yours. I remember talking to you about Pebble Beach and where to goes. I was going up to a golf course with a boyfriend and I was like, where do we go?

And your I think your name's on that wall at Pebble Beach. Probably it is.

So I'm just wondering very hard to get that.

What is it like it's like your mistress to this career.

I you know, I quit playing golf. And the producer of General Hospital remember the movie Tutsie, So that's based on Gloria Monty, who was you know, changed General Hospital from going off the air in seventy nine to getting Luke and Laura and turned that around to the number one show.

And she cast me.

And before that screen test I told you about earlier, she brought me into a room and improv with me for about fifteen minutes.

So she's old.

School group theater, right, That's where she comes from. So gratefully I was ready for that, you know, because I had studied improv et cetera. And I get cast and.

She's like, oh, I hear you play golf.

And I'm like that's how she kind of talked very you know, she's very theatrical.

And I said, yeah, Glory, I do I you know.

This is I'm going to have Bobby to take you out to bell I think you should play Bellout country Club. And so I go with her husband and he brings a couple of guys along and run's this gambling kind of like kind of character and I hit it off with him great, and I wind up joining Bellair country Club. Okay, And so that's when my golf started. And James Garner was you know, I've got to know Jimmy really well and a lot of you know, I mean, I played golf,

You have your own charity golf.

I did it.

Was the ambassador of the Lukema Inphoma Society for years and event for lukemia lymphoma.

Did Grant participate in that?

I think Grant might have a couple of times.

You know, guys like Peshi and Jerry West and Tim Allen and guys I know through golf showed up, and you know, I had my own tournament for that was my platform. You know, there's a community in Los Angeles, a golf community that's sort of just unspoken, like I plan Anthony Anderson's and George Lopez's and you know, SAG tournament. You know, you know, it's just kind of like our

Or whatever kind of Are you still doing that?

Oh yeah, I plan all those events.

Did you have to do anything with your back or I know that people have probably.

My body is killing me.

Yeah, the body parts a little bit, you know in the course.

Yeah, I still walk, but I condition like every day.

You know, I'm in the gym and I've started cold plunging and I do a ton of cardios. So I really pay attention to my body and they're still right. As a leading man ladies on, so I got to keep it up.

Listen on that leading man judge on, Yeah, a leading man judge, aren't you a judge?

On that Judge now and it's coming back. It just got picked up.

We heard all the hardies out there, so please listen to Still the Place, Still the Place, because I'll encourage the hearties to tune in.

Please do I still want to be a party? I told you that I think you are.

I think which is?

I think you are?

I want thee I think you were doting teenager showing on the they were showing people getting the gift bags ready, and I was like, I want to be in that. I want to be in the pre production that. Yes, they want to organize it.

You know what I did this.

Year the gift bags.

They brought Melissa Gilbert on.

Gilbert brought off my characters to have a backstory with the Mounties how we trained. So she did a couple episodes and she's coming back next year.

I so it was really really great.

Her Instagram isn't she like living in upstate New York and you know, and she's now.

A Hearty and she's doing some theater. But she was terrific and we hit it off and uh, yeah, she's going to come back to the show.

So did you ever think of going to New York as an actor? Because you were so immersed in your studies doing it in New York.

I appreciate you asking that. Yeah I did.

I was committed to that, and the head of the drama department who gave me the scholarship said, go to l a.

Smart long in LA.

Sure that's a TV fan. But you know what I did right after Melrose is so I went right to Broadway and played Jacqueline Hide.

So I was on Broadway my dream, you know.

So you know, I had a few shows to choose from because of the Melrose heat, and so I chose Jacqueline Hyde. But no, I really faced that, Daphne, thanks for asking that.

I went to LA.

Well, you know what, jack because your your longevity is really astounding.

I mean I knew that before, but I'm like, oh, Jackie's always been around, and we did a couple of TV movies after Melrose, and but when I was really looking into it, you know, it takes to have that kind of longevity, Like it doesn't surprise me. Your theater background and all the studies that you continue insteadle out Adler and you did that at Arizona and you went to New York and.

You're doing stuff in between the national tour.

You know, I don't think people know that, Like they kind of get used to labeling us, like you're either a theater actor or a TV actor or a movie star, and it's like sometimes you're just this actor that that study, and you don't know how it's going to go right, you don't know where the path is.

Going to teach correct correct.

Yeah, But as I said before, going to the Nighttime with Melrose, it was a whole new training ground for me for film because I just sort of knew the stage and those four cameras on a soap stage, right, So that was huge.

But I want to tell you a quick story.

I love all of the Like we've talked about music and records and you know, being a teen idol in the eighties, et cetera. Dudes, dudes recognized me from golf and one thing I did, okay, that was a guest star. I went an audition for Ray Donovan about seven eight years ago, okay, And so you know, an audition sometimes they recognize you or they don't know who you are at all, right, And I faced that my whole career,

Want this whole arc? Maybe? So they knew me.

I was excited, right, and I'm like, going, no, I just kind of I love this show whatever. So I came on as a pat say Jack okay, and like the Vana White was played by Cheryl Cheryl.

Okay, she was my Vana White.

And so it turns out that I have this thing and the producer on the show was Tom Cruise ex wife White with the what's her name Katie Holmes, So it's Katie Holmes me and leave shreiver in these scenes. So I tucked my my my clayex in. I'm at the makeup thing, right, and she comes up and leaves there, and she producer says, and he says something, I said, who's this guy?

Right? I said who? She can't and and and Vana.

White wants to come on, Cheryl wants to come on and take my spot, and we have this whole thing and he's supposed to punch me. And we're with the director who's who's working on House of Cards at the time.

So I'm in and he goes, I can't punch him.

If I punch Pat, say Jack, he's going to mean to bruise him and all that, and you can't punch a pat, say Jack, And I go, yeah, what are we gonna do? So we do this double bitch slap. Okay, So I'm like, what do you mean you get go sweat?

And I'm like, who are you thinking? And I'm like.

And so all kinds of men at bell are all these guys watch that. They all know me from that episode and nothing from the Hallmark Channel, nothing from anything else.

So that's how dudes know me?

Or was that?

No, it wasn't written.

No, kind of We kind of took a hit a punch and just kind of came up with it and it was really I love it.

Her has something for everyone.

One thing that men kind of came up.

Dude, I sell you and Ray Donovan man got bitch slapped.

Thanks Jackie's been such a joy to have you.

Thank you.

For coming out, Thanks for interrupting your golf games.

Yeah, this has been really nice to see you guys and catch up like this.

It's direct.

Thank you fun.

Thanks for having memory.

Pretty good, very good, you thought, he warned us. In the beginning. He said, I'm not going to remember anything.

Well, then look at those stories.

I'm sure there's something you didn't get a chance to tell. So we would love to have you back another time.

Sometimes, yes, that'd be awesome. Thank you. You guys were terrific and so good to see you so good.

Thanks for having me so much.