It’s been over 40 years since Jack Wagner made his debut on General Hospital, but soap opera fans still make the actor feel like a fresh-faced young star.
Wagner, 65, played Frisco Jones on General Hospital from 1984 to 1995, though for many members of the show’s dedicated fan base, it might as well have been yesterday.
“General Hospital was such a massive show in the ’80s for a generation of women,” Wagner exclusively told Us Weekly. “That generation is now in their 60s. They see me and they’re like, ‘Wait, wait, you don’t understand!’”
Wagner continued, “I do understand! They’re so overwhelmed because that was such a huge show.”
The actor was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1985 for Outstanding Young Actor in a Drama Series for his work on General Hospital. He reprised his role as Frisco Jones from 1994 to 1995 and again for a brief stint in 2013.
After a memorable run as Peter Burns on primetime soap opera Melrose Place from 1994 to 1999, Wagner returned to daytime screens as Nick Marone on The Bold and the Beautiful from 2003 to 2012, for which he was nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards.
With a decades-long career in music, movies and television — including an appearance on season 14 of Dancing With the Stars in 2012 and his current role as Bill Avery in Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart franchise — Wagner pushed back against the idea that soap opera acting is anything to turn up your nose about.
“To even use the label of a ‘soap actor,’ I don’t really care for that,” Wagner explained. “I never have. Because I’m a real thespian. I’ve been trained in the theater. That’s how I look at it. Actors are actors, it just depends on what medium you’re working in.”
In fact, Wagner theorized some performers have no clue how arduous the life of a soap opera star can be.
“I gotta tell you honestly, people that are from A-list films have no idea what it’s like to have 60 pages of dialogue on one day of a soap opera and work 14 hours and get it all right,” Wagner said. “Soap opera actors really have an edge. They work their ass off.”
He added, “You’re trying to give the best performance you can, but you’ve got 60 pages that day. Whereas if you’re doing a Movie of the Week — and I’ve done 30 or 40 of those — we shoot it in 15 or 16 days, but you don’t have more than eight pages a day. That’s where I hope the credibility is given. It really takes great memorization, a real commitment to rehearsal and a real commitment to being able to give the best performance you can in a very short period of time.”
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