November 1995
Matthew Ashford… by Mary Beth Evans
I remember Matthew’s first day on DOOL. It was my last day before I took maternity leave to have my son, Danny. Matt and I shot 150 pages of dialogue so they could edit me in while I was absent. We worked for 16 hours straight. Call it trial by fire, but Matt and I sure bonded that Saturday. And now, whenever he sees Danny he can say: “I knew you from the day you were born!” And I remember my first day on GH. I’d been with the “in crowd” on DOOL for years, and suddenly, I was an outsider. The actors were very helpful and I eventually became comfortable with Katherine.
Besides, more and more DOOL friends keep showing up here, including Wally Kurth, Felecia Bell, and now, Matthew. When I heard Matt might be coming to GH, I called to encourage him to do it. I told the producers how much Matt brings to his characters. Matt was the third actor to play Jack on DOOL, but he soon made Jack his own.
I can recall the evil glint in Jack’s eyes during the rape storyline. He’d been so ‘normal’ till then! On GH, he’s already adding his own nuances to Dr. Tom Hardy, another resuscitated character. He takes his craft very seriously, constantly pestering the producers: “Wouldn’t Tom do this?” And “What’s the history of this character?” Instead of driving them crazy, the producers love him! Matt has a way of making his characters fascinating. He and I haven’t had any scenes together on GH yet, but we hope to. We were both excited when we read the script about my sending him an anonymous letter. As it turned out, my lines were only a voice over as he read the letter.
We see each other between scenes and chat about our families. When GH went to New York for the Emmys, he and I traveled together. Neither of us took our spouses, joking about the tabloids having a field day with our “new relationship”. But I’m happy to revive our old relationship.
Mary Beth Evans… by Matthew Ashford
Mary Beth and I have always been friends. After what Kayla and Jack went through together, we kept our characters true right to the end. No matter how our characters changed, you could always tell something had happened between them. And we both respected our characters’ history. Most of my fan mail asks when I’ll be in a storyline with Mary Beth. I’ve really enjoyed watching her play Katherine and I’m looking forward to working with her.
On DOOL, Mary Beth played Kayla as the strong rock whom “Patch” (Stephen Nichols) worked around. On GH, she can take Katherine in many directions. One of the great things about GH is the writers’ subtlety. The characters often intermingle- even if they do not have storylines together- because there are always several things going on at once. Tom is a psychiatrist who’d find Katherine interesting because she likes intrigue. In fact, she has already involved him in some, so who knows what could happen!
It’d be fun if in a dream sequence, Katherine awoke as Kayla and the rest of us were our DOOL characters. But being together can be confusing. I just shot a scene with Wally Kurth. He says: “So Jack…” And then we did a scene where I enter the Foundation offices to find a crowd, including Wally and Mary Beth. I walked in, looked at them both there and said: “Justin! Kayla! I found you! I found you… at last!”
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