Jack Wagner has done it all in his 40-year career in Hollywood — from Melrose Place and Dancing With the Stars to his five studio albums and a starring role on Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart — but the actor said there’s nothing quite like the grind of a soap opera.
“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 exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this year. “Soap opera actors really have an edge. They work their ass off.”
Wagner, 65, got his start as Frisco Jones on General Hospital from 1984 to 1991, a role he would later reprise on the show in 1994 and 2013.
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On Thursday, April 10, Deadline reported that Wagner would be returning to reprise his role as Nick Marone on The Bold and The Beautiful, a show on which he appeared from 2003 to 2012.
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“You’re trying to give the best performance you can, but you’ve got 60 pages that day,” Wagner explained to Us. “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.”
Given his extensive experience, Wagner pushed back against the label of “a soap actor.”
“I don’t really care for that,” he said. “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.”
As for Wagner’s return to The Bold and the Beautiful, it comes as his character’s former girlfriend Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang) is on the rocks with her long term on-again, off-again partner Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye).
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Wagner began filming his role on Thursday, April 10 and his episodes are set to begin airing in mid-June.
While soap opera fans won’t have to wait much longer to see Wagner back on their screens, the actor told Us that they haven’t been shy about showing their affection in his absence.
“General Hospital was such a massive show in the ’80s for a generation of women,” Wagner said. “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.”
Us Weekly
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