Vanessa Marcil

Truth or dare

ABC Soaps In Depth

Vanessa Marcil reveals the real reason she's leaving her role of Brenda Barrett to venture once again into the unknown.


When Vanessa Marcil resurrected GENERAL HOSPITAL's beloved Brenda Barrett in August, she was given some of the meatiest material of her career, and as she she sunk her teeth into it, the show scored some of it's highest ratings in recent memory. Yet, when the time came for her to extend her contract this month, she decided against doing so. Why on earth would she walk away from a role that she loves and, heaven knows, viewers love her in? Simple: Kassius, her 10-month old son with her fomer BEVERLY HILLS, 90210 leading man Brian Austin Green.
Heres, as she prepares to say good-bye once again to her Port Charles home away from home, she sits down with Soap In Depth--the magazine in which she confided her reasons for returning in the first place--to set the record straight about why she is leaving....

SID: THere has been so much gossip about your exit. What's the truth of the matter?
VM: There have ben some lies and rumors about my life and especially about why I'm not re-signing. It hurts, but I have to learn how to laugh about it. I try not to listen to gossip, and I try not to gossip about others, We have a gossip-free zone at our house. I want my son to learn that we should all unite instead of trying to tear each other down. But I will tell your this: The only reason I am not re-signing is because I need more time off.

SID: Can you get more into specifics?
VM: The scheduling conflict would have been tough for the show. Because I have a baby now, my needs are a lot different then they were. They couldn't do it, and I understand. I have lot's of different issues now [as a mom]. Although [being back at GH] has been so amazingly satisfyingas an astist, it's been tough, too, because it's ben at the expense of tim with my son. So I'm going to explore opportunities that allow me more time off.

SID: With all the pages of dialogue you've had, your days must have been endless.
VM: I think there have only been a few shows that I haven't been in over the last six months. But [executive producer Jill Farren Phelps and [Co.] have really tried to help me out. Whether they schedule it so I have the mornings or the afternoons with my baby, or putting two shows in one day for me, or allowing Kassius to have his own dressing room so I could bring him here. They've really bent over backwards to try and make it better for me. I told them, "This is what I nec to stay longer, and I totally understand if you can't do it." I don't want any special treatment at all. I just don't want to have any regrets when my kid is grown up that I did things in a different way that I didn't want to. At the end  of my life, it's going to be more important to me  how good a mother I was and if I was able to emotionally provide for him in the way that he deserves.
[But] I'm lucky ABC has been great. They've allowed me to bring my son to work. Most big companies don't do that. In the first year of a child's life, it's really important for mothers to be close by. Other companies should offer  the kind of gnerosity I've recieved here. I think there should be daycare within the workplace. I think men have a different connection with their newborns. They miss and love them, too, but mothers tend to feel like a part of their body has been ripped off. There's a lot of hormonal chaos in the first year.

SID: So, did you sign the one extention, as Internet chatter said you did?
VM: No. You should never believe anything you read on the Internet or, unfortunately, anything you read, period... except for Soaps In Depth of course, you guys are unique.

SID: Thanks for that. What are your plans workwise now?
VM: It's not that I don't want to be working. But, as you know, in other arenas of acting, you have more time off. So I plan on seeing whatever I God puts in front of me. As far as anyting that's as big a commitment as being in a frontburner storyline on a [soap], I don't plan on doing anything like that right now.

SID: It sounds like your goals have changed since Kassius arrived?
VM: I think they have in a way. Althought when I left the show four years ago, I was already developing the frame of mind where I felt like, "This has been the greatest experience of my life, but  I don't knwo any of my family and friends anymore." I barely had a life. On the weekends, I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to make sure I was working to live, not living to work. Now, of course, becoming a mom has really made that all the more important to me. But it's for me, too. It's mimportant for moms to do things for themselves.

SID: It's not just how you handled to GH schedule, but how Kassius did too.
VM:Exactly. When you first came back to work, he was almost four motnhs old. He hadn't been sick at all yet. I knew a lot of people whose babies had been sick once or twice in the first few months. H han't been sick once, and I felt great. Then, all of the sudden, we got sick, and it's literally been one sickness after another. Once again, it's that,  "Somethings got to give" thing. So it's either, I don't see him all dayso he can go out in the sun and have a beautiful day, or he can be stuck in the studio all day so he can see me. I don't think it's  the healthiest atmostphere for him.

SID: How hard was it for your to make the decision not to re-up with GH?
VM: I am such a Libra. It's so hard for me to make decisions. Then, even after I make a decision, I go backand forth. It drives people crazy. That's why I always thought I'd make the best lawyer, because I always see noth sides of things. As soon as I made the call and said, "Okay, thank you so much, hopefully, we can do it again at some point," then hung up, I burst into tears and said, "Well, maybe that's not the right choice."

SID: It must be a comfort to know that you'll always be welcomed back.
VM: I hope so. I'm so grateful. The way I'm percieved and the way I feel inside are really different, though. I don't see things that way. I feel like you never knwo what might happen. LIfe happends. The show could change, and msybe I wouldn't be welcomed back. When I can back, I thought, "What if nobody wants to see me?"

SID: Tell me you got over that!
VM: I got such a warm welcome. But there's always that part of me.

SID: What have your enjoyed most about being back at GH?
VM: Oh, God. Storywise, I really enjoyed the very begining the most. Deciding to tell these people that you really love that you're not dead...it was a fun thing to play that you don't get to play very often. It's nothing anyone will even experience in their life, so I felt like it had to be huge. Both of my first days with Ingo [Rademacher, Jax] and Maurice [Bernard, Sonny] were my favorite, too. When Jax and Brenda first saw each other and talked for the first time, it was just amazing. The day in the church is still my favorite day. I'm the tough chick, and I go in and tell this priest, finally, how I really feel. It's very rare when Brenda can find sombody to whom she can just tell the truth without having to cover anything. That was a smart choice on the writers' part, to have Brenda be able to say how much she really loves Sonny. That in no way means that she loves Jax less. It's just that Sonny is someone she'll love for the rest of her life.

SID: Anything else?
VM: Other than that, I'd have to say the most pleasant surprise has been what ended up happening with me and Steve Burton (Jason). I like things that are unexpected. I know how much I love to work with Ingo and Maurice. But who knew about Steve? I got to work with him on a level that I never had before.

SID: Your characters went through quite an arch together.
VM: As did the actors. The thin that I get the most insecure about is my lip. I get a cold sore, it becomes huge. No big deal, except I get them as often as once a week. They're often from stress. Some days when I come into work, I'm devastated because I'll have two cold sores, and it looks like someone puched me. I get so self-concious about it. [But when that would happen, I realize that] Steve has theis sensitive side that people don't really know about. I was doing a scene withhim and he said, "Why do you keep putting the sheet over your face?", I said, "Because I look like a freak!" He has this ability to shift into this gentle, sweet, wonderful person that I honestly never knew he was before. Guys usually don't get stuff like that.

SID: Being so open about sores and whatnot just goes to show that you're not vain in the least.
VM: I am so not vain, probably to a fault. I don't want to be thinking about how I look. I'd rather be funny than beautiful. I'd rather touch somebody's heart than be beautiful. I get intimidated by really beautiful people. And I don't think when people are feeling too intimidated by you that you can really reach them. I told Tamara Bruan (Carly) the other day, "Real actresses aren't afraid to look bad, I still feel great becaue that's life. Some days you say, "Hey, I'm kinda cute today." Other days it's, "Oh my God! What truck hit me last night?"

SID: Were you at all dissapointed that the Jason/Brenda marraige didn't last longer so you could see the potential depth of their feelings?
VM: I'm dissapointed on many levels that I won't be staying longer right now. Jason and Brenda were the unexpected surprise. When you get an unexpected surprise, you kind of want to stick it out and see what happens with it. But the beauty about this show is that it's always there. It's going to be available to us, I hope, at some point to explore deeper.

SID: Any other regrets?
VM: I'm dissapointed that Maurice and I didn't get to do more together. But there needs to be so much more respect for these two characters built. It took us a long time to build that before. I'd need  to stay on the show longer before we could really get back into it. They didn't want us to get too much into it, then all of a sudden, I leave.

SID:  I know you're going to go to your humble space right now, but you've done such an incredible job in the past six months. Have you thought about an Emmy nomination at all?
VM: Quite honestly? I used to think a lot about it when I was here before. That's because I was young. Not that there's anything wrong with thingk about it, but my priorities have shifted. Now it's, "Do I feel good about the work that I've done at the end of the day?" As you mature, I don't think you need other people's validation as much. It's always nice, but you don't need it as much, hopefully. I used to really need it, so it was my dream to win an Emmy. Now, I honestly don't think about it. The truth is, I think my heart got a little  broken by Maurice not winning an Emmy. Maurice has not only taught me , but generously taught a lot of actors really how to act. I really believe that he broke barriers in daytime acting and that he and Tony Geary (Luke) are the best actors on daytime. The fact that Maurice doens't have an Emmy makes the rebellious little kid in me go, "Well, who wants one then?!" So I've decided to just do a good job and hnot get involved in who's winning awards.

SID: Do you want to say anything to the fans?
VM: This show,  my fans and this character are probably the second biggest love affair I've ever had. I don't htink anyone could ever comprehend how much [it's all] meant to me. It's so huge that  it's hard to put into words. That might sound silly to some people, because in the big picture, it's not that important. But for me, in my heart, as a little girls coming in here and evolving into a woman, it is. For these fans to allow me to do what I love to do and make a living at it, it's all because of them. It's a dream come true. If, god forbid, my life ended tomorrow, I could say, "I did it." Whatever happens after this is just icing on the cake. So, to my fans I humbly say thank you for giving me this gift and still being open to letting me back in.

SID: Can we at least hold out some hope that you might want to return?
VM: Always. That's what I alway said before, and I'll always say that. It would be my dream to be like Anna Le (Lila) someday. If I'm Great-Grandma Brenda to all the young whippersnappers someday, that'd be just fine...