DAN
GAUTHIER
SETTLING INTO DAYTIME
By Art Swift
December 31,
2004
Dan
Gauthier is bundled up in a heavy winter coat and wool hat on the bitterly cold
December afternoon. The longtime
television actor, who has played Lt. Governor Kevin Buchanan (number 10) for
the past year and a half, walks across the lobby of the ABC “One Life to Live”
studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
“Is
Trevor in?” Gauthier asks the female security guard at the desk.
“He’s
not in today,” the uniformed attendant replies, as she is watching a scene from
the veteran soap on a closed circuit TV above.
The scene on TV is actually being filmed a mere yards away on the closed
set. Robin Strasser, Michael Easton and
David Fumero mill about in the lobby and near the set door.
“Why
don’t we go downstairs then?” Gauthier beckons to a reporter.
Down
the stairs, through a narrow hallway, lies the nerve center for this daytime
production. Like any other business in
America there are cubicles and mailboxes.
A quick glance at the cubbyholes and the names “Matthew Metzger” and
“Erika Slezak” jump out to the eye.
Gauthier picks up his mail that day, a script for the January 25th
episode shooting January 3rd and a Christmas card from a fan in
Mississippi. Farther down the hallway
is the dressing room he shares with Trevor St. John (Todd), but Trevor is not
there today.
The
room is a calming sea green, with a long couch, a large mirror and two sinks on
the counter. Gauthier pauses to read
the Christmas card as a smile creeps on his face. For a 41-year-old, he is remarkably youthful, with a full head of
thick brown hair and skin that would put a dermatologist out of business.
But
Gauthier has a lot on his mind. His
character is now crossing over to “All My Children” in the ongoing switched
baby/kidnapped baby storyline. “One
Life to Live” viewers know that Kevin is not the father of the intriguingly
named Ace, the baby in the eye of the storm.
“All My Children” watchers, however, don’t know that.
“In
theory it’s a great idea,” Gauthier said.
“Unfortunately, ‘One Life to Live’ is kind of getting screwed because I
know the baby is not mine. The argument
is, he’s my baby because I have legal custody of him, period.”
Gauthier
is worried his audience is tired of the storyline and might not stay with it
for much longer.
“It
was a front burner storyline (for ‘OLTL’) in June for three weeks,” he
says. “As good as those scenes were,
they were kind of shooting their wad too early. I just hope that the audience, for whatever reason, wants to hang
on. For ‘AMC,’ it’s worked out
great. Their ratings have gone up,
they’ve made it incredibly important over there and because, they’re in the
right. They’ve really lost a child.”
Gauthier
predicted the climax of this plot would happen in February, at the height of
sweeps. He expects the outcome will be
the same if it happens tomorrow or six months from now.
“The
Chandlers will get the baby back and Kevin will grieve for a day and move on,”
Gauthier said, laughing. “Unless it’s a
soap outcome turn where I get the baby because of some weird, freaky thing they
come up with, I can’t imagine that they will.”
Moving
forward in 2005, Gauthier thinks the baby tug-of-war might bring Kevin and
Kelly (Heather Tom) back together. He
just hopes it’s “explosive and dramatic and raw.”
“Not
a down-the-road, ‘we start to be attracted to each other’ type of thing,”
Gauthier said. “I don’t want to be in a
bar six months from now and say, ‘you know, Kelly is attractive.’”
Gauthier
has lots of ideas for the character of Kevin, he said, though he has not had a
writer’s meeting to discuss them yet.
He could have a meeting if he wants to, he argues, but concedes that the
writers have solicited opinions from actors like Easton and St. John.
“I’m
not a lead character on this show,” Gauthier said. “I’m involved in everything because I’m a Buchanan, but I’m not
on the billboards or magazine covers or anything like that. They have Trevor and Kassie (DePalva),
Michael Easton and David Fumero has just come back. They’re the stars just like Ryan (Cameron Mathison) and Greenlee
(Rebecca Budig) and Kendall (Alicia Minshew) are promoted on ‘AMC.’”
He
may be still gaining recognition on “One Life to Live,” but he’s grateful to at
least have a job. After doing dozens of
guest appearances, recurring roles and starring roles since the mid-80s on
nighttime series like “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Melrose Place,” “Sisters,”
“Ellen” and “Tour of Duty,” he found that the well of roles had dried up. Gauthier said he was out of work for a couple
of years.
“It
became much more difficult to get a pilot,” he explained. “I got a pilot every year for 13 years. If anything, I’m in a better age group now.”
The
reason he stopped getting work was because of the influx of movie stars into
primetime TV.
“When
I started out in this business people wouldn’t be caught dead in television, it
would be the end of their careers. Now
you have Gary Sinise, he’s doing ‘CSI: NY.’ Peter Gallagher, doing ‘The OC.’ …
The turning point for me was about six years ago on ‘Once and Again,’ and I was
up for a six-episode arc, which is what I used to be the king of. But I was
told that Eric Stoltz wanted to do it.
Eric Stoltz! Why? Because he wanted to direct, so the show was
able to get a movie star. For me that was
the beginning of the end.”
Not
only did more movie stars pour into episodic TV but also the rates television
shows paid went down.
“I
had to sell my house, I can’t make payments.
Yeah I can do five or six guest spots a year, maybe, though they don’t pay
what they used to. (Producers would
say) ‘Come and do a guest spot we’ll give you 10 grand,’ now it’s like
$3200. You do five of those you only
make 20 grand, you can’t make your insurance to cover your family for SAG. You do five guest spots and you’re poor!”
Back
in the 90s, Gauthier said he could make “50, $60,000 a year, maybe 80” and
“maybe do some other guest spots and maybe do a movie, and you might make
$120,000, and after taxes and agent fees you have enough to live for the year.” But with a lack of roles and insufficient
pay, he said he had to look to daytime to salvage his career and finances.
When
he began inquiring about parts in daytime 2 ½ years ago he said that no one in
the soap world knew who he was. He
found out about the role of Kevin on ‘OLTL,’ tested several times for it, went
down to the wire and finally got the part.
Gauthier moved with his wife and son (now 13) to New York.
“It’s
good to have a job,” he said. “Now whether this makes it more difficult for me
to get a job in the future, I have no idea … I don’t know if I’ll be in daytime
for the rest of my life or even if daytime will even accept me for the rest of
my life. They could fire me next week;
they could not want to re-sign me at the end of my four years.”
Living
in New York is a great adventure, Gauthier proclaims, but playing Kevin is the
hardest job he’s ever had.
“The
writing’s difficult to make come out of your mouth. Our show is fantastic because they allow you to make changes,
apparently some don’t. But the dialogue
is nonsensical. These people have to
write a lot of material in a very short amount of time.”
While
he says he doesn’t blame the dialogue writers for their work, he still jokes
about the lines he has to say in a typical episode. To prove his point, he reaches for the fresh script that’s
sitting in front of him, the January 25, 2005 episode, taping January 3rd.
“Let’s
see, you pick up a page here (pausing 8 seconds) OK, ‘excuse me Mr. Buchanan, I
saw your speech on TV. The missing
child program is a wonderful idea.’ Kevin’s eyes drift toward the woman’s
carriage; he sees the baby and smiles. ‘It’s a good program. Look at this guy.
Hey buddy. What is it with politicians
and babies, huh? What is he, about
eight months?’ Does that sound like something that makes sense?”
When
Gauthier is assured that this indeed does not make sense, he continues reading.
“‘Only
six, are you kidding me? Look at the
mitts on this guy. The Steelers are
going to want your number pal. I love
it when they’re this age. I remember
when my wife gave my son a bath, we played this hide and seek thing. I pop out from behind her and Ace just
giggles like crazy.’ Do you see how the
dialogue is stilted and not smooth?
That is every freakin’ scene we do, all the time. I think they have to write so fast, and
there’s no checks and balances. I’ll be
able to change that to somehow work for me.”
Perhaps
a way to enhance the scripts of “One Life to Live” would be to make it more
like its NBC rival, “Passions,” Gauthier offered.
“‘Passions’
gets played for laughs. As soon as I
saw the chimpanzee, (I said) ‘we need a chimpanzee on our show.’ I think that
would be a lot more fun.”
Art Swift is a student at the Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Check out www.ArthurSwift.com for additional
writings.
Copyright
2004 Arthur Swift
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