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Girl Power

Soap Opera Digest
May 31, 2005
On-Screen, It's Nothing but turmoil, but off, GL's Laura Wright and Gina Tognoni Groove to a Different Energy.
Guiding Lights Laura Wright (Cassie) and Gina Tognoni (Dinah) can't stop laughing. They're in the studio's green room, regaling Digest with funny tales of their friendship, while GL plays on a television above. The women are quick to praise one another, finish each other's sentences and readily admit that there aren't many salacious tales to tell because their relationship, unlike Cassie and Dinah's dynamic, is actually pretty drama-free.
Soap Opera Digest: How did you become friends?
Gina Tognoni: We have always liked each other.
Laura Wright: When we wre both on ABC shows and at parties and stuff &
Tognoni: & We would always find one another and have fun. And then when I got here, it continued.
Wright: There are certain people you click with. The second Gina got here, it was instant; we clicked. When we did those gun scenes on the rocks, I couldn't even get through them, I was laughing so hard. (Laughing) What were you doing?
Tognoni: Talking to myself.
Wright: She was talking to herself. I'll say to her now, "Hey, you're doing that again." We joke about it.
Tognoni: It was my first time working with Laura in a very intense scene.
Wright: She gets up on this rock and started talking. She was like, "Pull it together! Pull it together! Come on!"
Tognoni: I started to get into a very self-doubting area. Laura said, "Gina, who are you talking to?" I was like, "I'm talking to myself. That's what I have to do." So I introduced my process to her (laughs).
Wright: I was on my knees laughing so hard.
Tognoni: Laura has patience with me.
Wright: You are as good as your scene partner. You don't come in unprepared. If I know that she has a lot of stuff, there is no way I'm going to let her down. We really love the relationship between Cassie and Dinah. These two become 5-year-old girls around each other - pulling hair, kicking, screaming, "I hate you." I love that. It's like we always say, they are actually so similar.
Tognoni: When I first came, I got this clear image that they are the same coin, but different sides. Cassie can be the light side, Dinah the dark side and then that can switch.
(On the monitor, Wright's make-out scene with Bradley Cole (Jeffrey) begins to air.)
Wright: Oh, my God, look how bad I look!
Tognoni: Look how pretty you look! I like your bra. You look great.
Wright: That's the only one that didn't make me look chubby with arm fat.
Digest: What was your reaction to the embryo storyline?
Wright: I squealed with such delight. I thought it was the best.
Tognoni: I sat in front of Ellen (Wheeler, executive producer) like, "Are you serious?" My first question was, "Does the baby live?" And I was never told.
Wright: We still don't know. Tognoni: We were down in hair and makeup one day, and both discovered it: Dinah had the baby, the house - she's taken Cassie's life just like that. Thats the fear all of us have, that you can lose your life.
Wright: The great thing is, Cassie wants to wring her neck and she can't touch her.
Tognoni: We are able to play our scenes because we have such a trust.
Wright: It's just easy, our relationship.
Tognoni: It's a cooperative relationship as opposed to a competitive one. That's a lovely thing to have between women. We are both very driven and have many things on our plates, but we are very cooperative.
Wright: It's also being a little confident with yourself. I know I adore Gina and love working with her and we have the best time and she knows that. So, there's no reason for her to think differently.
Tognoni: Or expect less from Laura.
Wright: There is always complete honesty and when we disagree, its always with respect.
Tognoni: It's pretty hard to work opposite Laura, as beautiful as she is, and not be insanely jealous.
Wright (laughing): Oh get out of town! She is so full of it.
Tognoni: But I am confident that I have overcome that.
Wright: Oh, my God! Yeah, because you are so butt-ugly.
Tognoni: I feel very proud of myself that I am not jealous of her. She's just so gorgeous.
Wright: Hey, Gina's butt is the best one in daytime. Every time she wears certain pants, I'm like, "Oh, my God, you are so cute!" We always talk about our butts.
Tognoni: My theory is if there is anything to past lives, which I'm not sure of, we were related or married or we worked together.
Wright: She was the man; we already determined that.
Tognoni: I can be such a guy at times.
Digest: Gina, Laura mentioned earlier that you spent the weekend at her house?
Tognoni (laughing): I walked in and both of her children went into the other room.
Wright: Little John was hiding from her.
Tognoni: Laura whispered to me; "They think you're Dinah." I was like, "Laura you better explain that really quick before we go through this whole weekend."
Wright: She made cookies with them.
Tognoni: I had so much fun with her children. Laura is very welcoming.
Digest: What else do you do off-set?
Tognoni: She orders me omelets on our way to work &
Wright: & except I yelled at her. I said, "Can you turn your phone on in the morning so I can see what you want for breakfast?"
Tognoni: I later snapped at her. It was the first time I snapped at Laura.
Wright: Oh, I didn't take it that way.
Tognoni: Oh, good.
Wright: I also give her Red Bull. What else do I do for you (laughs)?
Tognoni: I only get little bits and pieces of Laura because she's got so much to go home to - her children and her husband.
Wright: If I were single with no kids, we'd probably be roommates or inseparable.
Tognoni: It's just lovely. It's always there. I never have to worry about maintenance other than treating her like a friend.
Wright: We did have a funny moment though. On set the other day, I was really upset about something going on at home. Gina was in the Jessup kitchen and I was sitting on the couch. I look up and Cassie's table leg breaks and the table tips over. Gina comes running around the corner and she's like, "Oh, my God! I thought you fainted!"
Tognoni: She had such an awful morning. When I heard the kerplunk, I was like, "she fainted. She is going to hit her head and now she's screwed."
Wright: I was laughing so hard. I was & (Cassie and Dinah appear on-screen) oh, here comes this scene. This one, we did it like 20 times because I could not speak that day.
Tognoni (laughing): Yes, she had an audible problem.
Wright: Now she probably wants to go back blonde; I want to go brown.
Digest: What have you learned from one another?
Tognoni: She's teaching me how not to be so hard on myself.
Wright: I don't know if that come from having kids where you just kinda go, "What are you going to do about that now?" Yes the size of my butt could be smaller, but I always say if I died and was lying in my casket, would someone be like, "Damn, were her thighs thin"? Probably not.
Tognoni: The think I love about Laura is that she's so relaxed. Dinah is tough. There was a period a few months ago that I wasn't sure whether I could even do this. Then I realized that this is a blessing and everything is great, but it's hard to play such insecurity.
Wright: She watched this one particular show and hated it, so she watched it again. I said, "Stop watching it! You are going to drive yourself crazy."
Tognoni: We work very complimentary off each other. Laura talks very fast, and I talk pretty fast and we have our own little language. It's nice to work with someone where you feel like you're on the same page.
Wright: I agree. I was saying the other day, its just the perfect match.
Melissa Scardaville

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