Twice Upon A Time
CBS Soaps In Depth
April 23, 2002
"You couldn't meet a happier person!" exclaims Guiding Light's Laura Wright (Cassie).
No, the actress didn't just get a great pair of designer boots for pennies. Or even win the lottery, for that matter. She simply is tickled pink that her days starring in GL's soap-within-a-soap - San Cristobel - are over, and her character has moved back to Springfield permanently. "Don't get me wrong," she insists. "I've had wonderful story since I've been there, I just felt to isolated from the rest of the cast. Now I'm watching the show, going, 'Oh, I'll get to work with him and her and her.' I am so happy!"
Winslow, Richard Winslow
Expanded interaction with her colleagues isn't the only thing exciting Wright these days. Now that the Winslows' lives no longer revolve around royal council meetings and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, Wright has seen unlimited stroyline opportunities open up for herself and on-screen hubby Bradley Cole (Richard). "I want to do a Hart To Hart storyline, where the married couple goes undercover to investigate crimes," she declares. "How James Bond-like is Bradley anyway? It would be hysterical because it would give Cassie and Richard a chance to be funny.
"I don't think they should be thrown into a story 'just because,' and have it be silly," she adds. "Cassie and Richard are not the couple to break up. The opportunity is there to give them something different to do - even if it's going back to their differences in how they speak and their mannerisms, which is what makes them so charming and romantic."
Not that Wright wouldn't mind some gut-wrenching drama for next year's Emmy reel, either. "If there's one thing I'd really like to do, it's a well-written journey of finding out who [Cassie's] father is. And I'd love for it to turn out to be someone whom [she wishes] it wasn't," she reveals. "That would be... something really challenging that I can sink my teeth into and then really rip the audience's heart out."
It's Decision Time
With her current contract up in October, the desire for that professional challenge has become paramount to Wright. "To be quite honest, for the first time in 10 years, I'm not sure what I'm going to do come October," she admits. "It's so hard to say that because I certainly don't want to sound ungrateful. I love this show. I love this character. It's probably because I've been working on soaps for 10 years straight, but I'm just a bit bored."
Reva Can Keep Her Storyline (And So Can Beth And...)
While the actress had a blast doing her bit in Reva's time-travel journey, she says she wouldn't have wanted to carry that arc herself. Nor did she wish the Beth/Lorelei plot had been created for her Cassie. "It's not about wanting this one's storyline or that one's," she clarifies. "And it certainly isn't, 'If I don't get a story, I'm out of here.' I believe everyone gets their shot on the frontburner.
"The question of re-signing my contract is storyline-based for Cassie, but it's also about career choices for Laura," she continues. "Where am I going to be come October? Where is Cassie going to be? I think the struggle right now is how to keep Cassie and Richard together and make it interesting. I don't doubt the abilities of the powers that be. I just wonder if it's going to happen. And if not, then maybe come October, it will be time for me to get my feet wet."
Then, with one of her infectious laughs, she concludes, "Then again, they haven't mentioned anything to me, so maybe they don't want to keep me! Maybe they're like, 'Oh, her contract's up in October. Let's just get rid of her!"
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