"The Man Who Wasn't There" - SOD

Defying Expectations And Dispelling Rumors, Nathaniel Marston Comes Out Swinging

He isn't. There, that is. Nathaniel Marston (Al, ONE LIFE TO LIVE) fails to show up for his scheduled interview, thus standing up his interrogator and sending the publicist into a flurry of concern. But, a few days later, he is. There, that is. Marston bursts into the small dressing room he shares with co-star Brandon Routh (soon-to-be ex-Seth) -- with two gangly, charismatic guys inhabiting the space, it feels even tinier -- and has a very good excuse: A root canal gone awry. Infection set in. "I was driven to insanity," he announces. "I was hacking at my own face. They gave me Novocain. Ever stuck yourself in the face with a fork? Like that. Kids, brush your teeth. Go to the dentist regularly."

There's a lot of drama surrounding Nathaniel Marston, make no mistake. Some of it may be for sheer effect, but after spending time with the actor (who has been in the business since he could walk; his mother was a struggling actress who found roles for him wherever kids were needed), it's clear that a flair for the dramatic is in his blood. He's a body constantly in motion, and constantly the center of -- at times unwanted -- attention. "I've always had a strange thing where people were drawn [to me]," he muses. "If there were seven people walking down the street and someone was going to pick a fight with one of them, I was the guy. I was always the guy. I used to tell my grandma, 'Those people are looking at me.' She thought I was nuts until one day she [noticed it] and said, 'People really do stare at you'." It's not a boast, and Marston is the first to acknowledge that there are two sides to that coin. Having grown up largely on the road with his mother, who was "a bit of a hippie" and only 16 years older than her son, he quickly picked up on how to interact with adults. Add in a natural gregariousness, and Marston turned out to be the kind of kid who was as drawn to others as they were to him. While working on his first film, Love Is All There Is, in 1996 (with a pre-stardom Angelina Jolie), he became buddies with the crew. "That's the type of person I am. I like to take care of those who take care of me," he says. He rode home on the crew bus one day, yakking with the guys, and glanced out a window at the Hudson River. "Everyone was smiling and telling stories, and I was riding with these people I'd grown to love so much. I had a realization that it would never, ever be like that again. That was a slice of my life that could never be duplicated."

Fast-forward to him backstage at OLTL, and he's hanging out with the extras and under-fives, slouched on sofas in the downstairs lobby area. He's back in his element at OLTL, which is not his first soap, as most daytime fans know. Marston was hired at AS THE WORLD TURNS in 1998 as street kid Eddie Silva after mid-'90s roles in The Craft and EDUCATING MATT WATERS. After Eddie hooked up with on-screen love Georgia, they hit a stride with fans. But by the end of his tenure, Marston says he'd done some maturing and notes, "I was floating, waiting for the job to be done, waiting for the contract to run out, sort of biding my time." He'd made a decision about his acting career, and it involved having more hands-on projects. "You can keep trying to be in other people's movies forever, work forever, make decent money, have a decent life, but it will always be on their terms. That's not how it works for me."

But circumstances sped him along in waiting for that contract to end. Some unwanted attention came his way in light of three hazy incidents -- an alleged harassment in a park of Marston and his dog, a head-butting incident with then-co-star Tom Eplin (soon-to-be ex-Jake) and, most infamously, The Broken ATM Machine. Marston tried to use it, discovered it was broken, managed to remove his card and left. He tried to pay for any damages and got arrested for criminal mischief. The charges were ultimately dismissed, but he was let go from ATWT less than two months later. The actor insists that he doesn't get hives from walking by an ATM machine these days. "It wasn't a fit of loony rage, which is how it has been portrayed," he explains. "I was late for work, I opened the machine, I took out my card and went to work." But the experience, now that it has had a few years to settle, has left him with a sharp edge when it comes to the press. "It's printed news, it's black and white, it makes your fingers dirty when you read it," he grumbles. "One of the battles I've decided I will wage is against sensationalism."

The harshest realization of all to come out of the tabloid reporting of those incidents, says Marston, is that "I'm no longer Nathaniel Marston, 'buddy'. I can never meet somebody again for the first time, because before I do, they have all of these preconceived notions put out there by people who I've never so much as broken bread with. It hurts to be judged solely on the merits of gossip columns. It's a strange way to have to live a life."

With time, is new role and a little luck, however, that reputation will fade. And in the meantime, Marston is hardly wallowing in self-pity. When not working, he's at home with his writing partner, coming up with ideas for screenplays. His main New Year's resolution: To have a film in production by the end of the year. Not having a very active social life helps. "It's great to have someone to share your time with," he explains, "but it can breed a complacency. [Former girlfriend Christy] and I had become stagnant, and neither of us were doing for ourselves what needed to be done. Now, I'm not cluttered with lots of nonsense. I have direction."

Knowing what he wants seems to be half the battle -- wherever, and with whomever, the battle is taking place. After OLTL, Marston knows he can go anywhere, on his own terms. And he doesn't just want to direct; he's going to do it all. "I'm gonna be the producer everyone hates," he grins, a cheery, boyish smiles that hides his almost (they're working on it) perfect teeth. "The 30-hour-day on a film set, no sleep, screaming and yelling, is perfect for me. There's nothing else that stirs me up like that. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Size Matters
Nathaniel Marston is a big guy, but it's clear that most of it's muscle. "I used to drive my ex-girlfriend crazy about the fitness thing," he admits. "I'd get fanatical about going to the gym." But until he managed to grow into his girth, adolescence was an inner circle of hell: "I grew really tall until I was about 11 -- I was 5-feet-2. That's pretty tall for that age, but I stopped growing and got really heavy. I was, like, 200 pounds at that height. I got wider and wider until I was 14. Then, in six months, I grew nine inches." In characteristic lemonade-from-lemons fashion, Marston says it wasn't all that bad. "I was heavy, but I kind of liked it. I played football, defense. I just didn't have a lot of lateral movement going on. What's funny is how all the men on my mom's side are broad-shouldered-type guys, big dudes, and all the men on my dad's side are tall, thin guys. So, I was always gonna be either or."

Just The Facts
Birthday: July 9
In The CD Player: 400 discs, including Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure and Public Image Ltd.
Reading Material: Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays. "A beautiful use of the English language."
Don't Drink The: Soda. "It turns into 600 toxic chemicals in your body, the most prevalent of which is formaldehyde. You'll save your family a lot of money on the embalming process."







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