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Out of this World

By Robert Schork

from Soap Opera Weekly 7/31/01 issue

    One might think that jumping in and out of three different soap towns in about two years' time would be at least a little disconcerting (just ask Linda Dano), but for Jensen Buchanan, General Hospital's Port Charles instantly felt as homey as Another World's Bay City. "I feel like I've been here forever. It's been such a comfortable transition. I really love working on this show, and everybody was very kind in making me feel welcome."
     There was one notable bump at the beginning that interrupted Buchanan's stint on the show - a short-lived contractual dispute with As the World Turns. GH was forced to hire a substitute to play Melissa until things got worked out. At the time, Buchanan had just wrapped a brief stint on ATWT reprising her AW role of Vicky, as a ghost. "I just loved having the closure with Jake and his character's life. Personally, it gave me a really good feeling of completion, with Vicky and that whole nine years of my life."
     By the time Buchanan returned to GH, her character's story was well under way. "It was a little complicated there in the beginning," she concedes, "but I was comfortable with that. I'm used to having a pretty significant part after playing Vicky for nine years, so I was happy to have a lot of material and to be working quite a bit. It isn't until recently, though, that I really feel like we're fleshing out a voice for Melissa. I've noticed in my most recent script that she's developing a voice that is uniquely her own pattern of speaking and rhythm. I'm happy to see that the writers are picking up on things [from my performances] and trying to work them into the character." Specifically, Buchanan is "excited about the kind of feistiness that the writers are bringing to Melissa."
     To be sure, Melissa's emerging backbone is making for a rather interesting character: While hardly a doormat or pushover, she is no garden-variety vixen or villainess, either. "You are going to see that even more when Melissa teams up with Roy and Luke to solve some of this Cassadine mystery. There's a real kind of brashness to Melissa."

Not only has Buchanan had to hone Melissa's icier side, but, much like a castaway on Survivor, she had to spark a fire on day one - albeit with A Martinez (Roy) and not a piece of wood. "I had met A before, so I knew, as a person, that I liked him very much. I felt very karmically good about the whole thing, and quite optimistic about it coming together." Boosting her comfort factor is her reunion with former AW cast mates Robert Kelker-Kelly (Stavros; ex-Shane Roberts, AW) and Robin Christopher (Skye; ex-

Lorna Devon, AW). "I suppose if you do these things long enough you run into your old friends," she says with a laugh.
     While this is Buchanan's first West Coast soap, the actress didn't have to make the double adjustment of a new job and a cross-country move, as she had already been a Los Angeles-transplant for a year when GH came knocking. "I love living in California; I love the lifestyle and the weather. My kids (sons Conor, 7, and Angus, 5) are outside all the time; it just really suits me."
     Buchanan relocated from Vermont, which she called home for several years - actually commuting to New York when she was doing AW and then ATWT. A self-described longtime devotee of New England, Buchanan first became acquainted with the region and its charms when she spent summers as a child at her mother's house on Cape Cod. The Alabama native, who actually grew up in Wisconsin, would later return to the region to study music at Boston University, and also at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony's renowned, ethereal summer home and music academy nestled in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.
     Buchanan never envisioned that she'd be working as an actress, let alone be on TV every day. "As far as I was concerned, my future was going in a different direction. I thought I would be in the music business somehow. And next year maybe I will, at the Nurses' Ball!"

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