Eplin Finally
Finds His Place in `World'
News Day
Augusty 25, 1997
THERE THEY finally were: After 12 years on "Another World," Tom Eplin had his Emmy scenes. His character, jovial Jake McKinnon, was crying as the love of his life and longtime best friend Vicky (Jensen Buchanan) finally proposed to him. These early August scenes were the payoff for the viewers who hoped Vicky would choose hunky, tremendously endearing Jake over hunky, but tremendously vapid Shane (Robert Kelker-Kelly). And also one for Eplin who was finally given - by the show's new head writer Michael Malone (formerly Emmy-winning head writer of "One Life to Live") - the kind of emotional material Emmy voters historically favor. Eplin credits both Malone's writing and co-star Buchanan with the success of the proposal scenes. "I've found my niche working with Jensen," he says. "It's comfortable, and if you have no fear it's easier to do something new."
Yet Eplin seems to feel the effort he put into these scenes was not that different from all the years of work he's put into Jake throughout scores of bad writing regimes, years of "AW's" basement ratings and wide character vacillations (Jake has gone from heel to rapist to currently being nice guy newspaper publisher.)
"If I were hiring an actor, I'd hire Tom Eplin because he's like a Timex. He can be counted on to regularly deliver a certain level of work," Eplin says.
Although the audience has always loved Eplin (he has won two Soap Opera Digest awards) for the consistency and intensity of his performances, the actor's personal cockiness and incursions into hamminess have often been a turn-off for the media. ("I get paid whether they like me or not," he comments.) Perhaps Malone's new definition of the character and clear insight into his motivations can really turn attitudes - and Emmy voters - around.
"As an actor, Tom has enormous range," Malone says. "And he's just so believable as a real person. Jake's not a soap character who you think is only capable of carrying around a glass of champagne." But the writer adds: "When I came here, I couldn't get a fix on the character of Jake. He was all over the place. Then it occurred to me he's an early Clark Gable. You know, a reporter with his hat pushed up over his big ears and that charming grin.
"Once Jake fell into place for me as being a desirable guy, Vicky could feel it, too. All Jake had to do was sit in the center of himself and she would come to him. So she went chasing after him, and look what happened."
Eplin says he hopes all the attention being paid to the Vicky-Jake pairing (which will experience problems soon; see Friday's episode) will finally help lift the NBC soap out of its perpetually bad ratings. In addition to working with Buchanan's Vicky, Jake will be interacting with Lila Roberts, the new Southern bombshell character played by popular soap veteran (and Eplin's long-ago ex-girlfriend) Lisa Peluso. (The actor has also been married and divorced twice.) "I couldn't ask to be put in a better story. Jensen and Lisa are both so scary good. They are as good as it gets," he says. But Eplin hopes for even better - he admits he still wants an Emmy. "I've had my good years in the past, but I've never been nominated. And I've never had as many problems with my work as other people do."