The Man Behind
the Mask
Soap
Opera Digest
December 10th, 1991
By Carol Bialkowski
Just The Facts
Birthdate: October 25, 1960
On Jake: "I think Jake is the male Susan Lucci [Erica, AMC]."
On Tom: "Tom has his own burden of insecurity that he carries on his
sleeve, if anybody is willing to look."
About Acting: "I don't
believe in acting. I that that f--ing word. We don't have any actors on our
show. I think we have people who buy into the character one hundred percent
and react to it."
On Old Rumors: " I was
never, never almost engaged to Tracey Bregman [Lauren, Y&R]."
Pals Around With: Lisa
Peluso [Ave, LOVING]
Since his 1988 return to Another World, Tom Eplin has done a better job of eluding the press than Warren Beatty has. Unlike the reticent Beatty, however, when Eplin decides to speak, he's suprisingly candid and insightful. So why the wall of secrecy? And why, after several years of ignoring his phone messages, has this very elusive actor suddenly decided to open up? Over a few beers and a plate of curry shrimp, a philosophical Eplin offers several possible explanations: 1) "I didn't know where Jake fit into Another World's tapestry. Maybe that bled into my real life so that I didn't know where Tom fit into the tapestry of daytime." 2) "There's nothing inherently special about me that anyone would ever want to know. I mean, am I afraid to be alone at night? Yes. Does the thought of not being able to have a son bother me? Yes. But there are a hundred and twenty-five million men out there with similar feelings." 3) "I just felt there was nothing left for me to say."
Eplin's ventured out today with a purpose: He thinks that AW has been getting a bad rap, and he's come here to extol its virtues. As soon as the tape recorder starts rolling, Eplin launches into a five-minute treatise on how wonderful AW is -- a subject that he returns to repeatedly during the two hour interview. "Storyline for storyline and actor for actor, AW is the best show on daytime television right now. I think the people on our show would kill for each other right now. You'd be safer in the child molestation wing of San Quentin than you would if you said something negative about our show right now," Eplin maintains. "The show is good. And somebody needs to stand up and say, "You know what? This show is good."
While Eplin has enthusiastically assumed the role of the soap's cheerleader -- endlessly praising the producers, directors, actors, writers and crew members -- it's a rather uncharacteristic role for him. After all, this was the same man who left the show in 1986 because he felt that it "sucked canal water backward" -- an expression left over from his days with ex-wife and ex-castmate Ellen Wheeler (ex-Vicky/Marley). "My own experience was that it sucked canal water backward," he quickly clarifies. "The people who were there at the time were doing the best job. This [renewed interest] has only been a new thing for me in the last six months. I just started walking in and feeling the energy."
Those positive impresions seemed to have affected Eplin's personality as well. Neatly dressed in faded jeans, a loose-fitting denim shirt, a beaded belt and black cowboy boots, Eplin is relaxed, friendly, funny and completely charming. Other than his liberal use of the "f" word -- in all of its noun, verb, and adjective forms -- there are no traces of the "bad boy" who has been deemed "difficult to work with" and who has gotten into fist fights with cast members, punched walls and stayed out until wee hours of the morning drinking Jack Daniels. "I don't know where all this bad boy s--t came from," Eplin says incredulously, pointing out that he still drinks Jack Daniels every other night. "So what if I'm up till four? If I'm there at seven, I'm on time and I don't smell like Jack Daniels, it's not a problem. Everybody knows I do what I do. That's not being a wild man. Yeah, I punched a wall once. I had a bad scene and I punched a wall once. I've been in a fight or two. I drive fast. A lot of people drive fast. I don't think I'm that much different than the average guy."
Similarly, Eplin dismisses the thrill-seeking devil-may care image he's developed over the years. "I fly an airpline and everbody wants to make a big daredevil thing out of that. And I'll tell you what -- if it were dangerous, I don't think I would do it. This is a guy who's going to take a lesson today and has had a pilot's license for years. It's an emergency lesson to learn how to fly with no surroundings, by instrument only, without any reference to the ground. That's not devil-may-care," he points out. "Devil-may care is walking through Harlem with a hundred-dollar bill sticking out your back pocket. That I don't do. Devil-may-care is not driving fast with loud music in your car." The reputed trouble with castmates isn't as easy for the actor to brush off. However, Eplin reports that rumors of these difficulties have been greatly exaggerated. "I held a benefit in February for St. Mary's [a hospital located in Bayside, New York, that specializes in the care of chronologically, terminally ill and handicapped children] and twent-seven actors showed up on my phone calls alone. So for somebody who has a big problem with other actors, I sure am able to get them to come to my charity event for absolutely nothing," he says defensively. "But I have a problem -- with men and women -- of being too territorial. And I think they misconstrue my passion for what I'm doing as something that wants to hurt them. And I don't think that Tom Eplin is out to hurt anybody who's done no harm to him," he analyzes. "I just think that I'm so overbearing sometimes and so in pursuit of my objective that people misconstrue it as being harmful. It's awfully funny because if you ask those same people whether they want to stop working with me, they say, "No, I want to work with him." Why? Because the scenes are good. Because I ask a lot from the other actor." Eplin also asks a lot from himself in trying to make Jake's decline into sleaziness as believable as possible, especially because he has no interest in seeing the character redeemed. In fact, at the mere mention of that, Eplin leans back in his chair and snores. "Oh man, can you imagine that? The Peter Reckell [Bo, DAYS] syndrome. Poor Peter. When you're a hero, you're famous. But you work with only one person. Can you imagine? For three friggin' years? Kristian Alfonso [ex-Hope, DAYS] is beautiful, but she's not three-years beautiful. Every day, 'Hope, baby, I love you.' Oh man, come on." he laughs, rolling his eyes. "Do you realize who I did major scenes with in one week? Connie Ford [Ada], Vicky Wyndham [Rachel], Russell Todd [Jamie], Judi Evans [Paulina], Kale Brown [Michael], Charles Keating [Carl], some extra they brought on to beat me up for the day, Ricky Paul Goldin [Dean], and Paul Michael Valley [Ryan]. Every day a new person. Everyone has a new angle on how to beat Jake. And every day I just sit and bury [the person]. I don't want him to be redeemed. I don't want them to say, 'Oh, we made a mistake. Now he's going to be our hero.' That's not what Jake is, man."
Eplin's boyish enthusiasm short-circuits at the mention of Ellen Wheeler, whom he divorced shortly after the two left thier co-starring AW roles in 1986. "I did a film, Discovery Bay, and just moped around and hated myself for a year. I got divorced, you know? It didn't feel very good," he says respectfully declining to comment any further regarding this matter.
Eplin and Wheeler's divorce, coupled with a few previous engagements and a recently failed year-long live-in relationship, prompted the actor to reevaluate his attitudes toward love and relationships. For starters, he no longer think the way to pick a wife is to walk into a room, close his eyes, spin around and point. "I don't think that's too healthy. I cahnged my mind on that," he says, "I wouldn't wish me in a relationship with anyone. I work a lot of hours. I'm gone a lot. I have to work on my half of what I can bring to a relationship. I'm a little too hard. I live a little too fast. Everything's like this [he snaps his fingers'."
Consequently, Eplin isn't sure if he'll ever walk down the aisly again. "Maybe a guy like me never settles down. Maybe that's the irony of it all. The tragedy. The thing that I look at and fear. Maybe it's just not in the cards for me," he says quietly. "I don't think women think of me as a long-term think. I may not be. That's what hurts. Now, given that, isn't it a greater burden than knowing there's something wrong with you? You can fix that. But what if you don't think there's anything wrong with you? That's part of the problem. Tom Eplin is like a ride at a carnival; you see it and it looks real dangerous, and you want to get on and ride it around and tear it up so you can say you've been on it."
Carnival analogies aside, the bottom line is that Eplin hasn't changed very much through the years after all. "I go through cycles, man. Sometimes I think I've been misunderstood for a long time and that I'm more sensitive now. Then sometimes I look at things I say and do adn I say, 'Man, you're a son of a bitch,'" he philosophizes. "Do I do things that aren't really smart for Tom? Yeah. Do I do things that could hurt me emotionally or physically? I think I always will. I mean, that's part of being an immature maile. Males never get any older than five. We're like dogs."
Whether he's immature or not, Eplin's happier than he's been in a long time, as he explains: "You know the little snail that zips inside his shell when you touch his antennas? Well, I felt I got [screwed] by this business. Then on top of that, I was divorced - boom! All of a sudden, I wasn't worth s--t to myself, to the show, to anything. So I sulked for a couple of years. That's the little snail getting his antennas bashed in. But I'll tell you something: Tom Eplin is back -- with a vengeance."