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"I'm a really good guy. Ask my mama!"

Why is He So Scary?

He’s played an array of treacherous and demonesque roles during his film/television career and for this 5’6” tall method actor, his playing bad is awfully good.  Hutchinson’s portrayal of the character of Sebastian on Guiding Light is no different.  Sebastian definitely has something nefarious about him. While attending the Celebrities 4 Charity event in Las Vegas last February, Soapdom’s Phyllis A. Tremblay got the chance to find out just what makes Doug Hutchison tick.

SOAPDOM:  OK then, why to you constantly portray bad guys?

Doug Hutchison:  I think it’s like God gave me the gift to be bad in my roles so that I could be sort of  -- a cathartic kind of deal.  I can like shine the dark side on in my acting, so I can have a joyous life in my real life. I don’t have to be bad in real life.

SOAPDOM:  Are you trying to tell me that you really are a good guy?

HUTCHISON:  Am I a good guy?  I’m really a good guy, ask my mama. 

SOAPDOM:  What was your first professional role?

HUTCHISON:  My first professional role was a play I did written by Garson Kanin, who was a director and a playwright who was married to the late actress Ruth Gordon.  He wrote a play called Time and Chance and I played the lead character, Charlie Hoben.  I was a little like street urchin, a rebel, a little rebel boy.

SOAPDOM:  A bad boy!

HUTCHISON:  A bad boy, actually. Surprise, surprise.  It was my first professional acting gig.  It got me my Equity card, I got paid like $200 bucks.  I was THRILLED!  Really THRILLED!

SOAPDOM:  I know what you mean.  Just to get your Equity card is great.

HUTCHISON:  To get paid to do what you love to do, you know?  Like being able to put ‘actor’ on your tax form; that’s a lovely feeling.

SOAPDOM:  There is one character that really impressed me on two episodes of X files when you played the feral-like character named Eugene Victor Tooms.  Can we talk about that a little?  How much preparation did you have to do for this role?

HUTCHISON: Yeah.  Preparation.  I didn’t have a lot of lines in this role. I had just five lines so it’s mostly just physical stuff.  Although I didn’t do the contortions; there was a stunt double doing that stuff.  It was actually the first time that I had the opportunity because I didn’t have a lot of lines to become still in my acting.  I’ve always admired stillness in actors, for instance, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.  Stillness --  that’s always so compelling to me.  In the X Files, I worked on that.  It was a time in my career where I felt that I invited that into my acting. 

SOAPDOM:  It was a very moving role.  What happened to me one night, I had insomnia and turned on the TV only to find you on TNT again!

HUTCHISON:  It’s so funny.  I heard that from so many people and it’s so funny when you shoot something, you’re like behind the scenes.  So when I was watching it, I was laughing!  And then I had all these fans writing in saying how they couldn’t sleep, they were blocking the vents in the ceiling….

SOAPDOM:  My dad saw you in the X Files and then soon after we saw you as the stalker on CSI and that’s when I realized that I HAD to find out for myself, what makes you do these roles.  I told my dad that I had to find out for myself whether or not you are a bad guy.

HUTCHISON: Now you can tell him that I am a sweetheart.

SOAPDOM:  Actually, I told him that this morning.  Let’s come to the present now, you are Sebastian Hulce, Roger Thorpe’s son.  Are they going to run a parallel to the way Roger tormented Holly to what you are going to do to her?

HUTCHISON:  What was the question?

SOAPDOM:  Roger tormented Holly.  Are you going to torment her or fall in love with her?

HUTCHISON:  Both.  I am both tormenting her and seducing her.  She can’t live with me, she can’t live without me.  She’s like totally hooked in, she’s intrigued; but she knows that I am totally not good for her.  But she likes that! 

SOAPDOM:  She’s into the bad guys!

HUTCHISON:  She likes the dark side as MANY women do. 

SOAPDOM:  Are you trying to tell us something extra here?

HUTCHISON:  No, I’m just saying generally speaking.

And with a devilish grin, Hutchison disappeared into the crowd!

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