Digest: Do you remeber your first scenes together?

Maurice Benard: Uh... no.

Nancy Lee Grahn: I'm afraid I can't recall myslef.

Benard: You know why I don't? It was because it was way long ago...

Grahn: ... and I was a nothin' burger on the show, so he paid no attention to me. And he made me call him Mr. Bernard.

Benard (laughs): No, it's just that there were scenes where she'd come in, say some legal terms and leave, basically.

Digest: Did you know each other's work or reputations before you started?

Benard: I thought she was wonderful, especially having to say all those big words. [Grahn snorts] I'm afraid of big words.

Grahn: I'd been visualizing working with the big tamale way back when because I was a great admirer of his. He's Mr. Cool. I thoroughly enjoy working with him.

Benard: We get each other. It just kind of flows. I mean, she talks too much, but...

Grahn (laughs): He's constantly going, "They agreed with you. Why do you keep talking?" He keeps me grounded, and I keep him from being too serious.

Benard: Yeah, and it's good. She helps me with the comedy side of anything, which is not really what I love to do. And her timing is as good as it gets. It helps my timing.

Digest: Do you remeber when you first felt like things clicked on-screen?

Benard: I know when. There was a scene after they blew up Sonny's penthouse and made it into a sardine can. I remember the day because it was one of the first days that I worked in that sardine can and I thought, "Okay, I guess this is what it has come to."

Grahn: He was feeling vulnerable because they made his set smaller.

Benard: Right.

Grahn: And you know what happens to actors when they make their sets smaller. [Bernard laughs]

Benard: We had scenes where... it was the first time Alexis opened up and talked about her mother. Somebody got choked or something.., I don't know.

Grahn: You know, the old, "My mother's throat got slit by Helena..."

Benard: And after seeing that show, I said, "Okay, this could be something," because we listened and talked to each other. She broke down, and it affected me. I was like, "Right on. This is cool."

Grahn: For me, it was when Sonny was sitting in [Alexis's] apartment, and I had a five-page monologue and then passed out.

Benard (grins): Oh yeah!

Grahn: And his reaction... he had no words to say,  but from his expression - that was how somebody would react if someone were doing that. I like the dynamic. They are opposites. Alexis is the law, Sonny is the breaker of the law. They're both the masters of control.

Benard: Yeah, in different ways.

Grahn: We demonstrate it differently. But the balance of the two of us feels right. It makes it really fun. I go to work happy, and I leave happy. And, it's exciting for me to work with the biggest soap actor...

Benard: Aww, shut up [laughs].

Digest: Sonny's softer, funnier side has been allowed to come out. Do you like that?

Benard: I like it if it's coming out of real situations and circumstances. I like it if I still do it and the other stuff. To me, it's the best of both worlds. I wouldn't like it if I just played comedy, no matter how good I think she is. I like to shout.

Grahn: And break things.

Benard: And break things.

Grahn: And I like to roll my eyes when he does that.

Benard: Exactly. So for me, it's fantastic.

Digest: How do your acting styles compare?

Benard: The joke is she's from the Sandy Meisner School, and I'm from the Actor's Studio.

Grahn: [His] is very Method and the other is very instinctual - listening and responding, asking why. He goes strictly by feeling and has the sensory of an animal. He's the most honest person I have ever met in my life. I love that most about him. But I get more cerebral because I have a bit of a writer in me.

Benard: A bit?

Grahn: He's also more reasonable than I am. I thought it would be the other way around, but it's not.

Digest: Why do you say that?

Grahn: Well, because quite frankly, there are certain men in daytime who can say, "I don't want to do this," and everyone goes, "How can we make you happy?" And I can say, "I don't want to do this," and they go, "Will you stop being such a bitch?" [Benard bursts out laughing] That still exists. I'm not getting on a soap box about it. But the truth is, he doesn't make a fuss. He is a good picker and chooser of battles. He doesn't make a fuss unless it deserves a fuss. And I don't make a fuss either, but I'll whine.

Benard: It's funny because Jill [Farren Phelps, executive producer] comes out and gives me a look, and we both laugh.

Grahn: And every time she passes me, she goes, "You're fired [laughs]." But you know what? It works the other way, too. He gets nutty over little thnigs. What about the times that somebody talked on the set?

Benard: Oh, that's different.

Grahn: Which never bothers me.

Benard: If I'm acting in a scene and I hear people talking, that can get me. If people talk, I just think it's disrespectful.

Grahn: Or when people ask you to speak up. They don't do it again after the first time!

Benard: No. I've gone off on that so much that I think it's over with. When I started, I was with [former Executive Producer] Wendy Riche and [Consulting Producer/Director] Shelley Curtis and they offered me [this role] and I said, "All right. But there's a few things that, just don't tell me to talk faster or louder." So the first day, I'll never forget, I had these big scenes - I mean big monologues. I'm doing them and then [I hear] over the intercom [in a booming voice], "Could you talk louder, please?" First day - I took a pause. That was that. Months later, directors who didn't know me, they'd tell me that and I'd go off.

Grahn: "Nooo! Don't say that [laughs]!" 

Benard: That's the only thing that pisses me off. Now, if you ask me to sit in a cabin and walk around looking at turtles...

Digest: If you're referring to Angel's cabin, you were looking at loons.

Grahn: Yup. Loons. You were lookin' at loons! It's just when you do anything without reason.

Benard: And I'm not big on comedy with Sonny. I remember doing a scene with Anthony Geary [Luke], who's wonderful with comedy, but with me...That's why you don't see me singing at the Nurses' Ball.

Grahn: Now that would be funny! You could sing, "When Sonny gets blue."

Benard: Yeah, right.

Digest: Were you surprised at how people responded to Sonny and Alexis right away?

Benard: I was surprised, but there are so many different types of fans out there.

Grahn: Yeah. I always kind of put myself in the place of the audience, going, "If I were watching this, what would I think?" It feels like we're participating and the audience is participating. So, I like what they like.

Digest: And many wanted romance.

Benard: It was like real life. I care a lot about Nancy as a friend. Sonny cares about Alexis that way. Deep caring.

Grahn: Plus, you think I'm beautiful and sexy and sometimes find yourself not being able to resist me. But you resist that feeling.

Benard: It's not that Sonny didn't want to have some fun with Alexis, but...

Grahn: Hey you pig! What do you mean, "Have some fun with her?" You shallow tamale.

Benard: I'm talking about Sonny now.

Grahn: Is that considered a racial slur if I call you a tamale?

Benard: Nah, it's actually good.

Digest: Do you go over your scenes together beforehand?

Grahn: I like the spontaneity, personally.

Benard: I do my s--- at home. I don't like to rehearse unless I'm working with someone new, and I think it'll better the scene.

Grahn: Sometimes we'll just run the lines. But we don't plan anything out.

Benard: But I believe, and it's proven, that once you get in the groove and you work with somebody who's good, there's no need. You just go up and you've got it.

Grahn: It's like a marriage at this point. We've been working together every day. We finish each other's sentences. But I also have a terrible habit of, if the scene doesn't interest me, I can learn my lines going up the stairs [to the studio]. And you don't know the difference.

Digest: Do you improvise?

Benard: She does, but that's cool.

Grahn: I like it when people do that to me. He doesn't improvise, he'll just pick something up and throw it.

Benard: Oh, I'll break something.

Grahn: He'll break something that's not supposed to be in the scene, or he'll slam my door. He tries to scare me to death, but I laugh in his face.

Digest: Was there ever a time when you couldn't stop laughing on-set?

Benard: We laugh a lot, but only in scenes with Steve Burton [Jason]. When I looked at his Chia-Pet hair, I could not stop laughing. With her, we've never gotten in trouble.

Grahn: Strangely enough, I think they like us here. They think we're fun. Whenever we're on set, everybody comes over.

Benard: We're always screwing around.

Digest: What is it about the dynamic of Sonny and Alexis that makes them so appealing?

Benard: Ah, I don't want to answer that.

[Ingo Rademacher, Jax, who's been sitting quietly in the room, pipes up]

Ingo Rademacher: I'll answer that!

Benard: Ingo will answer it.

Rademacher: I think it's interesting because Alexis is such a sophisticated lady, who's not like any of the other women he's ever dated. All of the chicks who he's dated were always younger and needed help.

Grahn: Okay, you were going strong until that younger part.

Rademacher: No, she's a successful, sophisticated, rich woman.

Benard: He's right.

Rademacher: She's a sophisticated lady, as opposed to...

Grahn: ... the slutty tramps Sonny's dated before [laughs]? Thank you. Spoken like a true ex-husband.

Digest: How would you feel if they said that you couldn't work together anymore?

Grahn: "I quit [laughs]...Ned?"

Benard: It would be disappointing because we have fun.

Grahn: But you'd be slightly relieved.

Benard: Yeah, because she talks a lot...

Digest: What do you like best about each other?

Benard: She's very honest... funny. It's like we've known each other for a long time. There's nothing I can't say to her. And there's nothing she can't say to me.

Grahn: That really is true. In fact, there are many things that I only say to him that I wouldn't say to anyone else. And I know that I can trust him implicitly; if I ask him not to say anything, he won't. He's going to take this the wrong way, but he reminds me of my dog, Barney [laughs].

Benard: Oh, your dog, Barney, man. I like that dog.

Grahn: Barney... he's loyal, he's smart.

Benard: If you tell me not to say something, I won't. If you don't tell me I might.

Grahn: You're like a puppy.

Digest: And he has a wet nose.

Grahn: And he has a wet nose!

Benard: Yeah, it's kind of wet.

Grahn: He is just as sweet as they come. And doesn't it sound wrong to say that he is sweet? But he really is.

Benard: I like to be like a dog.

Grahn: I love my dog, Barney [laughs].

 

- Kristen Gallagher