James Darren tells Soap Opera Digest about his role on The Place
From the April 20th Soap Opera Digest:
prime-time report
MELROSE PLACE Keep An Open Mind: "When MELROSE asked me to do the show, I read the script. I told them no. I knew in my heart that I couldn't do," James Darren (Tony) recalls. "The guy was an Englishman - very foppish, and I didn't want to play the guy. It wasn't me, and I wouldn't have been believable." So Darren approached Co-Executive Producers Charles Pratt, Jr. and Carol Mendelsohn (who he knew from having directed several episodes of the Spelling sudser) and requested a few changes. "I asked them to make him more like Michael Douglas in Wall Street," he explains. "The character was a schmuck either way, but I asked them to make him a schmuck I could play." It didn't take heavy persuading to get the changes and the deal made. Along the same lines, Darrren was hesitant when approached to play the recurring role of hologram lounge singer Vic Fontaine on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. "Once I read the script, I was calling them," he admits. "Until then, I had no intention of singing again. I loved it so much I started putting songs together and now I have an act." In fact he's taking it on the road and will be at the Claridge Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ from April 16-18.
Keep An Open Mind: "When MELROSE asked me to do the show, I read the script. I told them no. I knew in my heart that I couldn't do," James Darren (Tony) recalls. "The guy was an Englishman - very foppish, and I didn't want to play the guy. It wasn't me, and I wouldn't have been believable." So Darren approached Co-Executive Producers Charles Pratt, Jr. and Carol Mendelsohn (who he knew from having directed several episodes of the Spelling sudser) and requested a few changes. "I asked them to make him more like Michael Douglas in Wall Street," he explains. "The character was a schmuck either way, but I asked them to make him a schmuck I could play." It didn't take heavy persuading to get the changes and the deal made. Along the same lines, Darrren was hesitant when approached to play the recurring role of hologram lounge singer Vic Fontaine on STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE. "Once I read the script, I was calling them," he admits. "Until then, I had no intention of singing again. I loved it so much I started putting songs together and now I have an act." In fact he's taking it on the road and will be at the Claridge Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ from April 16-18.