(the pic is of Grayson in mickeymouse tie, white shirt, black suspenders, and white socks with saddle shoes. His hair is kinda slicked to one side...Se's so darn cutey pie and looks so young and green!)
Most actors have to wait a while before they land a hot spot ona soap's front burner. Grayson McCouch wasn't in Bay City for two days before his character's story was boiling over. Quite a coup for a guy who labels himself a former introvert who didn't start talking until the age of five.
McCouch believes that being a late bloomer nurtured an artist's disposition. "I had a better feel for looking and listening than I did for jabbering, " he recalls. "I liked to turn everything into action. I would read a book like Huck Finn and decide that I'd rather be going down my own river." But his silence affected his education. "I stayed back in the fourth grade. I threw my Lincoln Log house across the room, " he jokes. "Actually, that was a hard time. Everybody condemned me, but things actually planned out pretty well. The girls liked me, and I was best at kickball."
A childhood deviant, McCouch was dispatched to a prep school in Kent, Connecticut, to put him on the straight and narrow. "I thought it would be a liberating experience," he recalls. "It actually turned out to be pretty restrictive. I got in trouble my first year, raked a lot of leaves. But I really pulled it together and turned into a good athlete and started doing summer theater."
After Hamilton College, the actor spent his last of five summers at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. Next came the pilot for the short-lived ABC sitcom, SIBS, and theater in Chicago.
He also became a licensed private investigator ("It started by watching too many Magnum PI episodes," he explains.) and dabbled in real-life crime solving. while he's careful not to divulge too much about his hands-on experience ("I could tell you but then I would have to strangle you."), he claims that his job was quite covert. "Let's just say I've been involved in things that would make daytime look like cartoons, " he smiles.
As the job market for actors dwindled, McCouch became disgruntled with his chosen profession. "At one point, I was even open to becoming a doctor," he reveals. "I gave up saying to myself, "it's got to be acting. You've got to go on these auditions."" At that point, Another World came knocking on his door. "When I was willing to take on whatever, it fell immediatel into my lap, and sweetly so."
Not that soap work didn't furnish McCouch the novice with some rude awakenings. "I never expected the pace to be as rapid as it is," he reflects. "With the speed at which things take place and the incredible turnover, you ultimately compromise quality along certain lines. But I'm trying to learn all I can." And he's not looking forward to the shirtless sceens that are derigueur for daytime hunks. "At my audition, they made me put a tank top on, and it was really cheesy, " he reveals. "The lady said, 'It could only help you.' I understand it goes with the territory, but there's acting and there's cosmetics, and maybe it's a package. {note: FYI from SOW---the audition was Morgan consoling Lorna after her rape, in a muscle shirt which Grayson refused to wear and he told the powers that he did have muscles and they could squeeze all they wanted to to convince themselves he was hunky!}
Not that McCouch doesn't count his blessings for landing such a plum soap job. "I'm particularly lucky to be a young person in the cast, " he says. "There are so many people to learn from. You're not a good actor until you've had 20 years, and these people have had it." Another perk to nabbing the part was his reintroduction to his ex-prep schoolmate, Alicia Coppola. (ex-Lorna). "I saw her at the screen test, "he remembers. "I said, 'You're Lorna?' I knew she was on the show, bu ti iddn't know her character's name." The two had been casual friends at Kent. "She was a grade older than me, and I thought she was beautiful," McCouch admits.
The product of a Quaker father and Israeli mother, McCouch's religrious leanigns have been toward Judaism, much to the surprise of others. "People automatically think no, you're Irish (Note: Grayson mentioned he's Part Irish in a chat last yr), or they say, "It's funny, you don't look it," and that's speaking without knowledge of what constitutes a Jew," he declares. "People immediately think big nose, Polish descent, whatever." As far as a future mate, the single McCouch doesn't profess a religious preference, subscribing instead to what he calls the Canadian goose theory. "The Canadian goose theory," he explains, "is the idea that hopefully one day I'll be matched with somebody who will fly with me forever and share the same grass."
While he's waiting for that special fowl, McCouch keeps himself centered with meditation. "It has shaped my life, " he asserts. "It's made me more disciplined, more creative, and more purposeful." The practice was born out of an acting ritual that became an albatross. "I used to be in the weird habit of doing things before I would perform, " he says . "I would have to hear a particular song, and then I would drive in my car for five minutes. Then I would have a cigar. It became too many things that I had to do before a show. What if I dont' have my keys? What if I run out of Peter Gabriel songs? So I figured out that all this wsa about self identity and ritual."
At the tender age of 25, McCouch 's goals are understandably abstract. "I set goals to acknowledge every day as a fresh one, so in that sense there's no continuity to my goals," he says. "I'm a believer that I'm in the perfect place at the perfect time and that's enough. 24 hours is probably the extent of my goal." So where will he be in five years? "I'll be exactly on the same trail, different odometer reading---who knows?"
(I loved reading this interview, it was so indepth and so telling. I found a lot of peace reading it, knowing that lots of lives aren't perfect and how we're all doing the best we can. Also just the greeness of it all with him just starting out in acting---in his later interviews nearly ten years later, I saw more of a heavier heart with his roller coaster career and his personal love life---I just wanna hug him! )
"Brotherly Love " (a pic of the Stephen Schnetzer and GM looking at each other...a fab pic, GREAT profile of GM !)
McCouch says that he has developed a particularly strong familial bond with his on-screen brother, Stephen Schnetzer (Cass) "I have a sister, Hannah, who is two years older than me," the actor shares. "But no brothers. Tehre was an instant chemistry with Stephen. People say yeah, we look alike, but I don't think so. I think we see something in each other that createes a similarity for a viewer. I see a lot of myself in Stephen, and I see a lot of what I'd like to be in him. He emotes gentlemanly manhood, society's gentlmean, what I think a young man aspires to mold into. Now I see that people like Schnetzer are thrown at you for a good reason, to share some things for a while; to taste the richness. I told Schnetzer I think of him as a brother.
{as an aside, Stephen is still good buds with Grayson; he went to Grayson's E5 premiere in NYC last November)
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