Tuesday Talent: Daniel Hugh Kelly


It takes a consummate actor to allow his viewers to hate him and Daniel Hugh Kelly has done so very well twice as a murderous homophobes on both Law & Order and As The World Turns. It's hoped that those can put him to work more were watching and will do so.


Condensed from Soap Opera Digest:"Saluting The Colonel"

In the 26 years since he left his role as Frank on Ryan's Hope, there's not much Daniel Hugh Kelly hasn't tackled in show business, from rabid dogs (Cujo) to demons (Supernatural). He's been an astronaut (From the Earth to the Moon) and a car thief (Hardcastle & McCormick)... He's also played a lot of military men, including at least two other colonels... Now his role as Noah's strict father, Colonel Winston Mayer, on As The World Turns has brought him back to soaps, but this prolific actor claims he "never really left daytime," anyway.


Soap Opera Digest: How did you become involved with the show? I understand you're friends with [Executive Producer] Chris Goutman.

Daniel Hugh Kelly: I am. We go back a ways, and I'm unclear of exactly how it came about, but he was interested in me to play this role and it was an opportunity to go to Branson, Missouri, and I had never been there before. Plus, the fact that it wasn't a long-term commitment kind of appealed to me. It enabled me to get back to New York. I've been away from this area, where I grew up, for many years.
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Digest: What was it like shooting on location?

Kelly: I didn't have to do a whole lot, so it was great. I had more time off than I had to work. The young kids who are carrying the show had to work a lot.
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Digest: Was it difficult to get back into the daytime groove?

Kelly: It has. Keep in mind that 30 years ago when I was doing this, they had teleprompters attached to the cameras, and they don't have that anymore.

Digest: Really? On Ryan's Hope?

Kelly: Oh yeah. It was one of the reasons I left, because I got pretty good at using them and I didn't know how good that was. Now that I'm older and I really need them, they don't have them.

Digest: What else has changed?

Kelly: It's very, very quick. On the one hand, I really do enjoy working faster. It can get very tedious on a set, so if the crew is working fast and the director is moving it along and people know their lines, I prefer that. Even though I prefer that, this is very fast.

Digest: What role do people recognize you the most for?

Kelly: People don't recognize me for one specific thing; they just feel like they know me. I was at a bar last night watching the Yankee game. It's an old neighborhood haunt where I used to live and there were several people in there who recognized me and as usual they're not sure where I'm from. Sometimes, I think they think they had an affair with me and everyone was drunk or they think I went to high school with them. To be quite honest, I get off on that. I'm very polite about it, but it always comes down to "Where do I know you from?" I'll tell them a show or a movie or something I've done, and they say, "No, that's not it." So you end up repeating a lot of your credits until very often I will say, "We were drunk and it was a long time ago, but I thought you were good and I hope you thought I was [laughs]." And I kind of let it go at that because otherwise it does become insane.




Digest: You have such an extensive resumé; are there any credits about which you are particularly proud?

Kelly: A number of them. I really enjoyed Citizen Cohn because I'm distantly related to the character I played on that, Congressman Gallagher. I enjoyed The Tuskegee Airmen because I'm named after my mom's oldest brother, who was a fighter pilot in the South Pacific during the war. He was flying a plane that crashed and they never found him. So when I got to do [the film] with the Army Air Corps, that meant a lot to me. The same thing with From The Earth to the Moon. My uncle was heavily involved with NASA, so to do that was a real honor, as well.

Digest: That must have been an exciting project to work on.

Kelly: It was so well done, and money was not an issue. They just wanted to get it right, so you were using a lot of the original equipment. When we were doing a lot of the control room stuff, they had the original banks of televisions and desks and even chairs. I was doing one scene there and I was leafing through this binder with all this paperwork. It was original paperwork! It wasn't something like blank paper or from a courthouse somewhere, which is what you usually get from the props department.






Digest: In between doing all of these movies and TV shows, you also went to ALL MY CHILDREN as Travis, from 1993-94.

Kelly: I never really left daytime. I agreed to do a few episodes of AMC, but then it was turning into a lot. The people who were production assistants on Ryan's Hope were running AMC at the time. The same thing with OLTL last year; I don't consider myself above and beyond anything. I'd like to meet new people and do different things. I'm not going to say, "I'm too good for this." I've done a lot of regional repertory and I've always believed that the actors in regional theaters around this country and on daytime are extremely underrated. This show is no different. Jake [Silbermann, Noah] and Van [Hansis, Luke] are both really talented; Alexandra [Chando], who plays Maddie, just phenomenal. They're good kids and good actors. This is a well-produced, well-written show. Everyone on it, particularly the actors, have just been extraordinarily outgoing.

Digest: Do you keep in touch with anybody from soaps?

Kelly: I don't. I rarely keep in touch with anybody from any show that I've worked. I did with the guys from Ponderosa who played my sons. But you never really say good-bye in this business. I was walking up Columbus Avenue a few months ago and who comes down the other way but Ilene Kristen [Roxy, OLTL; ex-Delia, RH]? She looks like she's 25, like the last time I'd seen her! So you always run into them or work with them again.

Digest: What advice would you give a young actor about sustaining a career in this business?

Kelly: I've always believed that any actor who can make a living in this business — and my definition of that is that you don't have to do anything else and you can put your kids through school, including college — I have the utmost respect for. It's not easy. I would advise young actors — not that anyone would ask me — but not to stick your nose up. You want to do good work. I used to, when I was younger, get upset when the scripts weren't as good as I hoped they'd be, but I learned on Ryan's Hope — and relatively speaking, the writing on RH was extraordinary — that if you focus on making the writing work, you'll become a better and a happier actor.

Comments

Cheri said…
Consummate actor, indeed. I can't think of a time I haven't enjoyed watching DHK perform.

As a fellow fan, I thought you might be interested in knowing about an exciting opportunity coming up. I'm involved with a group working to get Brian Keith (Hardcastle and McCormick) a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. To help with our fundraising, we're having an online auction beginning Saturday. One of the items we'll have up for bid is a lunch with none other than Mr. Daniel Hugh Kelly, who has been most gracious in his dealings with us. Some lucky fans are going to have a chance to find out for themselves just how gracious he really is.

The lunch will actually be listed on ebay, but you can find details about the entire auction at our site, www.starforbrian.com/auction.html.

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