Be Our Guest
As a guest on Digest’s podcast, Dishing With Digest, Lisa Locicero (Olivia, GH) reflected on her journey through ABC Daytime.
Soap Opera Digest: So you have a very interesting story: You are on GENERAL HOSPITAL and actually were a fan of GH when you were younger. How did you even get into the soap?
Lisa Locicero: I started watching as a little girl with my grandma .... I was watching ABC soaps as a very young kid. In the summertime, I guess I must have spent the entire day because I would watch LOVING, I would watch, I believe, RYAN’S HOPE, I would watch THE EDGE OF NIGHT, I would watch ALL MY CHILDREN, I would watch ONE LIFE TO LIVE and then, of course, GENERAL HOSPITAL. I remember very distinctly watching the very first episode of LOVING [and] the very first time I was on television was on LOVING. The first [job] was a day player selling Dinah Lee Mayberry a wedding dress [and] then, of course, my first contract role was on LOVING.
Digest: How did you even end up in New York to be in the running for the role of [LOVING’S] Jocelyn?
Locicero: Well, I moved to New York more or less the day after I graduated high school ... I went to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts right after high school and studied there for a couple years and did their repertory theater company for a year or so. And then, you know, you work five jobs at a time and start what we called in those days “pounding the pavement” .... I feel like it’s a miracle that I ever, ever booked a job! Digest: You were part of this really history-making transition of LOVING morphing into THE CITY [in 1995]. What do you remember about that experience? Locicero: I have few regrets in life, but we were so young and idiotic, a lot of the people on that show, we did not see what that was for some of the people that had been [on LOVING for a long time] and the family that is created on a soap opera. We were all just excited, like, “Whoopee!
We’re going to be a new show.” And I think we did not have the emotional bandwidth and sensitivity to see that, like, “Oh, right. A serial killer is coming to town and all these people are watching their best friends get encased in plaster and murdered and whatever, so this isn’t party time for all these people.” In retrospect, I can imagine that some of us youngsters were probably incredibly insensitive to the tenor of what was actually going on on that set. If I can make any sort of after-the-fact apologies to anyone that I could have been more sensitive to, I would do that. [But] the flip side to that is that it was incredibly exciting. I had been a fan of Morgan Fairchild [ex-sydney] my entire life .... I know people often say, “Be careful about meeting your heroes,” but I guess I picked good heroes ’cause all of mine have been just really delightful and wonderful. She became a dear friend, and even after THE CITY went off the air and I moved out to California, we kept in touch. Digest: In 2004, we know that you auditioned to play the recast of Lois on GH. Locicero: I knew the character of Lois very well and knew that it would have been hard shoes to step into, but I felt like they knew me and they liked me. I will say, when I saw Lesli Kay [who booked the role] at the test, I was like, “Oh, my God. She’s like a dead ringer for Rena [Sofer, ex-lois, now B&B’S Quinn]. This might not go my way.” You have those thoughts as an actor. But I do remember that would have been my first time working with Wally [Kurth, Ned]. Wally and I did the screen test. I don’t remember who directed those tests but I got some weird note for the second scene, like, “I want you to smile the entire time you do this scene.” And I was like, “This is not a happy scene, though.” But I tried to do it and I’m sure it looked like some terrible, deadly, like, rictus or something because it certainly didn’t look natural. I definitely walked out that day going, “Well, that one’s not happening for you!” [But] I did an amazing