TucWatkins.com (Soap Opera Magazine Interview)

Years from now, when Tuc Watkins draws near the close of his career, you won't hear him plaintively asking, "Is that all there is?"

That's because Tuc doesn't sit around waiting for things to happen - he goes out and makes them happen. And he craves to live life to the fullest, sipping abundantly from the cup.

"I've always wanted to try everything," Tuc confided in an exclusive Soap Opera Magazine interview. "When I was a kid I was always very open to trying different foods. My sister would only eat hamburgers, but I would try everything.

"In sports I never really excelled at one particular sport, but liked to play all of them. When I was in college I was an exploratory major for three years because I didn't know what I wanted to do.

"The only thing I've always enjoyed and continued to practice since fifth grade is acting. But I would hate to come to the end of my career in the entertainment business and only be known as an actor.

"I would really like to have my hands in a lot of things. What I really want to do is direct, act, produce, edit, and score...everything!

"I'd also like to try opening a restaurant, bar, or maybe a landscaping business, or maybe raise horses or dogs in Wyoming. I've got a lot of things I need to do, so it's not going to work out for me to be in Llanview for too long," Tuc says teasingly.

The slim, muscular actor was born in Kansas City, and when he started high school his family moved to St. Louis.

"My folks moved back to Kansas City after my sister graduated high school, so they've been back there for about six years now. My dad is in sales, my mom is a photographer, and my sister is an artist, so we all have a bit of the artist bug."

How did he get that unusual first name? Tuc grins.

"My real name is Charles Curtis Watkins III. When I was young they tried to teach me to say Curt, but all I could say was Tuc and it sort of stuck and they've called me that ever since. I guess you could say that I named myself," he laughs.

After high school, Tuc went off to Indiana University, where he majored in telecommunications and minored in theatre, French, and psychology. Once he got his degree, Tuc worked and saved some money, then headed to Los Angeles.

"I had a little nest egg and didn't have to immediately find a job waiting tables. My goal was to get an agent real quick, which I did. I made my first commercial soon afterward, which got me my Screen Actors Guild card, so I never had to wait on tables.

"A buddy and I would paint houses if things got tough. It was a good job because we could make our own schedules and have time to take classes and go on auditions," he explains.

Tuc thought he got his first break when he won a spot on Growing Pains, but by the time it aired on TV his role was edited out. "I quickly learned not to take things personally," he laughs.

Viewers did get to see Tuc when he landed a recurring role as Brad in the first two seasons of Sisters. After being dropped from that show, Tuc briefly appeared on Melrose Place.

During his time in Los Angeles, Tuc and several college buddies reorganized their college theatre company called the All-U-Can-Eat Players.

"We did political satire and we found a niche in Los Angeles. We got some pretty good reviews from the press too. We just wanted to have some fun.

"We also wanted to rediscover why we wanted to be actors in the first place. And it worked. When you have an outlet where you can be creative, it makes the times when you have to go on auditions for candy bar and shampoo commercials to pay the bills more palatable."

In early 1994, Tuc switched agents. Shortly afterward, he was introduced to someone at ABC who asked if he would be interested in working on a soap. Tuc was, and was put on tape. He didn't hear anything for several weeks and had given up on it when suddenly he was called to New York to screen-test for OLTL.

That's when his life took a big turn. A week later he was packing his bags to move to New York and take the role of David.

"I got accustomed to New York sooner than I thought I would. I think most Americans are really intimidated by New York as this big, ominous city that sort of looks out over the rest of the country and scares all the other cities," he laughs.

So I came here sort of intimidated, but found that it's pretty easy to get accustomed to the city. I learned in New York that you make your own niche, and I have.

"I work on the Upper West Side and I live near Central Park. Every morning I walk my border collie, Blue, there, so I get to see grass and trees at least once a day and it doesn't feel like the concrete jungle most New Yorkers live in. The New York I have carved out for myself is very manageable and very livable. When I want to get out and do something, I can always go, and I do."

You'd think a soap star's life in the Big Apple would be full of excitement, but Tuc's routine is pretty routine, he admits.

"I usually get home in time to have dinner, read my lines for the next day, watch something on television and go to bed so I can get up the next day and do the same thing. It's funny because I have to say things to my friends like, 'Oh, I can't do that tonight because I have to work in the morning.' I've never had to say that before, not ever in my life!" he laughs.

"That's a very foreign phrase to me. As an actor, you find yourself unemployed so often that being employed is almost like having a 9-to-5 job that you never wanted to have. And, naturally, to an actor, the grass is always greener. 'Oh, I'm working too much,' or 'Oh, I'm not working enough,' I'm trying to find the medium to be happy with what I'm doing at that time."

Since Tuc admits that he doesn't plan to make New York his permanent home, he takes every opportunity while he's there to get out and experience new things.

"I try to treat myself to things that I might not normally do if I were living here full-time. If there's a show I want to go see, I go see it. If there's a restaurant I want to try, I go try it. I find myself going out and doing a lot of things that I didn't do while I was living in Los Angeles because I always thought, 'Oh, I can do that any time.'

"I will probably go back to California when I am done here, and since I know that there's an end to this at some point, I'm not allowing myself to be lazy about not doing things."

What are his plans for the future?

"I want to try everything. I began writing a play and got 50 pages written really quickly, then I put it down and haven't picked it up again. I produced and directed for my theatre company and I find that it is very satisfying to sometimes be in charge of a little piece of the pie. As an actor on a soap, I'm in charge of maybe one-thirtieth of this pie, but there are times when it's fun to be in charge of the bigger picture.

Check out our gallery for more ONE LIFE TO LIVE pics

BACK TO PRESS PAGE

HOME