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Sean Kanan Talks Sex!

BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL and GENERAL HOSPITAL alum Sean Kanan (ex-Deacon, ex-AJ) dishes the dirt on his new theater gig!Soap Opera Weekly: So, tell me about your new play, It’s Just Sex.

Sean Kanan: I’m working with Mark Blanchard, who directed me when I did True West, when I was on GH. Out of the blue, he called me up and said, “We’re going to be doing this play, and you’re going to be in it,” and before I knew it, I was in a play (laughs). The play is really funny. It deals with three couples who have known each other for a long time, and they’re all at a crossroads in their lives. It reaches a critical mass when they have a party and decide that they are going to swap partners. Chaos ensues! Betsy Russell — she’s in Saw V — is in it, [as is] Jamie Rose, [who did] FALCON CREST in the ’80s and [other TV] shows.



Weekly: And you also had a recent film project?

Kanan: I was working on an independent film for a European company; it’s still untitled. I don’t even know what they’re going to wind up calling it, but it was great. I filmed it for two weeks, whereas the play is kind of all-encompassing; it’s a lot of rehearsal.



Weekly: Are you having a good time?

Kanan: It’s fantastic. I forgot how much I love doing theater. First of all, it’s going to the theater every day and rehearsing for six or seven hours a day — which I love doing. It’s like playing with a bunch of friends. And let me tell you, the soap opera training really comes in handy learning lines, because it’s a significant amount of dialogue and I’m onstage about 90 percent of the time. It was very helpful to be able to look at stuff and learn it really quickly.



Weekly: We’re based out of New York, so there’s a lot of soap actors here who pull double duty — they do as much theater as they can while doing a soap, and thrive on it.

Kanan: There’s so much time for rehearsal and preparation and digging into what’s going on with the characters that you don’t really get when you’re doing TV. It’s a bit of a luxury to take three or four weeks to rehearse something before you put it up. When you’re doing a soap opera, you get two days or a day to do your material and then you’re on. So I’m having a good time. I don’t really know where I’m going to be next, and that’s kind of a scary place to be, but it’s [also] an exciting place to be, because I know something is going to come. This has been a difficult year for a lot of actors, but I’m starting to see a shift — things are improving and turning around, at least for me, and I hope that they are for other people, as well.



Weekly: Economically, it’s been no good for anyone.

Kanan: It’s been real tough, and not just for our business, but for every business. It’s been an interesting year-and-a-half. I’m ready for some good, positive stuff.



Weekly: Have you kept up with B&B or your B&B co-stars?

Kanan: I haven’t watched B&B in so long, but I was at a lunch a month-and-a-half ago and I was talking to someone in front of my car. I was like, “I think Jack Wagner (Nick) just walked past me,” and it was Jack. We caught up for 15 minutes. It’s such a mercenary business, in that you become close with people you work with, and then everyone moves on. You hold the memories and everything, but that’s the difficult part of the business. You can work really closely with people for a long time, and [then] that isn’t there anymore. But you go on to bigger and better things.



Weekly: Like your play! And whenever you do one project, it inevitably springboards into another.

Kanan: Work begets work!



It’s Just Sex is playing through Dec. 28 at the Two Roads Theatre in Studio City, Calif. Visit the Two Roads Theatre page at nohoartsdistrict.com for more information on tickets and showtimes. No patrons under 18 will be admitted to the performance!

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