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Talking to OLTL's Matt Walton

Matt Walton (ONE LIFE TO LIVE’s Elijah) is as personable as he is handsome…and he is very handsome. Weekly caught up with him during a break at OLTL.Soap Opera Weekly: Is it as much fun to play evil Eli as it is to watch him?

Matt Walton: It is. It gets more fun all the time. It makes it difficult to resist forming an emotional bond with your character. This is the longest job I’ve ever had, the longest-lasting gig I’ve ever had with a group of people. All the things Eli has to do to children and babies, it’s taking its toll. All you want at the end of the day is for your family to be around at home and say, “Everything’s going to be okay.” I’ve been so blessed to have that here with these people, and that’s just getting richer all the time. I don’t know what my future’s going to be, but I sure would like to stay around. You know as well as I do the deeper and deeper into trouble Eli gets, the harder it’s going to be to get out, or at least be redeemed in any way.



Weekly: Are you still doing commercials?

Walton: Old Navy is an ongoing job. Cablevision [Walton is the Optimum spokesman] just bought another cable company out west, so their market is about to go semi-national, as opposed to local. I apparently tested well in Wyoming, so they’re gonna keep me on as spokesman. We’re in negotiations now for the terms of the next two years.
Weekly: That’s great news.

Walton: Yes — that helps with the home renovations. The most exciting thing career-wise is this Onion Sports Network that’s coming up. I don’t start shooting that until somewhere around Thanksgiving.



Weekly: How are your two children, Ava and baby Greyson? And how did you come up with the latter name?

Walton: My grandfather, who is my hero, his name was Joseph Grey Walton, and so we toyed with every form of Grey we could come up with just by itself, as a first name [or] middle name. We just swished Greyson around in our mouths for a while and settled on it. The middle name, James, is my wife’s father’s middle name, so we figured they are family names. If the kids grow up to not like their names, they can’t blame us. We didn’t invent them. But he’s a Greyson! He’s a blond, blue-eyed boy. He’s shyer than his sister already. I don’t know what that means, but he’s a good boy.



Weekly: And how’s Ava adjusting to being the big sister?

Walton: She is adjusting very well. I think if they were any closer in age, it would be more of a struggle. They’re far enough [apart] that she just started kindergarten this year, and the only issue she’s getting over is not being an only child. There’s no real competition between the two. My brother and I were a year-and-a-half apart — Irish twins, as they say — and we couldn’t be more different. And we did not get along. It wasn’t completely on purpose that we waited this long between two kids — it’s just how nature let it happen, but we’re glad.

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