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Present Tense: Is the honeymoon over for Chanel (Raven Bowens) and Johnny (Carson Boatman)?
Chanel’s Days of our Lives past with Alex – the twosome previously had a threesome with Chanel’s ex, Allie – has been hovering over her marriage to Johnny since the pair were cast as lovers on Body and Soul. As the soap’s director, Johnny has had a difficult time coping with the sexual chemistry between his wife and her leading man and hasn’t reacted well. Raven Bowens (Chanel) chatted with Soap Opera Digest about the soap-within-a-soap plot, the challenges of playing it, and the impact their workplace tension is having on Johnny and Chanel.
Soap Opera Digest: Were you surprised when Chanel went from baker/entrepreneur to actress?
Bowens: Oh my God, I was so surprised. We started with the idea before when Chanel was going to play Celeste in Johnny’s movie, and she was this surprisingly talented actress. The transition went seamlessly, because Chanel’s an empath. That’s a consistent throughline for her. I feel like that is why she’s able to just jump into characters and storylines when it comes to Body and Soul. It’s very easy for her to connect to people and feel the emotions of people in her life.
Digest: Is there any difference between being an actress playing a role, and playing an actress who’s creating an entirely different character?
Bowens: Yes. One of the things about acting in general that my acting coach always says is that the actor has to be smarter than the character. So it’s like you have to outsmart your [character] in a way. I have to know what Chanel doesn’t know, and I also have to know who Faith is, but Chanel doesn’t. It’s kind of a trickle-down effect to where I had to make different choices because I have to think it’s three different people: There’s Raven, there’s Chanel, and there’s Faith. So as an actress playing a character on a show who’s playing an actress, I have to make sure there’s more of a variety in what those three things look like… I did not want Faith to be Chanel. I wanted her to be different.
Digest: Was this something of a challenge for you as an actress?
Bowens: Yes and no. We get our scripts so quickly and we have to move so fast so that we don’t get a lot of time to prepare. But I had just finished doing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at my acting school. I had done a showcase, and I had done a scene from [that play]. So I had the character that I had created, Maggie the Cat, and I pulled from what I had created in class with my acting coach. I kind of incorporated that into the role of Faith because I was like, “What am I going to do with Faith?” I couldn’t think [of what to do], and then I decided, “You know what? I’m going to make her like Maggie.”
Digest: Since Faith came into the mix and you started sharing scenes with Robert Scott Wilson (Alex), who’s playing her love interest, Arrow, it’s stirred up some conflict for Johnny and Chanel. What are your thoughts on that?
Bowens: I’m always super-excited to see where they’re going to take [Johnny and Chanel]. Right when this started, I was like, “Oh yeah. This is perfect, elevated drama. There’s going to be some distortion of reality, lines blurring and blending and all that cool stuff.” We did end up having a lot of that, a lot of miscommunication.
Digest: Initially, Chanel was anxious about the prospect of filming love scenes with Alex. Then Johnny was jealous when Chanel and Alex posed for a sexy photo shoot together. How is all this affecting Chanel?
Bowens: Chanel is not an [experienced] actress when she comes in to the role, so she was a little apprehensive. But as she came to terms with how things were actually going to go, did some research, and got some understanding, she became okay with it. But then it ended up making Johnny uncomfortable, and his discomfort rubbed off on her.
Digest: Johnny even went to so far as to ask Leo to change Alex and Chanel’s scenes. What effect is all this going to have on Johnny and Chanel as a couple?
Bowens: It makes Chanel feel like Johnny doesn’t trust her. It makes Chanel feel like her relationship is in jeopardy. It makes her feel like Johnny has this insecurity that kind of came out of left field. He has never been jealous of her and Alex, but now, all of a sudden he is. Johnny’s the director. He should be guiding Chanel, but instead he’s doing things behind her back and not respecting her as a creative. He’s also being unprofessional. It creates more anxiety around the love scenes Chanel is going to have to do with Alex, because she’s afraid that her relationship with her husband could be in jeopardy. And it’s all because of [a job] that Johnny got her into in the first place.
Digest: Last question. What’s it like working with Carson Boatman (Johnny) as opposed to Robert Scott Wilson (Alex)?
Bowens: They’re such different actors. With Carson, I’m very used to him. I’m very comfortable with him. I feel like we have a rhythm. We have a dynamic. With Rob, he’s a little bit more surprising for me. I think maybe because I’m not used to him. There’s a spontaneity that comes out a little bit more when we’re doing our scenes, because we’re still figuring each other out as people and scene partners. We don’t know each other very well at all. So there’s a lot of discovery that happens in our scenes.
