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Carlo Rota has a prolific prime-time career that includes high-profile roles on shows like 24 and Jane The Virgin, but he was a soap opera virgin until General Hospital tapped him to play the role of mega-menace Sidwell, who has both Lucky and Holly on the ropes. “It’s just been a joy to go on set every day,” says the actor, who checked in with Soap Opera Digest about diving in to daytime.
Soap Opera Digest: You’re far from a showbiz newcomer, but this is your first soap job. What has it been like thus far?
Carlo Rota: It’s been a revelation to me! I thought I knew the business, but my first day on General Hospital, I realized, “No. No, you don’t know the business. You’re a child!” Because it’s just a different thing — it’s a different animal and the pace is breakneck. I said to Lisa [Booth], who is in casting there at General Hospital, “I’m gonna get T-shirts made, and they’re gonna say General Hospital on the front and ‘Off book [actor-speak for having scripts memorized] or die!’ is gonna be on the back!” It’s really been exhilarating in many ways because of the pace and the fact that you’re painting an image, and it’s as if you’ve got one chance to paint it, and then that’s it! Whatever you put on the canvas, that’s gonna be your image — because when you do shows in other mediums, and in film, particularly, you can often just go, “I need another take, I didn’t get to where I wanted to go.” But on daytime, there’s just no time to do that. When I was told about it, I didn’t quite understand it. And then that first day was just a blur. I came home, my wife [actress Nazneen Contractor] was all excited: “So, how was it? What happened?” I said, “I cannot tell you because I do not remember a thing!” It was as if I was anesthetized for the hours I was on set and then I got home and I didn’t remember anything! And then on the following days, I started to get used to that pace and grappling with it and then I actually started to enjoy it! It’s like jumping off a cliff and there’s something about that that I find thrilling. I haven’t felt like that kind of thrill performing in a long time. I liken it to the closest TV gets to being like live theater. I think unless you do it, you can’t really understand this type of television show. I would watch daytime television and think, “Oh, okay, they just go in and do their thing, whatever.” But no, it takes a sizable amount of skill. I mean, the people I’m working with, I’m actually amazed at how they’re able to bring a performance that resonates. I marvel at their ability. They are fantastic professionals, they really are.
Digest: Had the idea of you doing a soap ever come up before in your career?
Rota: No! What happened was, I auditioned for Frank [Valentini, executive producer] in October of ’23 for a completely different role, and it was my first and last in-person audition since the start of the pandemic. [Since 2020], they’ve all been either self-tapes or Zoom — mostly self-tapes, many, many, many self-tapes [laughs]. My manager calls me and says, “Look, I have this audition for you for General Hospital. I know I went in, I met everyone. They were so welcoming and I realized then how much I missed auditioning in the flesh, so to speak. It’s such a beautiful event, you know? You’re performing in front of people, in front of live bodies; you can actually hear a reaction, you can maybe hear some laughter, and the self-tape business removes you from that. Anyway, I went in and auditioned and I loved the audition. I said, “Frank, this is the first time I’ve auditioned in front of people in a long time, and I loved it! Thank you so much for having me in.” But then, you know, nothing happened. Then, out of the blue, a couple of months ago, my manager calls me and says, “Oh yeah, there’s a role for you on General Hospital. I said, “What?!” And then it went from there. My first day, everyone was super-welcoming on set, and I was lucky enough to work with Jonathan Jackson [Lucky], who’s been doing this for a long time, and honestly, I’ve loved it! It’s just been a joy to go on set every day.
Digest: I’ve heard a lot of actors describe how confusing the flow of a taping day can be to navigate at first. Were you like a deer in the headlights on your first day?
Rota: That’s putting it mildly! Lisa [Booth] did spend a bunch of time on the phone with me giving me the rundown on everything, and that was really an excellent way of easing me into it. So, I knew a little bit about what was going on, but yes, you’re right — maybe “deer in the headlights” is putting it mildly, even! Because for the first time in a long time, I felt that beautiful feeling of anxiety and nervousness that you really do want, you know? It puts you on edge and I feel like you’re always doing your best when you can ride that, and it disappears if you’re just self-taping at home or if you’re doing something that you’ve done before and the pace is really slow, etc. So this was actually a lovely feeling of anxiety. I don’t know if many people feel that they feel a lovely feeling of anxiety, but I do because it just reminds me that I’m alive. And you want to feel alive when you’re performing; you want to feel present. With Jonathan, he was very relaxed, and he was very aware of the fact that I may not have been so relaxed! So he was amazing, telling me, “Don’t worry about this, don’t worry about that, don’t stress.” My first few scenes with him were fantastic. Then, of course, with Emma [Samms, Holly], same thing. She was also incredible, and very welcoming and aware of the fact that I was new. So, these are great people to start working with! And then subsequent to that, I had scenes with Steve Burton [Jason] and Finola Hughes [Anna] and again, these are phenomenal performers. They’re at the top of their craft and it’s great to see and great to be thrust into a world where you can aspire, right? And that’s really what has been happening on set, you know? I go in, I look at them and, and I go, “Oh, that’s what I’m going to aspire to do — I’m going to aspire to be as present and to give that kind of performance in the allotted time.”
Disney/Christine Bartolucci
Card Shark: Rota as Sidwell opposite Emma Samms (Holly) and Jonathan Jackson (Lucky).
Digest: Emma Samms had some high praise for you when I last spoke to her — she said you play a nuanced villain and bring shadow and interest to the character.
Rota: That is super high praise. I’m gonna take that and put it in my pocket! I’m thrilled to hear that.
Digest: Tell me more about your experience with Steve and Finola.
Rota: Well, the more I get to know Steve, the more I realize he’s an entertainment onion! There’s, like, so many sides to him. He does his job fantastically on the show, but he’s also performing in other things and he has a podcast and does on-stage stuff and he’s a musician and he’s a comedian. But he brings all of that and he really centers it, I feel like, with his character with Jason on General Hospital — and it’s quite a fiery little center he’s able to keep burning in the scenes that we have together! He’s still; it’s almost like he’s an observer and he doesn’t say a great deal, but his presence is always palpable, right? It’s always there. And then with Finola, I mean, she’s amazing! She’s got so much dialogue, which she delivers with an ease, and she also has this ability to lighten things up and reach different heights. It’s really a pleasure sparring with her in that way, in the scenes we have, because we do have quite a bit of sparring coming up. I’m so impressed with the professional attitude they bring to this genre, this very special genre. They really do deliver the goods. It’s great to see and it’s great to be acting opposite them.
Digest: I feel like you’re getting an education in something daytime fans know, which is that even though soaps get made fun of a lot, there are some incredibly talented people working in the genre.
Rota: I think there’s a huge amount of snobbery involved in the belittling of this particular genre. You know, I’ve watched the show with my mother-in-law, who’s visiting from Toronto. She’s a huge fan of the show. She’s told me everything about who’s doing what to who, who’s had affairs with who, whose child this person is. She knows everything! And certainly, there’s no other medium on television that is as productive [in terms of episode output] and there’s so much stuff in them — there’s so much to see, there’s so many storylines to follow. I’m a convert! As you can tell, I’m completely converted. It’s not that I belittled it before, I just never considered it. I’ve never watched it, and so I have no clue! I think people that want to speak about it negatively often aren’t people who are watching it. I’m so impressed at the industriousness of this genre, that they manage to make so much television in such a small amount of time. It’s really quite amazing.
Digest: Let’s chat about Sidwell a bit. How have you approached bringing him to life?
Rota: Well, I should say that the majority of my résumé has been me playing villainous characters. My mother, who I miss dearly, she would be like, “Carlo, why are you always playing such a bad man?! Why?” And I don’t know, it’s something about my look, I guess. I like to sometimes say, “Maybe it’s baldism,” you know? That characters who are bald and who have facial hair and speak with an accent are quite necessarily evil. I don’t know. But those are the roles that I have traditionally been given and I have tried to make them as interesting as possible. The truth of the matter is, I think I’ve made a career of it, of playing the quote-unquote baddie. And when it comes to bad people, I think the real bad people of the world don’t wake up in the morning and go, “Oh, I’m a bad person! I’m evil!” They wake up in the morning and go, “I’m just me,” and they go about their business. You cannot be so evil in your outlook and in your demeanor that nobody approaches you. You have to be approachable, you know? And in fact, the real evil people of this world have often been the boy next door who you never think could do anything wrong because they don’t look evil. So I’ve always tried to make the characters I play the opposite, sometimes, to the writing. I want them to be approachable, I want them to be charming. I had an acting teacher in Toronto who gave me some great advice very early on when he said, “You know, Carlo, you do present yourself physically as someone who could be quite intense and aggressive. So the best thing you can possibly do is just always, in the back of your mind, know that you have two young daughters at home and you’re a loving father, right?” I never quite understood it. I would try and do it. But then when I started having kids I realized, “Yes, that’s what you do. You’re just a dad who loves his children and then you go on set and you perform their writing, and hopefully, the combination of the two means that the character, as the lovely Emma quite kindly said, is nuanced.
Digest: I was observing some of the comments General Hospital fans were making online when you started airing. A lot of them were very excited to have you on board because they recognized you from your other projects. What would you like to say to the GH fans out there?
Rota (laughs): Here’s my message to the General Hospital audience: “I will attempt to respect and embrace you as warmly as possible in the confines of my villainy.”
