Prime-time players : Ally Walker
By Tom Stacy, Soap Opera Digest, 2017	Home   Cette page en Français

Where to catch her : On Ghosted, premiering on Sunday, October 1 on Fox.

Tell us about your character.

She's a control freak, so she's the straight man to all of the crazies. It's like being locked in the asylum - but fun.

We hear there's a lot of improv.

Yes. I was like, "Oh, I took a class in that... like 30 years ago !" I found the best improvisation for me was to react to them, so my deadpan became pretty good. I just look shocked all the time.

You're probably best known for Profiler, but you've dabbled in comedy with While You Were Sleeping and Moon Over Miami. Are you happy to be doing comedy again ?

I am, but I had to audition for this. I hadn't auditioned for anything in over 10 years. I was actually scarred, but then I remembered that it's acting. Either they're going to like the way you act or they're not, so just act and see how it goes. But, it was weird having 20 people in the room staring at you and you're like, "Yeah, I've been doing this before most of you were born."

Do you miss the Profiler days ?

No. I got worn out by Profiler. I couldn't handle the 16-hour days and being in every shot. I had just had a baby, and then I had another baby, and John (Landgraf, her TV producer husband) was starting to work on his career. I was the major breadwinner when we started and then it just became too much. But, it all worked out in the end.

You've come a long way since your Santa Barbara days.

I have. I have come a really long way, although we don't need in talk about how long (laughs). I was just talking about Santa Barbara with (co-star) Adam (Scott). We were talking about acting and we were both in Tell Me You Love Me together and the work was so dramatic and serious and I said to him, "You know, I started on a soap and honestly, that prepared me because we used to get 20 pages a night and had to constantly memorize and learn and be very serious, so when we did Tell Me You Love Me, it was like a walk in the park - except for the nudity part, which I didn't enjoy at all" (laughs).

What's your favorite Santa Barbara memory ?

I love A Martinez (ex-Cruz). I just came off of two years of working with him on Longmire. He and Marcy (Walker, ex-Eden) taught me how to act, because me and Robin (Wright, ex-Kelly) would be like, "What do we do ?" and they'd be like, "Line up over here (laughs) !" They were so great.