|
On Bonnie’s (Napiera Danielle) first day of community service, she met a young girl named Sarah, played by daytime -- and show business -- newcomer Joanna HartsHorne. It wasn’t long before Sarah swept into Bonnie’s heart -- to the point where Jessica (Tamara Tunie) actually worried about her daughter getting too close too fast to the secretive teen. Is Jessica right to be worried? Is there more to Sarah than meets the eye? SoapCity sat down for a chat with the young actress, to get all the inside scoop!
SoapCityAlina: This is your first role in daytime. In fact, it’s one of your first roles ever. How did you get started in show business?
Joanna HartsHorne: I’ve basically been doing this since I was in the womb. My mom was an actress, and she was doing summer stock productions when I was still in her stomach. I started off mostly in community theatre, musical theatre. I’ve always wanted to do it professionally, but I wasn’t really sure if my schoolwork would interfere. I just decided to really go for it this year, and started auditioning professionally. I auditioned for a commercial and I got it. Then I auditioned for ATWT, and then I auditioned for another commercial. I had a call back for ATWT and I was on my way home in the car when they called me on my cell phone to say I’d gotten it. I was ecstatic. I was so excited. I ended up shooting the second commercial the day before my first day on ATWT.
SCA: How does your mom, the actress, feel about her little girl following in her footsteps?
JH: My mom isn’t an actress anymore, but she’s really supportive, the same as my dad. He’s a school teacher, so he has afternoons off and he drives me to work and audition a lot of times.
SCA: What was the scene you auditioned with for ATWT?
JH: When I was auditioning for the part, Sarah had stolen Curtis’s MP3 player. They ended up changing it, but I guess I’m a kleptomaniac. I have problems. Sarah is obviously troubled, but I don’t want to play her troubled and I don’t want her to be bad. She hasn’t been out a lot. She’s basically spent her life going from foster home to foster home. She hasn’t had a lot of relationships with kids her age, so she’s innocent in that way. But she’s also grown up because she’s street smart and she has to take care of herself. I can be tough sometimes, but I’m not exactly a tough kind of person. Sarah isn’t really either. I think we’re both sort of the same in that way.
SCA: What was your first day of work like, and how do you memorize all your lines?
JH: It was really short. I only had to say one word. I had to say, "Sarah." They had me sitting and reading a book, and Bonnie spilled all this food on the floor and I walked over and picked it up. I sat in my dressing room a while and I met some of the extras, the kids, and that was fun. We were the last on the list to shoot that day. We started shooting around four and it was really short. It was two really short scenes that took half an hour. Some days I talk a lot, and then some days I really don’t. But even when you’re not talking, you could still be in a long scene. I’m basically at the studio for half a day and then I go home. It’s like a five-hour day. And memorizing lines isn’t really that had. I just read it a lot, and I work at it the night before. Also, my parents help me with running lines. And if I have a problem with one of the scripts, like I don’t know what to do and I’m getting nervous, I bring it to my acting class and my teacher is really helpful.
SCA: Whom have you worked with so far on the show?
JH: Napiera Danielle (Bonnie), Tamara Tunie (Jessica), Peter Parros (Ben), Paul Taylor (Isaac), Réal Andrews (Walker) and Lamman Rucker (Marshall). The first day, I was intimidated by them, because they are really good. But it’s an honor to work with people like that. They were really nice and really helpful. There’s this one episode where I faint and I was having a lot of trouble fainting because, for some reason, it was just technically difficult, and I wanted it to look real. Paul and Napiera were helping me and they actually had me spinning on the set till I got dizzy. Napiera is so much fun.
To watch Joanna, as Sarah, charm her way into Bonnie’s heart, download the June 11 episode of ATWT, here!
Back to the Top
|
