Grant Aleksander made his daytime television debut as GL's Phillip Spaulding in 1982, and has played the role on and off ever since.
Advertisement
Advertisement
He received his first Emmy nomination, for Outstanding Supporting Actor in 1998, and his second, for Outstanding Lead Actor in 2003. This year, Grant is nominated again in the Lead Actor category. SoapCity sat down with Grant the day the nominations came out, to get his immediate reaction.
SoapCityAlina: Which episode did you submit to the pre-screening panel that earned you the nomination?
Grant Aleksander: It starts off with Phillip supposedly having a meeting with Alan. Alan has brought in Rick, Dr. Langham, and Gus, and they're having a preliminary intervention where they're trying to get Phillip to put himself into the hospital. After, he goes to Towers, has a panic attack, and ends up checking himself into the hospital. A lot of different things going on in the episode. When you're asked to submit something, I always try to find an episode where the writing is good. Because even if you don't do a particularly good job with it, the writing makes you look better. I'd always rather have a well-written episode than anything else, and I really thought this was a well-written episode.
SCA: How did you find out about your latest nomination?
GA My wife put on The Today Show. I was just sort of listening for other people that I think have done really good work on my show. I'm happy for the people that I work with that do get nominated for something, and then I'm sad for the people that I think have done really great stuff that didn't get a nod. I'm always excited for Ron (Raines; Alan), because he's just one of the best guys in the world. As far as our show is concerned, Ron is probably the furthest from his character. He's just the nicest, sweetest, kindest man, so it tells you a lot about him that he can play a character that is so 180 degrees from what he is.
SCA: Which two episodes will you be submitting to the Blue-ribbon panel for your own nomination?
GA: I let my wife pick them. And we've got a great guy, David, down in the production office who is great at that. I don't like to watch myself anyway. It's a frightening thought to sit down and watch a bunch of tape and figure out whether or not you were doing a good job on a particular day. For the pre-noms, David got five or six episodes that he had put on a tape and I just gave it to my wife because she knows me and she knows when I'm being sincere and I just sort of let her pick. So I'll do that again.
SCA: It's so politically correct to insist that it's an honor just to be nominated. But, do you really want to win?
GA: I think that, unless you say, "No, I don't want to be a part of it at all," you're a liar if you say you don't (want to win). So, there's a part of me that does and I think the trick of it, if you can, and it is a hard thing to do, is not to make it too important. I really don't believe that you can say that you can give somebody an acting award in a vacuum. You need the writing and you need the other people that you are working with. Some great moment with you is usually the product of something that someone in your work is giving you. So to try to quantify it as your own talent that exists in and of itself and deserves recognition, is to me sort of silly. But if you put that aside, and you just say: ok, here's a day where the story was about my character and I think I did a pretty good job, looking at it in that light, then yes, it would be a really nice pat on the back. And, sure, everybody would like to get up and thank their wife for being the most wonderful person in the world.
SCA: If you do win, in addition to your wife, who else will you thank?
GA: I'll thank all the people I work with and have worked with, because I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I've been doing this for over 20 years. I've never been out of work, except when I've wanted to be out of work. I've already been more fortunate than I have any right to be. I would love the opportunity to stand up with a bunch of people watching just to say how lucky I feel for that, particularly for being able to share my life with my wife. We've been together for almost 25 years now. And that would be all I would say.
