Grade A

GH's Classy A Martinez Chalks Up His Successful Soap Return to Lessons Learned and A Lucky Break

by Kristin Gallagher, SOD, '00

Thanks to Rosie in Australia!

    Having long ago made his name in daytime as the noble Cruz Castillo -- one half of Santa Barbara's reigning supercouple, along with Marcy Walker (ex-Eden, SB; now Liza, All My Children) -- A Martinez is hardly a soap novice.  Of course, returning to the game, not only after a seven-year hiatus, but also as a new character (Roy) on a new show (General Hospital), has sometimes proved, well, humbling to the widely respected actor...as he is the first to admit.

    "There's so much less rehearsal time on GH than there was on SB," he smiles.   "And that's hard to get used to.  I played a scene yesterday where my character defused a bomb, and it involved a lot of ad-libbing; it was pretty complicated.   And I did a version of it where, at the end, in the ultimate moment, I didn't cut the wires, because in my mind, we were still rehearsing it.  But everyone else in the building, including all the people in the booth, were expecting that to be the take (laughs).  The camera was rolling and when I faked cutting the wires at the end and, you know, seemed to be pretty pleased with myself, there was this long, awkward silence before everyone went, 'Uh, A...did you forget to actually cut the wire (laughs)?'"

    On the whole, however, such occurrences are rare.  "Very little of what has gone wrong has been obvious to people," assures Martinez, "so that's a blessing.  And the grace here is that there are so many people who have already mastered the pace and the techniques, so you just try to tuck yourself in to the flow and be as prepared as you possibly can when you walk in the door.  I've gotten to work with Tony (Geary, Luke) and Jackie (Zeman, Bobbie) and Genie (Francis, Laura), and all of them are utterly at ease in this format, so I've just been trying to find the vibe and jump right in."

    Obviously, Martinez is doing something right, judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction he's gotten both on-screen and off since his October 1 "debut."  "It seems like the vibe in the building is really positive," he confirms.  "And I've been given printouts from Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards that have been very supportive and enthusiastic.  I'm just awfully thankful that the reintroduction of this character was designed so intelligently that he's been hard not to take to heart."

    Not that the physical similarities between Martinez and his predecessor, Asher Brauner, have hurt.   "Some guy who I met in the building said, 'Oh, it's good to see you came back'," laughs Martinez good-naturedly.  "So I thought, 'Well, yeah, that's one way of looking at it.'  That's a good sign when someone who's been here such a long time obviously bought it.  It's very cool."

    Cool, too, is the serendipitous path Martinez suddenly found himself on about two years ago that eventually led him to GH.   It started with a chance encounter with Zeman in a Ben & Jerry's ice cream store in which the actress suggested Martinez look into the possibility of an opportunity at GH.  "I've always had a lot of respect for the show," he admits.  "But the moment of running into Jackie...She planted the seed for me to come to (GH)."

    As a result, Martinez picked up the phone to call the show's head writer, Robert Guza, Jr., with whom he had developed a friendship while Guza served as a writer on SB.  "Seeing Jackie immediately led to calling Bob and having lunch and both of us declaring that we would like to see this happen if it were possible at some point in time," reports Martinez.   "It was basically about reaffirming our respect for one another, and saying, 'What's going on?  Could there be something?'"

    The answer, it would soon seem, was yes, thanks in part to another felicitous encounter last May.  "I was in New York at the Emmys," he explains, "and they had that end of the millennium thing where they honored all of the people who had won Emmys over the years.  And that gave me the chance to talk to Tony (Geary) for the first time.  Afterwards, I got to spend about half an hour with him and we just got to know each other a little bit.  I mean, I had heard about him for years. (Martinez's good friend and One Life to Live Executive Producer) Jill Phelps was real close to him when she was (executive producer of) Santa Barbara, so I've been hearing Tony stories for years.  But to actually get to know him was great."

    This, in turn, led to another confab with Guza.  "I came back to town and met with Bob again," recalls Martinez.  "He laid out the idea for resurrecting Roy and it seemed thrilling.   Then I got to meet (Executive Producer) Wendy (Riche), and she was very enthusiastic.  So getting this role wasn't even about a moment.  It was just a whole series of things that sort of led in a single direction.  And now I have this great job!"

    What makes this job even more desirable to Martinez is that it's located in L.A., which meant not having to uproot his family.  "What I've been looking for is something that would feel good and be steady and be in Los Angeles," remarks Martinez.  "And GH totally fills that bill.  It's not that it's a soap, it's just a good show.  One of the hardest things about this career is you have to spend so much time without a job.   And when you have young kids, it's tough.  The difficulty of never knowing what the financial picture is going to look like six months from now starts to wear on you.  So I feel very happy to have come in out of that storm for a while and found a place where you can get a paycheck on a regular basis."

    Martinez learned this lesson well following the cancellations of SB in 1992.  While he went on to a two-season stint on L.A. Law, the subsequent years he spent "freelancing" prompted him to re-evaluate his career goals.  "When I was younger, I had a big appetite to have this career push me through some mythical ceiling," he shares.  "I guess you want to become a big movie star and that means you will be perceived as being worth remembering.  But as time goes on, and, especially in my case when I became a parent, it starts to shift.  You think about the career more as a vehicle to shelter a family.  And you start to focus on the need to deliver your kids into adulthood intact, with the right tools in place and with a sense of optimism.  So it sort of takes you off the hook in terms of feeling disappointed about all those big parts and big movies you never got.  It becomes much more about the long run and being able to continue to have something worthwhile to offer rather than how big you can get."

    None of which comes without intensive self-scrutiny.  "I had a real strong sense earlier in the decade that I was in desperate need of improvement," he continues.  "I had to lift my game.  Some of the experiences I had in the early '90s in doing certain TV movies and gigs left me with a strong sense of needing to get a better command of my craft.  So I've worked hard through these past few years to get better at it.  And I think it's paid off.  I mean, it's paid off in helping me get more work, and I feel it's paying off now, because you really need to be flexible and quick with how you deal with the various challenges that come up (in this genre)."

    Which, as we've learned by his bomb-defusing skills, Martinez has learned to handle with aplomb.  "There was a lot of noise made about my coming here, for which I'm thankful," he confides.   "But I do feel the need to do well.  I was a little worried that the pace would prove a little too quick, but I feel like I'm able to handle that on a pretty good level now.  I know that had I not gotten into the right situation, I could have squandered all of the good will that I've earned (in daytime) and been revealed to be not-such-hot-stuff after all."  Smiles Martinez, "It took a while for this to fall in to place, but I know I made the right decision."

Just the facts:

Birthday:  September 27

Married...With Children:  Martinez has been wed to wife Leslie for 17 years; they have a son, Dakota, 13, and two daughters, Devon, 10, and Ren, 6.

Pop Fly:  Martinez is the coach of Cody's baseball team.  "I really can't get enough of the game, and it's meant a lot to my son."

Don't Fret, No pets:  "No pets -- my wife and I are hanging on by a thread as it is (laughs).  We're real tired."

Sunset Cruz:  Martinez portrayed Santa Barbara's Cruz Castillo from 1984-92, and won an Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy in 1990.

Last TV Stint:  Martinez had a recurring role on NBC's Profiler.

For the Love of Acting....Though Martinez was first drawn to acting in junior high, it wasn't until he got to high school that he became, shall we say, attracted to the craft.  "I had let acting go in high school," recalls Martinez.  "I got involved with sports and I was playing in a band.  But then I started meeting some of the girls who were in the theater department and I started thinking, 'I'd like to get to know these girls better (laughs).' For sixth period, you could either be in sports or in drama, so sure enough, I picked drama -- and thank God."  Adds Martinez with a laugh, "It was not a noble reason for getting into acting, but it was a good move."

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