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Eden Riegel on the return of (a hopefully steamier) “All My Children”

Soap audiences were introduced to Eden Riegel back in 2000 when she joined the cast of All My Children as Erica Kane’s daughter, Bianca Montgomery. Shortly thereafter, Bianca came out as a lesbian to her mother, and broke new ground in the medium of daytime television. Eden has played Bianca for over a decade, during which time she has been a thoughtful and supportive ally to the LGBT community. I had the pleasure of speaking with the very lovely and funny actress about the triumphant return of All My Children and the lasting impact the character of Bianca has had on fans and herself personally.

AfterEllen.com: You’ve always played Bianca with such grace and kindness; she’s easily the most likeable character in Pine Valley.

Eden Riegel: [Laughs] Yes, but that’s not really saying much, is it?

AE: Fans root for Bianca and have always seemed very protective over her as well. What do you think it is about this character that resonates so much with viewers?

ER: Well, I mean I guess it’s the same thing that resonates with me about her which is she has such a big heart and she is so brave. She was not only very brave about coming out, even though she knew it wouldn’t be an easy road for her with her mother. But she’s also just brave in matter of the heart. She’s had her heart broken over and over and over again; she’s had terrible things done to her and she still believes in the goodness of humanity and she sees people for the best parts of them. I have always thought that Bianca is, like, the person we wish we were [Laughs] and the person we try to be like. And that’s not to say that she’s a saint; she’s just got such a huge heart and she really cares about people and she doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk. She takes care of her friends and her family and the people around her. She has these very admirable qualities that people connect with.

AE: Your character has had such a lasting impact.

ER: Yes!

AE: I started watching All My Children when you came on the scene as Bianca, and came out. And I remember thinking, if Erica Kane can accept and embrace her lesbian daughter, this is going to give a lot of gays and lesbians the courage to come out themselves. But not only that, longtime viewers, parents, mothers, got to see Erica’s struggle in acceptance of her daughter. Did you all realize at the time what a huge cultural impact that this storyline would have and were you prepared for it?

ER: Hmm. No, I don’t think I knew what a huge impact it would have. I knew it was sort of a gamble because – as I’m sure you’re aware – soap audiences tend to sort of run the gamut. It’s not young urbanites. [Laughs] It’s people in middle America, you know, women who are mothers of multiple children and stay at home. Not necessarily the stereotype of somebody who would be so quick to embrace this character. So we knew that it might be a tough sell because if you’ve never met a gay person and maybe carry around some prejudices from your own youth and then all of a sudden your favorite character on daytime has a daughter who is gay. [The show] is part of your daily consumption and it has so many pleasant associations for you. I mean a lot of people who watch the show, watch it because they watched it with their grandmothers or their mothers or they’ve watched it for 30 years, and they watched the characters grow up. People have a very personal attachment to these shows.

So I think even when it was revealed that the character would be a lesbian, a lot of people didn’t like the idea. And it was only because the show told the story with such respect, and such sensitivity, and they really went the extra mile. Agnes [Nixon] was on call and she was helming the story herself and obviously she knows how to tell a story better than basically anyone. And so the story meant a lot to us personally, everybody who behind the scenes, including the producers and the writers, even the camera guys. I mean we all took it very seriously, and we put our heart and soul into it. Certainly for Susan [Lucci] and I, it was a labor of love.

And I think that people just couldn’t help but relate to this very human story. And because it was Erica going through it, they immediately cared. And they wanted to see these two women who loved each other deeply, reconnect. I got letters from young people who said, “My mother couldn’t accept me and after she watched Erica go through the journey of accepting her daughter, she called me and now we are close again. Now we watch the show together.” And I would get these letters and, like, weep in my dressing room.

AE: That’s so amazing, being such a part of this cultural, historical moment, and really impacting people’s lives. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.

ER: Oh, it was huge. It was very important for me. So I was grateful to reach anybody with the story, you know, even if we reached a handful of people. But when it became – when it had such an impact on the culture, I was delighted to be a part of it and to tell a story I thought was so brave and worthy and to be a part of a really good, sort of, example on television. At the time there really weren’t that many. It was very new at the time, and it was the first example on daytime certainly. So when it became a cultural phenomenon, I was overwhelmed by it but also just very proud. I wanted more eyeballs on us because I thought we were doing something right.

AE: And now AMC and One Life to Live are entering web series format which is very exciting and will hopefully not only give loyal fans back the soaps they love, but attract new viewers. What can fans expect from this new adventure?

ER: I think, number one, they can expect the shows that they knew and loved. Even though it is sort of a groundbreaking new platform for the shows, the shows are very much at heart what they always were. And I think even more so because we don’t have to compete. We aren’t on television, which is expensive, so we don’t have to compete so much for viewership. When we were on ABC, it became about the stunt of the week or about this murder mystery or whatever. We had to do exciting, flashy things that we hoped audiences would come to, and we had to compete with primetime and compete with cable.

Now, we have our own little nook, we have our own little niche carved out for ourselves here on the Internet. I think that [producers] Prospect Park figured out there was a very sort of rabid, vocal, excited fan base who would seek the show out on a new media platform. Even though maybe they’ve never watched shows on the internet. I mean, I’m sure some of our viewers have never watched a television show on their computer, but they’re going to seek it out because of their intense love and passion for our show. So I think because the fans are the ones that made this happen single handedly, by their sheer force of will – I think that Prospect Park understands that’s the reason we’re doing this and that they want to cater to them and what they loved about the shows. The shows will be a bit shorter, although not that much shorter because on TV you have to contend with commercials.

AE: So they are about 30 minutes long now, right?

ER: Yeah, yeah, exactly. They will feature the core characters and deal with relationships and the normal family drama that soaps are famous for. A lot of the scenes reminded me kind of the heyday of All My Children, when you could have real conversations about interesting subjects.

AE: I watched the preview, and thought to myself, this feels familiar and brand new at the same time.

ER: Yeah! Oh, I’m so happy to hear you say that because that’s how it felt to me too.

AE: What was it like stepping onto that soundstage again, but having it be kind of different?

ER: [Laughs] Well, I mean stepping back on to that soundstage even though it’s all completely brand new and still smells of paint and everything’s bright and shiny, it is familiar because it was all of our people. It was not just the cast that returned, but also all the producers, and most of the writers and the camera guys and the stage manager. I mean, everybody. The lighting designer and the prop guy [Laughs]. It’s a few new faces, but primarily it’s our family back together again. It was really emotional for me to go on set again. It felt, you know – it felt so right.

AE: You played Bianca for a long time but you stepped out of the role in 2010, and while your were gone Bianca got involved in a friendship/relationship with Marissa. Minx, I believe they are referred to as by the shippers.

ER: The greatest.

AE: (Bianca) always had the best shipper names!

ER: [Laughing] I know!

AE: You had BAM and now Minx.

ER: That one takes the cake.

AE: Fans really took to the couple and the cliffhanger at the AMC really left everything in the air. The web series picks up 5 years later. Now I know you can’t divulge any spoilers, but what can you tell us? All we really want to know is, will Bianca finally get a chance to be happy?

ER: Um, well, given that it’s a soap opera, my guess is no. Or she will be for a day and a half.

I mean, she has a family. She has her two daughters. She’s a mom of a teenager now, and you know that brings a lot of headaches as you can imagine, but also a lot of joy. So she has moments of happiness [Laughs], but her life continues to be very dramatic. There is fallout from the big cliffhanger event that happened five years ago in soap-time. She’s still dealing with the consequences, and those consequences sort of ricochet throughout all of Pine Valley. Everybody’s sort of still recovering. We get to jump forward so the audience can kind of rediscover where their characters are and what’s happened, and that’s exciting because you’re watching trying to figure out “Oh my goodness, so that happened and that happened!” It’s not a lot of exposition because we get this fun jump forward, and Bianca is definitely still going through it. Prepare for drama, but there is always a glimmer of hope. I have feeling with the slightly relaxed standards and practices on the internet, we are allowed to show a little more skin and say some slightly more risqué words. I have a feeling they will not pass up the opportunity to see Bianca in romantic situations, because who doesn’t want to see that?

AE: Absolutely, well I can tell you, AfterEllen sure does!

ER: [Laughing] I’ll bet!

All My Children premieres today, April 29th and will be available on Hulu and iTunes. Check back later this week for Dana’s “All My Children” recap.

Bostonians can currently check out Eden in The Theatre at Boston Court’s production of American Misfit, now through May 12.

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