Soap Opera Digest: You’ve worked together on and off since 1987. Do you ever feel like an old married couple?
Judi Evans: Definitely sometimes. Don’t you, Wally?
Wally Kurth: Absolutely. But we really aren’t a married couple [because] we still love each other just as much as we did 36 years ago [laughs].
Evans: Probably more in some cases.
Digest: Judi was on DAYS first. Wally, did you screen-test with her?
Kurth: I just remember testing with Lisa [Trusel, ex-Melissa]. I was sent there for Lisa. She and I had a story for three or four months. Then they had me meet Adrienne in the park. That was something that I think was unplanned. They thought, “Wait a minute. Why don’t we put [them together]?”
Digest: Wally, were you aware that Judi had won an Emmy for her work as Beth on GUIDING LIGHT?
Kurth: Yes, I was. And I was a little intimidated, I have to say. I knew that she had been around a long time … had been around the block.
Evans: And I was intimidated because he came from Broadway.
Kurth: TV was completely new to me and here I was working with someone who had won an Emmy, so I trusted her and just followed her instincts. I knew that I could learn something from her. That was smart on my account. I was just saying, speaking about John Aniston [ex-Victor] in his tribute, that it was Judi and John that made me the TV actor I am today. They sort of set the bar. We worked together almost every day. I learned how to memorize lines, how to approach the work, how to be professional. Both of them were like mentors to me.
Digest: Did it take time to build a relationship and warm up to each other?
Kurth: I remember seeing Judi’s scenes with her father [Duke, played by James Luisi], so I had a glimpse of the trauma her character was going through. That was really smart of me to understand the story. Both of us had to evolve in order to come together. Justin had to get over his stuff, but it was mainly her stuff that she needed to get over and Justin helping her and being very empathetic. We really didn’t talk that much about it, did we Judi? I just trusted the work. This partnering stuff is like dancing. You don’t discuss the tempo of the music, you just start dancing to it. That’s sort of how we worked during this time.
Evans: And we trusted each other. We both liked each other enough and respected each other enough to trust each other. And it just happened.
Kurth: Judi is a very intuitive and instinctive actor, and I probably could get in my head a little more, like she does. So it was really good to move in that direction of, trust your instincts, go with who you’re working with. That helped me.
Evans: On the flip side, Wally made me think a lot more, which is great. To think more about [the work]. I learned a lot from him, too.
Digest: How has your relationship evolved over the years?
Evans: The best part for me is when we were working on different shows, we were still really good friends and still in contact. I think that says a lot about Wally as a person. I enjoyed his company even when we weren’t working together. I certainly enjoyed working with him in the beginning and until now. I always looked forward to seeing him. [Our relationship] has evolved as we as people have evolved. I believe we’ve evolved together.
Kurth: We’ve known each other coming on 36 years. This is our 36th year. So we’re old, and we also went to battle together. We went through a war together. We’ve been through it all. We’ve been through DAYS OF OUR LIVES. Judi went to ANOTHER WORLD. I went to GENERAL HOSPITAL. In my case, I went through some wives. She got married, and I’m married now. We had children. We’ve been through all of that stuff. When you have all that experience together, there’s a comfort, warmth and understanding that you just can’t gain without that time that we’ve spent together. There’s a nice, lovely maturity to our relationship that you can’t teach.
Evans: I love that, Wally. War buddies. That’s how I’m going to describe us from now on.
Digest: When you heard DAYS was killing off Adrienne, was there a part of you that was heartbroken and thought, “This is the end of a beautiful working relationship”?
Evans: From my end, definitely. I was devastated. It was the last thing I wanted. I loved working with Wally, and I loved playing Adrienne. So that was really hard. But for Wally it was a jumping-off point, because of the story he was able to play. And the way he played it was amazing. So it had its ups and downs.
Kurth: I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting it. Then it was like, “He’s going to be falling in love with Kayla and having a relationship with her?” From an actor’s standpoint I immediately started thinking of the creative challenges and was excited by them. I think I knew the same time I found out Adrienne was going to die that Judi would be coming back as Bonnie. So there was a part of me that felt confident I wasn’t going to stop working with Judi. And she wasn’t going to lose her job, so that was cool.
Digest: How did you feel when you heard they were pairing Bonnie and Justin?
Kurth: I figured it made sense. That didn’t surprise me. I knew that would be a challenge as well, for Judi especially, and for both of us. How do we make [a relationship] work with two different characters? And it really is two different characters for the audience. They’re looking at Justin, who’s now completely different from how they saw him with Adrienne. I feel like Justin has changed since he’s been with Bonnie. He’s kind of a different guy. Not different in a bad way, different in a good way.
Evans: There’s definitely a different dynamic.
Kurth: Bonnie brings out a quality in Justin that Adrienne didn’t. It’s more playful and a little more self-aware.
Evans: He doesn’t have to be the white knight all the time, coming to the rescue.
Digest: Any funny stories you can share from your years together at DAYS?
Kurth: Judi has a very blue sense of humor. I remember when I first met her she would tell jokes, and I’d be somewhat offended by the crudeness of them. I had no idea I was so prudish; that this young woman would offend me with her very crude, almost pornographic, sense of humor. She still has that raunchy sense of humor, and I still get a little shy and embarrassed by some of the things that come out of her mouth. I always want to defend her like a husband and say, “Honey, please. There’s a crew of men here. Be careful about what you’re saying.” That’s the one time where I become like a husband and a little judgmental of her.
Evans: [Laughing] And protective …
Kurth: That is a full confession that I’ve never admitted before.
Evans: That’s hilarious.
Digest: What are some storylines you’ve enjoyed during your tenure on DAYS?
Evans: I was just thinking the other day that I really liked the story when Justin was in a wheelchair. You had to overcome that. I really loved that story. I don’t know if you did, but I liked it a lot.
Kurth: You should say that on Twitter. They just posted a scene where I’m in the wheelchair, and I couldn’t even watch it. At the time I didn’t think it was bad. For some reason now when I think about it, it’s, “Hold on a second. I tried to kill Emilio.” The barn fell down on me, and I was paralyzed. Then I was rolling around in my wheelchair. But you know what? From an acting [standpoint], you’re right. That was a challenging storyline.
Evans: And you were great in it.
Kurth: Thank you. For me it was really that first year, going to Greece. It was just so much work. Our characters traveled through a lot of these stories pretty fast and pretty dramatically. It was one dramatic scene after the other. It was relentless, but it was really challenging. We’d finish one day, and I’d go sit in my car and study the lines for the next day. The amount of work was almost too much, but it was really thrilling.
Digest: What are your favorite Bonnie and Justin moments?
Kurth: Those very first scenes at the cemetery, where Justin was visiting Adrienne’s grave. Bonnie showed up, and Justin was like, “What the hell are you doing here?” It was going from, “I want to kill you,” to, “Oh, there’s a person underneath.”
Evans: I loved those too, definitely for storyline. I always like the scenes where Justin and Bonnie keep getting caught trying to do naughty things by the kids. That’s kind of funny.
Digest: Do you like how Bonnie and Justin evolved?
Kurth: Yeah. I thought that they could have taken a little bit longer to get them together. I think a lot of the beats, especially for Justin, happened off camera. The steps along the way for him to forgive Bonnie.
Evans: Bonnie had been so bad to Adrienne. She did really horrible things. In real life it would have taken a lot longer, but time is of the essence now with soaps. I get that. But I love working with Wally, so I was excited about it.
Digest: Anything else you’d like to add about the experience of playing a daytime couple for so long?
Evans: Everyone should be as lucky as I’ve been. The world would be a much nicer place if everybody was as lucky as I’ve been.
Kurth: I feel the same way. I was telling Judi that early on in my acting career, the first three women that I worked closely with were really difficult. It was really frustrating. I felt like it was not successful. There was a lot of drama and finger-pointing. I thought, “Oh, my God. I’m going to be dealing with what I assumed were irrational women for the rest of my career. Is it me? Is it the women that I’m working with?” Then I worked with Judi, and it was not that experience, obviously. It was just the opposite. I mean, Judi can be a little nutty, but she was not nutty in a bad way. I didn’t want to kill her [laughs]. I wanted to hug her. I lucked out by having a female partner that changed the way I look at acting.
Janet DiLauro
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