Despite his live theater training, David Andrew Macdonald has made his home in daytime
When GUIDING LIGHT's David Andrew Macdonald (Edmund) first left the halls of Juilliard,the most famous acting conservatory in the world, in 1991, he was fully committed to exploring the stages of live theater for the rest of his life. While a several short stints in daytime television supplemented his paychecks, the actor remained eager to stay true to his theatrical roots.
But after several years of living on his meager earnings, a dose of the real world — and thoughts about his future — hit. Suddenly, committing himself to a contract soap role didn't sound half as bad as Macdonald originally thought. "I've never jonesed to be on an A-list Hollywood film actor," he admits. "If it happens someday, great, but it's never been one of my goals. I realized a few years ago that my ambitions really were not to be a huge public figure always on the cover of entertainment magazines, but to live and raise a family in the New York area. To live out in L.A. and try to find work is not what I want to do.
"If you're going to stay in New York and be a working actor in a way that will allow you to raise a family well," continues the new dad, whose wife, Nicolette, gave birth to their first child, son Ian, in October, "there's really no other choice than working in daytime."
Opening The Doors To Daytime
A growing sense of cynicism about a theater actor's life contributed to Macdonald's change of heart. "Things have tilted West in terms of productions for years now," Macdonald reveals. "New York has not only been bled dry, but has allowed itself to be bled dry, in terms of talent."
Just seven months before ANOTHER WORLD's 1999 cancellation, Macdonald signed his first contract soap role, in a dual role as time travelling scientist Jordan Stark and his modern-day alter ego David Halliday. "I looked forward to the idea of getting up and going to the 'office' every day," he chuckles. "It's kind of the middle-class existence that I had grown up with. The daily routine and security were fun, the paycheck was nice, and I met a lot of really great people. So it was fun for me."
Turning A Deaf Ear
As a Juilliard-trained actor, Macdonald has sometimes felt that his professional decisions have been subject to the impression by both the general public and the entertainment industry that daytime actors are "raw. They kind of pooh-pooh them. Please. I'd like to see Keanu Reeves walk in and do a tenth as good of a job as the vast majority of people I've worked with," Macdonald argues. "You have to look at that part of society and say, 'Go ahead. Have that impression of me. I don't care.'"
If Macdonald sounds blasé, it's because he feels that perception will never change. "If people stop pooh-poohing daytime, they'll start pooh-poohing primetime. Then they'll go on to pooh-pooh something we create in the future called Internet time," he shrugs. "It's important for people to have something to look down on. And they do it constantly. Its such a subjective business that people need something more to classify everyone they run into. So be it." — Michelle Ann Moro
David Andrew Macdonald
