Bree For Two (Soap Opera Digest 5/24/05)
by Mike Bruno

Bree Williamson inherited Jessica when she first came to OLTL, but her current storyline gave her the chance to create a character that's all her own


Bree Williamson has had a grateful, positive outlook ever since she arrived in New York nearly two-and-a-half years ago to take over Jessica, formerly played by Erin Torpey. But it's hard to imagine that even she would've guessed at the time that she would be so happy about how things are going for her today.

In addition to enjoying life in a new apartment in one of Manhattan's prettiest, hippest, downtown neighborhoods, Williamson is in the middle of a front-burner storyline that enables her to follow in the footsteps of daytime legend Erika Slezak (Viki) by portraying a character suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

"It's been so much fun," Williamson raves over breakfast at a cozy, 24-hour restaurant near her apartment. "I left work last Friday and I was on a high. It was one of those days where I did a really good job and it felt really good. I just felt elated."

It's rare for people to be able to use the word "elated" to describe the way they feel about their job, but Williamson seems like she's hit her stride with Jessica and her alternate personality, the promiscuous bad girl, Tess. But like all of life's truly rewarding experiences, it didn't come together for Williamson overnight.

"I was never really intimidated until I started doing it," she recalls. "At first, I was like, 'Oh, that's cool, great.' It never really [sinks in] with me how much work things are gonna be. Whenever you start out any new storyline, there's always gonna be bumps in the road, especially when it's big and there are a lot of things that even the writers don't know. It can be really exciting nad hard, so at first, I was like, 'I can't do this. This is way too hard for me and everybody's just waiting for me to fail.' But then I went away to Costa Rica for a week [laughs], I got myself together and came back, and now I'm just having a good time."

To prepare for the DID role, Williamson contacted a friend who, like her, was a psychology major in college. She asked her pal to send anything she could find on the psychological disorder so that she could have a grasp of the medical condition her character was experiencing.

"But then I realized that soaps don't really follow exactly how it's medically supposed to be," Williamson shrugs, "which is fine because it's better for storytelling anyway."

So after abandoning the by-the-book strategy, the actress took a more internal approach and tried to create her new character as a reflection of the character she already knew.

"Obviously, she's a part of Jessica, so I use Tess as the opposite of what Jessica is," she explains. "It's a great storyline because everybody has a Tess in them or a Jessica in them, depending on what kind of person you are."

Of course, it didn't hurt having an Emmy-Award winning daytime vet on hand who basically invented the DID soap character.

"Erika is phenomenal about giving advice," Williamson gushes. "There was a scene one day, and I was having so much trouble with it. Bree -- not Jessica or Tess, but Bree -- had tears in my eyes because I was so upset I couldn't get it right. We just move so quickly in daytime; it was really upsetting. It was Tess pretending to be Jessica, and my first time playing that. It was really hard. Erika just took me aside and she saved the day. I did the scene and it was great and I felt wonderful about it. She just whispered something in my ear and it was awesome."

Williamson says that she will forever characterize her time at OLTL as pre- and post-Tess. She joined the show as a recast, and in time was able to make Jessica her own. But as satisfying as that experience has been, she wasn't given then chace to create a character from scratch until the DID story came along.

"Now, playing Tess, she's all mine," Williamson grins. "I learned a lot about the profession in terms of what choices you have to make to build a character. It's really fun building my own character. There's just so much to it, like with clothes and hair and makeup and body language between the two characters -- that's something that I'm still working on. I have to stand different when I'm Tess or my movements have to be different. To be strong when I'm Jessica is different than when Tess is bitching somebody out or being strong, so those differences between characters are really, really hard."

But Williamson is definitely up to the challenge. Despite knowing that her performance will inevitably draw comparisons to that of her on-screen mother, she is clearly having a ball experiencing this role, and she seems to be genuinely bursting with anticipation for the audience to witness the climax of the story.

"I hope that people are enjoying it," she offers. "It was a lot of pressure, at first, but I've stopped worrying about it. This is like Erika's or Viki's storyline, the one she won a huge amount of Emmys for, and now they're giving it to me, this little Canadian girl [laughs]. But I've stopped worrying about whether I'm gonna fail. I'm just gonna do it and have as much fun as I can."


JUST THE FACTS
Birthday: Decemeber 28
O Canada!: Although she originally comes from north of the border and frequently goes home to visit, Williamson only once uttered an "aboot" during her interview with Digest (and frankly, it was kinda sexy when she did).
Cold As Ice: Being from Canada, Williamson knows what a really bad winter actually is. "Everybody complained about the [New York] winter this year, but I didn't think it was that bad. I called my parents [in Canada] and they were like, 'It's 50 below!' It wasn't that cold here."
Roomies Till The End: Williamson shares a dressing room with Ilene Kristen (Roxy), who was recently bumped to recurring status. "Unfortunately, it's a little less often that I see her now. Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately a little less. It's okay, but it's...unfortunate [laughs]."
Her Cherie Amour: Williamson couldn't help herself from dancing at her table with Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" came on the restaurant's radio. "Stevie Wonder rocks! I like his older stuff, obviously. It got a little cheesy in the '80's."
Movin' On Down: Williamson is absolutely giddy about her Manhattan apartment. "I love it. I moved downtown, farther away from the studio, which is great, 'cuase when I leave the studio, it's like I'm very, very far away. It's a big break, whether it's just for the night or it's for the weekend."



Selfless Sister
A former women's studies student during her college years, Williamson still donates her time to a number of oranizations that promote women's issues. Recently, she and co-star Heather Tom (Kelly) took part in "Words of Choice" (www.wordsofchoice.net], a theatrical performance series in which an ensemble of actors weave together and perform various pro-choice activism writings. She also has been involved with Planned Parenthood for the past seven years, and lends her time to the United Nations Development Fund for Woman (UNIFEM), an organization promoting international grassroots women's activism.

"I'm not realy into being super-crazy busy with work all the time," Williamson reveals. "I like to have time to go home and see my family, and I like to have time for things like Planned Parenthood and other stuff like that."

On the surface, ficional soap operas and real-life political activism may seem like two very different things, but Williamson begs to differ. "They're very strongly related," she insists. "Soap operas are one of the last media that are geared toward women, so it's a really, really huge responsibility and a powerful voice in daytime for women. So yeah, it's a great thing and definitely a very valuble way to spend my time."

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