Joanna Coons: How are all the Viscardis doing this week? I heard you all had colds, the flu.... We're fine. I'm still getting over a bit of a chest cold, but I'm feeling much better.   You sound as chipper as ever.

Fiona:  Thank you.

Joanna Coons: How's Hutch?

Fiona: He's very good. He's learning to talk and he's walking around. His life is full of fun.

Joanna Coons: And he's a human dynamo — all over the place, right?

Fiona:  All over! Running and doing everything. When you see him, you'd think he was 2 1/2. He's tall because of John. He's shot up rather quickly. He didn't stay a baby for very long.

Joanna Coons: When is the new baby due?

Fiona:  March 19 is the date, give or take.

Joanna Coons: Do you know the sex?

Fiona:  Yes, it's a boy.

Joanna Coons: What about a name? Have you picked one out?

Fiona:  Yes, but we're not letting it out yet because we might change our minds.

Joanna Coons:You must be very excited and tired these days. You know your nickname is "Super Woman."

Fiona:  Dear Lord! That came from Beth Ehlers [Harley]. She's always calling me "Super Chick."

Joanna Coons: She's right! So how do you do it all — wife, mother,   working actress? What's the secret?

Fiona:  It doesn't seem like that much to me. I suppose with anybody, you've got your life and you just do it. I look at other people's lives and I wonder, 'How the heck do they do it?' My friend Corbin Bernsen and his wife Amanda Pays, they've got three boys — one boy and one set of twins  — and another child on the way in April. He's off doing films. She's doing a TV series in England. I wonder how they do it. And they just
renovated a farmhouse!

Joanna Coons: Compared to them, you're a day at the beach!

Fiona:  Well, you do compare yourself to people in the same industry. Obviously I can't relate to someone who has banking hours because I'm very fortunate that I can take Hutch to the studio with me.

Joanna Coons:  Is he good at the studio?

Fiona:  He's very well-behaved. Of course, like any child, he has his moments. But I think he has a lot of friends there. When I come to work, they all ask if Hutch is with me and if I say no, it's, "Oh, OK."

Joanna Coons: Does GL have any kind of day care set up?

Fiona:  No, I have my own nanny who comes to help me. And that's all very fortunate because there are so many jobs where you have to send your child to day care if Mom wants to work.

Joanna Coons: True, but I'll bet there are days when you'd like to push an imaginary big red button and make everything disappear for an hour.

Fiona:  Oh, sure. That's when John takes a look at me and says, "Hutch, let's go for a walk!" John is wonderful with Hutch.

Joanna Coons: You two seem to have it all together — the perfect marriage, perfect family, great careers....

Fiona:  No, no, no! Nothing's perfect. I think we're happy together. We enjoy each other's company, so therefore as problems come up you sort of look  at each other and say, "Let's deal with this one."

Joanna Coons: It probably helps that you're in the same business.

Fiona:  I think so. There are benefits to being in the same business, but there are also drawbacks. The tremendous benefit to having someone who is not in the same business is that you have different things to talk about at the end of the day. But the drawback is that this particular industry is a very difficult one to tolerate, to understand, to be patient with, if you don't know it and understand it. One year is a good year, the next year's not a good year. Then the romantic scenes with strangers — which is never a fun thing for any partner to put up with.

Joanna Coons: And Jenna has certainly had her share of those.

Fiona:  Oh, yes! I've been very fortunate with my partners, particularly with Justin Deas [Buzz]. He's an absolute gem to work with. John and Justin get along very well. And I get along with Margaret [Colin, Deas's wife].  She has the same problem.

Joanna Coons: Oh, yeah. She's always doing movies and things with handsome stars.  Yes, it's tough work. Now you're getting set for another maternity leave.

Fiona:  Yes, they're working it out now. They need to know how much time I'm taking so they can coordinate what stories to write.

Joanna Coons:Will you be taking a few months off?

Fiona:  It's one of those things where you never know until you have the baby. Hopefully everything will go smoothly. I sprang back fairly quickly
after Hutch.

Joanna Coons: What was it — two weeks later?!

Fiona:  Actually, I was back working when he was seven weeks old.

Joanna Coons: Nah, you're not "Super Woman" — correction, "Super Chick."

Fiona:  I felt good after four weeks.

Joanna Coons: Presumably after you did that Excedrin commercial.

Fiona:  I really had a headache that day!

Joanna Coons: You convinced me! I know being a Mom is special for you, particularly since you lost your own mother several years ago.

Fiona:  Yes, in 1990.

Joanna Coons: What are you bringing from that relationship to your own life as a mother?

Fiona:  I often think of my Mum and things she felt very strongly about. One of the areas she was very big on was manners — maybe because they were a very British family. She just felt it was the most important thing and if you expected to get anywhere in life, or get ahead in business or socially, if your manners weren't pulled together you could forget anything you wanted to do.

 Joanna Coons: That is very British.

Fiona:  I'm starting already with Hutch in his high chair. When he wants to get out and starts making all these sort of ape-like noises, I sit there going, "I'm finished, Mummy. May I get up now, please?" And I repeat this over and over and he just looks at me. But at least it calms him down and then he makes a sort of strange soft noise and I tell him, "OK, that'll do. You can get up now." So I think of Mum often in that respect. And I just decided I have to drum this in from day one and I'm not going to let up.

It's too bad the babies will miss having their grandmother. Fortunately John's mother is just wonderful. She's the best grandmother. My mum was terrific, but she used to say, "I'm not a bakey-baby grandmother." She didn't like to bake and she didn't really fancy little, tiny children. I think she was a terrific with us. She devoted everything to us, but she got very nervous looking after my brother's
children. She was more of a social lady, with her wine and cigarettes. She wasn't into crawling around on the floor. Hutch plays endless games with John's mother. She'll come into the apartment and go straight to him.

Joanna Coons:As a new parent, do you have any fears about raising your children today?

Fiona:  Yes, but I don't I don't think it's any different than the fears our parents felt when we were growing up. Things are going to be more expensive. Particularly with two boys, we think about college. Although with women, it's becoming more important too, nowadays. But boys really do have to have that piece of paper if they want a choice of jobs and things like that. So we're putting away for 18 years from now. Obviously we worry about drugs and their running around in the wrong crowds.  That's a scenario we'll have to cope with when the time comes. We've become a lot more impersonal as a society, too. Look at us, we're doing an online interview! Now all anyone has to do is click on a
computer and presto... That's a good point. John always says, "Cultivate your personality, kid, so people will remember you."Yeah, but now kids don't even have to go to the playground anymore, they can just pop a game into their computers.  That's a little scary. There again, it's social skills and manners that a lot of kids will probably miss out on. It takes an awful lot of time raising children. When both people are working, you have to make it happen. It doesn't happen by itself.

Or it's the easy fix — kids get computers in kindergarten these days. On the one hand, it's great, but I wonder if they know who the person is sitting next to them.  Hutch will be starting preschool when he's 2 — not because we want him out of the house, but because if he doesn't start, we'll have a hard time getting him into school later on, so you're sort of pushed into it — but when we were interviewing with schools, there was one school we were impressed with that said they didn't have computers because they didn't believe in little children excluding each other and looking at a screen all day long. Parents are relying on the computer to keep their children occupied, and later they don't know how to cope with other people.

Joanna Coons:  Exactly. It's so easy for working parents to come home and sit the kid in front of the computer with the latest tech toy. And you say, "OK, tomorrow I'll play with them," but then tomorrow never comes.

Fiona:  That's right. John and his mom are huge believers in books. Hutch already has more books than I have ever owned. And we're fortunate because he's really taken to them. He goes over by himself and pulls them out. But I have to give all the credit to John because I was not a huge reader.

Joanna Coons: Is he looking forward to becoming a dad again so soon?

Fiona:  He's like a duck to water. I'm the one who looks at it with a sort of  inhalation of breath!

Joanna Coons:  Jenna's pregnancy on the show is nicely coinciding with yours in real life.

Fiona:  But it wasn't planned that way.  My egg came first, Jenna's chicken second.

Joanna Coons:So the show decided to do the pregnancy story because you were pregnant?

Fiona:  Yes. I remember when I went to Paul [Rauch]. He was sitting in the stairwell because they hadn't yet pulled together his sixth-floor office and it was the only place he had to smoke a cigar. At the time, I knew I was two weeks pregnant and I didn't know whether I should wait, but as I walked up the steps and saw him there... it was sort of like an automatic reflex. I sat down beside him and I said, "Paul, you know how you've appreciated the rather larger breasts I came back to the show with from breast feeding..." He just grinned, he didn't say anything. Then I said, "John and I have discovered a way to continue them."
His eyes opened a little wider. The cigar came out of his mouth and he looked at me and said, "You're not!" I told him the consolation was that he was the third person in the world to know about it. Then we chuckled a little bit and he said something like, "Have you discovered what causes this condition? And since you now know, do you think we could put an end to it in the future?" But he was very gentle and supportive. I think it took him by surprise. It took me by surprise! We weren't planning it. We always wanted a second child, but not immediately, quite
frankly, because we knew I'd just come back to the show, so it would be a little awkward. But as it turned out, Paul had a meeting with the writers that day and by the end of it, I was talking with them.

Joanna Coons:  So they wrote the pregnancy into the show.

Fiona:  Yes, they were very excited. They thought it added a new dimension to what they had thought about. They weren't worried about it.

Joanna Coons:  Good thing you don't work for Aaron Spelling! I guess you're happy about the decision in Hunter Tylo's [Taylor, B&B] case.

Fiona:  I don't know the intricate details of the case, but I do feel that disfigurement cannot include pregnancy. I really feel strongly about that. This is life, isn't it? If you're an actress you shouldn't be penalized because you get pregnant. You're female and that's just the way Mother Nature worked it. If men could get pregnant and if you had a choice as to who was going to get pregnant, maybe then it would come into play, but they can't. So we can't discriminate against a woman becoming pregnant either willfully or unwillfully. It's a fact. It
happens. So I do feel she had a very strong position.

Joanna Coons:  Pregnancy seems to be the one last thing male studio execs can hold over a woman's head.

Fiona:  Right, and there are so many ways to shoot around it. And it doesn't go on forever. Look at the timing of Heather Locklear being pregnant on the same show. It proves they could shoot around it. They could have done it that way, they just didn't want to.

Joanna Coons:  GL has had a run of pregnancies lately.

Fiona:  After me came Liz Keifer [Blake]. It became sort of a huge joke on the show, because then Beth walked up to Paul and said, "So, Paul, what would you think if —" He said, "Don't even think about it!" Then on a dare, Cynthia Watros [Annie] went into his office and put on a marvelous performance. She sort of teared up and said, "Paul, I know this is just awful timing and I realize this is the last thing you want to hear, and believe me, I don't know how it happened, but I'm pregnant." As the story goes, because I wasn't there, he took the cigarette out of his mouth and said "You're f---ing kidding me!"

The plan was to go down the line with every actress and hold the joke going, but it didn't keep going. Anyway, the way it was supposed to end was with Kurt McKinney [Matt] walking in and saying, "You're not going to believe this, but —"

Joanna Coons:  Good thing Paul loves actors.

Fiona:  He took it all in stride.

Joanna Coons:  Let's talk about Buzz and Jenna. They've been through Jeffrey, amnesia, now Nola....

Fiona:  I actually like the stuff with Nola. It's slowed down a bit, and I don't know what the long-term plan is. They're trying to see how much time I'm going to need off.  Nola gives a whole new dimension to the Jenna/Buzz relationship. She does, and I don't think Jeffrey is out of the picture for good. I've heard rumblings... and she is carrying his child, so at some point I suppose they might use that card again. But obviously Jenna and Buzz aren't going to be blissfully happy because if they are, there's no point in having them. I hear there are rough seas ahead but I don't know in what direction.

Joanna Coons:  I miss some of the old Jenna. The danger, the zaniness...

Fiona:  I miss the jewel thief. I'd like to see some of that come back. The writers and I have talked about it. Paul's talked about it, but I guess the pregnant cat-woman in high heels doesn't quite make it, although I think it would be hilarious. I can just see her eight months pregnant, and Harley asking her to help with a caper.

Joanna Coons: I like the whole Harley-Jenna thing.

Fiona:  I do, too.

Joanna Coons:  You don't see too many relationships like that between women on daytime.  Or between mothers and babies either, for that matter. Once the baby's born we don't see them again until puberty.

Fiona:  As far as I know, if all goes well, this baby that I'm carrying — if he doesn't mind being under the lights — we'll be using him in the show.

Joanna Coons:  Was that your idea?

Fiona:  No, it was theirs and they asked me if it would be all right.

Joanna Coons:  Will that make it easier for you?

Fiona:  Hopefully. Of course I don't know what the end result will be for Coop and his baby brother.

Joanna Coons:  Do you foresee any problems on camera?

Fiona:  Many times you're given someone else's baby and you don't know who they are and they don't know who you are and they get frightened. So this  might be easier.

Joanna Coons:  I know some actresses have used their own babies.
Judi Evans Luciano on AW.

Fiona:  That's right, and it works out very well.

Joanna Coons:  Speaking of working well, GL is certainly beginning to click at every turn. Viewers have started to come back.

Fiona:  I think it's looking better than I've ever seen it look. I think all year it's been good. The show was in a place where it really needed someone to pull it up, and Paul was the right guy for the job. I honestly think if they had gone in any other direction, the show may or may not have made it. It needed somebody who was going to make it fly or  it wasn't going to fly. I said when I came back that it could either be done by Paul or it could not be done at all. I love working with him. He's a powerhouse. I have great respect for him because I think his
decisions are always right-on.

Joanna Coons:  So are yours. Your timing to come back to daytime after a successful run in the theater in L.A. was right on the money.

Fiona:  The theater was a lot of fun. It gives you a lot of confidence. You feel most alive, you feel this is what you're doing it all for. This is where the exciting part is. John was also working at Warner Bros., so it was exciting to be with him together out there at that time.

Joanna Coons:  You got some great reviews.

Fiona:  You either get lucky with them or you don't. I was fortunate.

Joanna Coons:  And excessively modest. You also have a new feature film coming out, don't you?

Fiona:  Yes, it's called Something to Believe In, with Maria Pitillo, Roddy McDowall and Robert Wagner. I play a blackjack dealer. It all took place in Vegas. It was quite fun.

Joanna Coons:  Shades of the old Jenna. You've never had a problem bouncing from one  medium to the other, have you?

Fiona:  I think a job is a job is a job. I feel very lucky that I have a following in daytime so I can be in daytime. It's one thing to get a job in daytime. It's another thing to get another job in daytime. It doesn't always come round a second or third time. When I left GL, I realized there may never be an opening to go back to, even though they may say nice things to you.

There's not much stability, although people think there is. It's very seductive that way, and people fall into that trap all the time. John and I have never looked at daytime as a stable gig. If anything, it's very unstable. It just has that very pretty, glossy cover that makes you want to believe you've got it tied up, and you don't.
Frankly, you've only got it as long as the writers feel your character is necessary. The best thing you can do is when you get your little windfalls to put them in the right direction, i.e., pay off mortgages. And try not to owe anybody anything. It's an old-fashioned way of living, but we don't believe in credit.

Joanna Coons:  You're pretty exceptional. You've got it all together. You have it all. What else is there?

Fiona:  A healthy, happy baby. That is the most important thing on my mind. After that, I'll rethink my goals! *