Vancouver actor says U.S. daytime soap role just a career-starter

TORONTO (CP) - For Lisa Vultaggio, it's an Italian thing. She began singing for friends and family when she was only five years old at Vancouver's Italian Cultural Centre.

seven, the dark-haired, dark-eyed Vultaggio saw Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo & Juliet and she knew for certain that acting was going to be her career. "I would recite monologues and entire passages from the play," she recalls, adding she also learned to do passable impersonations of Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Marilyn Monroe and Cher.

Along with her mother, she also watched daytime soaps like All My Children and Days of Our Lives, unaware of what fate had in store for her.

At 28, Vultaggio now lives in Los Angeles, where since last year she has been playing FBI agent Hannah Scott on ABC-TV's daytime soap General Hospital, a serial that's seven years older than she is. Vultaggio says landing the role was a "tremendous blessing" and she thanks God every week for a job that provides considerable exposure and job security.

But she makes it clear she hasn't yet arrived where she wants to be.

"General Hospital is the first major step in my career, I feel that very much," she says during a promotional visit to Toronto. "And believe me, I want to use it very wisely.

"I allow the will of God to just take its course. I believe in a higher purpose. I believe I'll be doing other projects as well."

GH's executive producer told her the soaps represented boot camp for actors, a tremendous training ground. Still, Vultaggio says it's hard not to get too close to a character you play every day.

"You'd be surprised how much the actors take what goes on with their characters very personally. I'm guilty of that as well."

She says on more than one occasion, she has had to take a step back.

"Hannah belongs to General Hospital. I just represent her. Because sometimes I don't like what she's going through."

But she says if the actor does a good job, it tends to inspire the writers who will even listen to suggestions sometimes despite their firm agenda.

But if Vultaggio gets too close, she laughs at the reactions of her family back in Vancouver, especially her elderly "typically Italian" grandmother.

"She gets mixed up with reality. She really does," at which she slips into a perfectly accented impression.

"She goes 'Lisa, you wear a bee-you-tiful coat. Where-a you buy?' I go 'Nana, it's a show. They lend it to me. It's for my character.' She looks at me with this blank look on her face.

"Or she'll get upset when one of the characters is mean to me. It's really cute. And then my mom gets mad at her. 'Ma, don't you understand? It's TV!' "

Vultaggio says she draws strength from her family members, though. She visits Vancouver every other month and phones daily.

"I need it. I need to get filled up with all that love and then take it back with me to Los Angeles."

She says her series co-stars are great people but whether it's because they are all very busy or just competitive, she hasn't bonded too closely with them yet.

"I've had to make a conscious effort myself to reach out to the other actors on the show, to get over my shyness or get over whatever it is I'm feeling."

35 years, General Hospital - a record seven times Emmy winner - has been telling stories of the romance and intrigue amongst the wealthy denizens of the fictional seaside community of Port Charles.

At the core of the never-ending plotline are the powerful Quartermaine and Cassadine families. The drama is probably best known, even amongst non-soap fans, for the story arc two decades ago involving the original soap super-couple, Luke and Laura Spencer, and their high-profile TV wedding.

Vultaggio's spunky character arrived from San Diego only last year with a past she rarely discusses. One regular character, the dangerous Sonny Corinthos, was immediately drawn to her and eventually they forged a tumultuous relationship typical for daytime drama.

Vultaggio says soaps and their stars do get a bum rap sometimes for their campiness, although she senses they are starting to get more respect.

"Soap operas are known to be melodramatic, crazy," she says. "But that's the nature of soaps."

Will that ever change in this age of reality-based TV? Tune in tomorrow.


Vultaggio: Quickfacts

Born: Vancouver. Age: 28. Lives in Los Angeles.

First break: Discovered by an agent while starring in high school production of Early Frost. Began studying acting at Vancouver's Breck Academy.

TV roles in Vancouver: First Justice, Mortal Sins, The X-Files, Millennium, Highlander, Lonesome Dove, The Commish, A Killer Among Friends. Starred in the in The Anissa Ayala Story.

TV roles in L.A.: Melrose Place, Murder She Wrote, General Hospital.

Favourite pastimes: Going to the beach, reading spiritual books, yoga and salsa dancing.

Quote: "Hanna has that feminine quality about her, but she still has that toughness about her, too." - on her General Hospital character.