Star: MATT BATTAGLIA

Role: J.L. King, DAYS OF OUR LIVES

Birthday: September 25

Press Invitation: "There's nothing I won't talk about. I'm pretty open."

Football Career: Battaglia played pro-ball for the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles as a middle linebacker

Family Ties: Two sisters and a brother, all older. His mom died of cancer 3 years ago. His dad lives in Atlanta.

Shade-y Past: Battaglia did three guest stints on former teacher Burt Reynolds' sitcom EVENING SHADE. "In the first one, Sally Kellerman guest starred as a glamorous movie star and I played her bodyguard/assistant. The other two times I played Mitch, the local deputy."

Brady Past: In 1992, Battaglia tested for the role of Bo Brady (when Peter Reckell left), but lost out to Robert Kelker-Kelly. ("Robert's resemblance to Peter was uncanny compared to the rest of us. He looks like his twin brother... and I don't know if my reading, my test, went as well as I would have liked.")

Bedtime Buddies: On the SHOWTIME dramatic series, BEDTIME Matt's co-stars included two daytime grads: Karen Witter (ex-Tina, OLTL) and Todd McKee (ex- Jake, B&B; ex-Ted, SANTA BARBARA)

MATT BATTAGLIA -- IT'S WAY PAST HIS "BEDTIME"... BUT HE'S BASKING IN "KING"-SIZED SUCCESS!

DIGEST ONLINE: You must get asked a lot about your guest stint on FRIENDS this season as Phoebe's fireman boyfriend. What was it like working with Lisa Kudrow?

BATTAGLIA: It was great. Lisa is a genius when it comes to comedic timing. She is just fabulous. A lot of people ask me, "Is she really as flaky as Phoebe in real life?" She is NOT. She is so intelligent. I don't know what her I.Q. is, but it must be very high. She graduated, as you know, from Vassar. She was great to work with, and I was surprised to see how much of a family the whole cast of FRIENDS is. They all seemed pretty close with each other, and some of them made me feel right at home, so I had a good time. And, hopefully, who knows? Maybe the character will come back this fall, in a way they left it open, but you never know.

DIGEST ONLINE: Where are you from originally?

BATTAGLIA: I'm from Georgia. The two towns I grew up in were Tucker and Lithonia. Lithonia is a small town east of Atlanta. I went to Lithonia High School and I was on the football team. Actually, I was on the wrestling team, too. Nobody's mentioned this before, but I wrestled in the AAU free-style junior Olympics. It was a junior Olympics squad, and I won the southeastern state tournament, which qualified me to go to the nationals. If you win or place in that, you can qualify for the Olympic trials. But the pre-Olympic competitions were during college football recruiting season. So I had to put my wrestling on the back burner.

DIGEST ONLINE: In high school, were you in involved in theater at all?

BATTAGLIA: No, I was primarily an athlete. I took one theater class just to fill out my schedule, and that's when I discovered that acting might be something I'd want to get involved in later. I grew up a fanatic for movies. As a kid, I used to go to movies all the time. I'd sit in the audience going, "I can do that." My mind was telling myself, "I can do that; I want to do that one day." But I never thought back then as a kid that I'd be doing it now. I went to the University of Louisville on an athletic scholarship and my career was definitely football. That's where my focus was, and that's what I was good at. Later, when my sports career ended, I guess I was given a chance to follow another dream of mine, and I just made the effort to take the right steps to facilitate it.

DIGEST ONLINE: After your pro-football career ended, you enrolled in Burt Reynolds' acting school in Jupiter, Florida. That experience must have been a blast. What was the admissions process like?

BATTAGLIA: You auditioned for the program with a song, a dance and monologues. I was no dancer -- not the kind of dancer they wanted -- and I was certainly no singer at the time. But I had a bit of talent as an actor and I guess that was enough to help me get in. It's too bad. The school is dissolved now, but it was a great acting program -- a very intense program. There were 14 or 15 people in the class. Charles Nelson Reilly was our master instructor. That is a gift -- being taught by him and by Dom De Luise. They both taught us that year, and they are the funniest, most outlandish guys. It's amazing just how funny these human beings are. You're sitting there, laughing in hysterics, and what that does - -when they bring humor to the class -- is keep your attention, and you work harder. I can't even put into words how great it was to study with them. In fact, I studied with Charles some more when I first moved out to L.A.

DIGEST ONLINE: Were you a good student?

BATTAGLIA: I was a very good student. When I came into the acting school, only myself and another student had no theatrical background. Everybody else out of the 15 had not only studied acting in college but in high school, so I was at ground zero. I had the furthest to come, but that kind of fed my fuel, because I'm very competitive.

DIGEST ONLINE: Burt Reynolds is also a Southern boy who started out as a football player and then became an actor. Did you two ever discuss the parallels?

BATTAGLIA: That kind of put a bond between us, I mean Burt and I became very close friends while I was in Florida. Then, six years later I starred in the movie "Raven" with him, which was a nice coincidence, because he was a friend of mine, but he didn't have anything to do with the casting. When I showed up on the set, he said, "What are you doing here?" He just thought I had dropped by to visit, because I hadn't seen him in a while. I said, "I'm playing your co-lead," He was kind of thrown back, so it was nice. We do have a good friendship. I haven't seen him since filming "Raven," but I know he's busy out doing "Boogie Nights" and all these other movies.

DIGEST ONLINE: Did Burt Reynolds ever give you any career advice?

BATTAGLIA: One time I did a scene from "Tea and Sympathy" for his class -- I'll never forget it. I got done and the room was very hushed, very quiet. I felt like I'd done good, but I wasn't sure. Burt stands up and says, "You know, Matt, you're a natural. I want you to take what I'm about to say to heart. You're a natural, gifted actor -- to see what you pulled off today and knowing where you came from. I believe you've definitely got a career, but this is what you've got to do. You've got to work on your speech. If you learn how to speak correctly, you'll never stop working." At the time, I had an extremely heavy Southern drawl, but what was more prevalent was the fact that I had a terrible speech impediment. I had a lisp. It didn't matter what I looked like or how talented I might be -- I wasn't going to work very much. And once Burt told me that, then of course all my focus -- a hundred percent of my energy -- went to correcting my speech because I figured coming from Burt Reynolds this advice really meant something. He knows what talent is.

DIGEST ONLINE: How did you work to overcome your speech problems?

BATTAGLIA: I worked on the Southern accent immediately. I started tawkin' like I'm from New Yoik or New Joisey. I started tawkin' with a Nawthern New Yoik dialect and that kind of evened it out. I also would get a book and read out loud and concentrate on my ending consonants, because Southern people, we don't end our words. Practicing that kind of curbed the Southern accent. My lisp I literally corrected when I was driving to Los Angeles for the move. While I was driving across country, I was on these highways where there wasn't another living soul out driving in the middle of winter. Well, I'm looking in my rear view mirror at my placement of my teeth, and I keep running these words in my mouth: "snake," "whisper," "especially," any word that I could think of with the letter "s" in it. I kept saying them out loud over and over for hours, and finally I hit it. My ears picked up the right sound and I knew I did it right, and I kept working that over and over. By the time I got to LA, it was fixed. But I still, to this day, have to concentrate at times. If I get lazy, my lisp won't come back, but my Southern accent will, if I'm not concentrating or if I'm drinking or if I'm tired.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do you find daytime a very different experience from primetime?

BATTAGLIA: The difference in rehearsal styles was the thing I had to get adjusted to quickest, because I like to rehearse in character, that's the way I prefer to do it, but Peter Reckell prefers just to kind of deliver his lines any way he can. It's his way of relaxing during rehearsal. He just kind of gets 'em out in any way he prefers, with inflections wherever he wants, but then when we roll camera he's in character. So we work differently, but that was the thing that I had to get adjusted to, because he's not going to change for me. I had to change for him -- he's the star. But now I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me at all. Aside from that, I had to adjust to how quick you shoot the scenes in daytime. You've got to be ice cold with your lines, because one take and they're moving on. So it's more work than I expected. I was hoping to get a lot more writing done while I was doing the soap than I have.

DIGEST ONLINE: Tell us about your writing. We hear you've just completed your first screenplay, and it's starting to make the rounds in Hollywood.

BATTAGLIA: It's called "The Last Stick of Chalk." It's catching a lot of heat right now. We just did a staged reading of it at Second Stage Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard. Rob Estes from MELROSE PLACE, who's a good friend of mine, was one of the actors who volunteered to help us out with the reading.

DIGEST ONLINE: In a nutshell, what's the plot?

BATTAGLIA: When a boxer accidentally fails to throw a fight to repay his brother's gambling debt, the mob wants him dead. He's given another chance and is sent to Mexico to find and retrieve the mobster's runaway girlfriend who, unbeknownst to the mob boss, was once romantically involved with the boxer. His job becomes increasingly dangerous as their harbored feelings for each other heat up and the mob discovers that she has stolen two million dollars worth of their cocaine. It's "True Romance" meets "Against All Odds."

DIGEST ONLINE: Is there a role in it for Matt Battaglia?

BATTAGLIA: Oh definitely. But I'm not stupid. I wrote it as an ensemble cast, so I could attract some star names.

DIGEST ONLINE: How did you get Rob Estes to do the reading for you? Did you have to promise to wash his car for two months? <vbg>

BATTAGLIA: Rob did it strictly out of friendship. A lot of times when you have readings of screenplays, the actors who do the readings are hoping to get cast in the part when the film gets made. But that's not the case here. For the movie, I'm going after Ashley Judd and Harvey Keitel and Stanley Tucci. These are the actors that I wrote the screenplay for, especially the Ashley Judd role. I've got to have her for that role. The role that Rob read at Second Stage is the role that I wrote for myself. If we end up getting a bigger name, a star name, to play that role, then I'd like to play one of the hitmen; he's the best character role in the script.

DIGEST ONLINE: What prompted you to try your hand at screenplay writing?

BATTAGLIA: Before I starred in BEDTIME and got the movie, "Raven," I was doing guest star after guest star shot. I wanted to be doing more than just that. So I thought about other working actors -- guys like Ed Burns ["The Brothers McMullen"] and Chazz Palmintieri -- who decided to make their own vehicles. They inspired me. They had started at my level a few years back, and developed vehicles for themselves. I thought, "Why not me? Why not try it myself?" I didn't know if I could write. I took a screenwriting course, and just started writing one line after one line, and one scene after one scene, and eventually I had the whole script. I figured I could write 120 pages, and if it turned out to be s--t, I'd have 120 pages of s--t sitting on my bookshelf, but I'd have done it! I want to make movies that make a difference in this world; that's why I'm here. I believe it's my calling, if you will. I want to make the "Forrest Gumps," the "Braveheart" movies, that have a positive impact on this world. This first screenplay is not that. It's nothing more than a stepping stone, so that I can move my career to a point where I can do these other two screenplays that I have ideas for. The next two screenplays that I'm writing deal with nothing but love and faith in God and Heaven and angels, even the dark side and spiritual warfare. Once they get made, I think they will have a positive impact on the world.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do these ideas come from your own spiritual beliefs?

BATTAGLIA: Without a doubt, I've got a strong spiritual base. I'm a devout Christian who is continually working to grow spiritually. I'm not perfect by any means. I would say my spiritual growth is something I take one day at a time and is something I am focused on in my life. I would say without a doubt there is a direct correlation between the blessings I've been receiving as an actor and a writer and my spiritual growth. My sister said to me one day, "Matt, the more time you spend with God, the more time God will spend with you." And it made sense to me. It's funny. I hear people saying, "Man, I got lucky, I got that job," and I'm thinking they've got luck confused with blessings. I don't really believe in luck. Oh yeah, there might be a lucky shot when you're out there playing basketball with couple of friends and you just throw the ball out. That's luck. It has no value, it doesn't mean anything. A lot of people confuse the blessings they're given with luck, and I don't see it that way.

DIGEST ONLINE: Between 12 hours days on the soap and writing screenplays in your spare time, when do you have time for a personal life?

BATTAGLIA: It doesn't leave much time, to be honest. I haven't dated anyone seriously in the last couple of years, but I have met someone recently. We're just friends right now, we'll see what happens. The last couple of weeks, I did spend a little time [with her]. Otherwise, my focus has been on my career, not that I haven't been open to a relationship. It's real difficult here in LA to find somebody -- at least that I'd be interested in. The natives of Los Angeles are great, but what happens is so many people come here from other parts of the country. They come out here to be "somebody" and then their focus gets caught up in WHAT they THINK they should be and WHO they THINK they should be. They start smoking and they start walking cool and they start looking a certain way, and they're so caught up in what life is NOT about, they're so caught up in being what they think they need to be to succeed, they forget what life IS about. It's around me everywhere here. It's not only the females, it's the men out here in LA too, but I'm looking at the females for someone to date, and it's not been an easy task.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do you socialize much with people from DAYS?

BATTAGLIA: I don't really hang out much with anybody from the show. I don't know that any of the DAYS people hang out with anybody else. Everybody's kind of in their own world. Braden Matthews who plays Travis, the guy who was in prison with Jack, is a buddy. There's a motivational Christian speaker here in L.A. named Tim Storey; once a month we go together to hear him speak. Last weekend, there was a charity basketball game -- the DAYS actors versus the South Pasadena High School coaches -- so we all hung out. But, generally, everybody has their own lives outside the set.

DIGEST ONLINE: Listen, inquiring minds have to know -- who won the basketball game?

BATTAGLIA: We lost. The South Pasadena team was very serious. They had plays set up. They had a whole game going. We were just trying to keep up. Actually, we were hanging pretty tight till the end, but they won by 8 or 12 points or something like that.

DIGEST ONLINE: Tell us about BEDTIME, the series you did on Showtime last year.

BATTAGLIA: It was about six different couples and their personal lives. It was called BEDTIME because every scene was shot in the bedroom at night when we were preparing to go to bed. The producers and creators thought this is the time in real life in America when the deepest, most honest and above board discussions take place in families and relationships. So our lives revolved around going to bed -- the fights and arguments and love and everything. It was wonderfully written. We shot 13 episodes. My character, Craig O'Neal, was married to a girl named Jenny. I was a construction worker, and we lived in Pittsburgh. Our problem was infidelity. I cheated on her, and she was contemplating an abortion. We had three children. She got pregnant again and did not want to have the fourth child, but I was a devout Catholic. Even though I had cheated on her, I was completely against abortion, so the last couple of episodes we were dealing with that. It was some very heavy, wonderfully written material.

DIGEST ONLINE: On a lighter note, they probably didn't spend a lot on wardrobe for this show?

BATTAGLIA: Not like they do on DAYS [he laughs]. I rarely had a shirt on, neither did the other male leads. The females usually had nighties or tee-shirts on. But it wasn't a show so much about sex as about deep, sometimes dark discussions that were heavily life like. There was even a female homosexual couple.

DIGEST ONLINE: In many ways, BEDTIME sounds like a landmark show. Why was it canceled?

BATTAGLIA: It was a little risque -- a couple of the characters in particular -- and Showtime wanted to clean things up a bit. The writing was good enough to get nominated for an Emmy, and they wanted to capitalize on that, but the creators of the show didn't want to change their vision. And before the network could come up with another writer for the show, our contracts had expired and that was it. The series was over.

DIGEST ONLINE: How long do you plan to stay in Salem?

BATTAGLIA: We'll see what happens. My contract with DAYS is going to be up this summer. I only signed a six-month deal originally, so I don't know if they're going to reup me or not. If they do, we'll see how that may work and whether we can do it. If they don't, my focus is going to be completely on these screenplays. My contract ends mid to end July.

DIGEST ONLINE: We hear you occasionally visit our site here on America Online.

BATTAGLIA: Yes, I often go into the Soap Opera Digest NBC chat room. The first couple of times I went in there, I had to spend hours convincing people who I was. Now I've convinced most of those people, but when I go back in, there are always new people so I have to convince them.

DIGEST ONLINE: So you're not bothered by fan attention?

BATTAGLIA: I want to be an actor who's more in touch with my fans. At the Daytime Emmys, I saw thousands of people behind these police barricades, and nobody was crossing the street to shake their hands or take pictures with them so I did it. Actors sometimes develop an attitude that these people bore them. I don't get it. If you go up to these fans and give them a hug or a kiss -- if you just take a moment -- you see how their face just brightens and beams. How can you not give them that pleasure? It only takes a couple of minutes of your time. I'm sure things will change someday when I have a family and kids I'll be a lot more protective then, but right now, just to see the smiles on their faces is worth it.

Thanks to Dana for sending me this Q&A

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