Udana Talks About Her TV and Movie Career, Pt. 6

NOTE: This interview with Udana was conducted Spring, 2015. In this installment, publicist Bill Murphy (BM) and multi-talented Udana Power (UP), discuss Udana’s career from Knot’s Landing (1979-1993) up to the present day.

Screen Shot 2015-05-25 at 9.22.56 PMBM: Let’s talk about Knots Landing, 1990. You played a servant in an episode called, “Side by Side.” What do you remember about Knots Landing?

UP: Wow! I can’t remember a whole lot, actually. It wasn’t a big deal, it wasn’t a big role. There was one day maybe two days, I can’t remember, I just remember that I did it.

BM: Let’s see, yeah, in that episode, Servant. I wouldn’t imagine would be a terribly important role in your career. [Both laugh.]

UP: No, not a big one, no. Two days pay. The interesting thing about this profession is that there are wonderful actors who got into acting because the LOVE to act. Not just love to act, they devote their lives to the profession. They don’t care about money. It’s a passion. A calling. And the wake-up call is that they have to also make a living. That doesn’t matter much when you’re young. When you are young, everything is possible and you’re willing to do anything it takes to be one of the chosen 3% who make a living as actors, sleep on the floor, eat a half an apple a day, whatever. Then life happens along the way and if you are not subsidized by wealthy parents or a rich spouse, you learn that you have to make money. That’s a very rude awakening. That’s why I encourage actors and filmmakers of all kinds to become financially solvent and responsible at the very beginning. Before you come to Hollywood, have a business in place that will give you the flexibility and financial freedom to go on auditions as a profession – because, let’s face it, going on auditions is the actors’ life here in Los Angeles. Just getting the auditions and going on the auditions is all that you can be proactive about. Getting the job and doing the job are just the icing on the cake. So I work with actors and filmmakers to show them how to create that residual income on the side so that they are freed up to actually concentrate on their work, rather than stress about how to pay the bills. It’s important. Because when you go into an audition when you’re broke…well, it shows. You need to have a stable foundation to play in the A-Game here.

Screen Shot 2015-05-25 at 9.24.48 PMBM: Well, let’s go to the next one then. In Life Goes On you played in two episodes as a character named Kathy Gutman.

UP: Yes, that was wonderful. We spent about two weeks on that. It was at least two weeks – lots of overtime. Patti LuPone was the star and we were out on the back lot at Warner Brothers in Burbank playing neighborhood football. We were just a bunch of husbands and wives out in the park playing. My husband was playing on the opposing team and he pretended to get a heart attack. When he fell down clutching the ball, everyone panicked and ran over to him and then he jumped up and ran across the goal. It was only a trick. So later in the game he had a real heart attack and Continue reading

Udana Talks About Her TV and Movie Career, Pt. 4

In this interview (which was conducted late Summer/early Fall, 2014), Bill Murphy (BM) focuses on Udana Power’s (UP) career in commercials (print and television), as well as her appearances on stage. Thank you, Udana, for your time – and for providing all of the photos.

BM: Tell me about General Hospital. What was it like getting that gig? What were your impressions of being in it? What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

Udana-1980sUP: I loved it because it was a steady job. And I got to be acting for a living. At that time, daytime TV was not as hip as it is now. Even so, that was about the time that some stars were springing out of daytime TV to go further in their careers, to become major careers. We were heading into a strike, and to have a semi-recurring in anything was wonderful. I got to work regularly. I would show up a couple of times a week for General Hospital. I played a character named Fran Woods…and in every script they had her breaking down sobbing. I looked at the scripts and said, “Oh my God! I have to do that every day I’m there!”

BM: [laughs]

UP: [laughs] Jeez, you can’t fake that. I have to prime myself so that I really break down sobbing.

BM: Your character looked like she was constantly emotionally on edge. What was going on at the time? What was that plot about?

GeneralHospitalUP: My husband or my lover, the man I was living with had disappeared, and we figured the Mob had killed him. They found his watch and one of his shoes in the river. And I was like a really nice ’50s housewife who never asked any questions, and I’d never met any of his friends. It was kind of like an alcoholic marriage, the very strange, dysfunctional marriage where I just stayed home and raised the kids. I didn’t know where the money came from, I didn’t know anything about his friends. He was a traveling salesman and did something with restaurant supplies. So all of a sudden he didn’t show up, and then I go to Anna to start investigating it and find out where could he be. Anna says, “Oh my gosh, they found this. Do you recognize this watch?” It was a watch I’d given him for Christmas. So I break down in tears and sob, “Oh my God, he’s dead, he’s dead.” Then they find his shoe. And then somebody’s sending me money, and then they’re starting to cut down sending me money, so there’s all this trauma going on. And I have children to support.

Screen Shot 2014-09-22 at 8.35.54 PMI actually don’t remember much more of it. What I do remember is having to break down and sob almost every show, because it said in the script, “She breaks down and sobs.” So I was kind of on edge. And you can’t make that stuff up – you have to really go there. It was…I think the word could be “turgid.” [laughs]

I would come in early to prepare, learn all my lines, make sure I knew where to stand and didn’t bump into the furniture. I would record everyone else’s lines on a tape recorder while leaving room for my own lines and go over it again, and again, and again, and again, because that way I could have the cue in my ear – I could hear it, I could feel it, and bounce back with the line. It would start becoming automatic. It wasn’t just reading it on the page and then hoping I’d hit the cue when the actor threw it at me. I didn’t have someone to rehearse my lines with, so I had this little cassette tape recorder… Do you believe it? Today I’d be using my iPhone. I would just put everybody else’s lines on it, with room enough for mine, and stay in character as I practiced. That’s how I learned my lines for daily shows. So when I got on the set with these really emotional scenes, Continue reading

“Love is the only thing that can change the world” – Udana Power

UdanaPowerOn March 6, 2013, Udana Power spoke to The Only Love Project, an organization committed to inter-faith, inter-spiritual bridge building.

The Only Love Project is based on the premise that “only love dispels hate,” and it is open to all who desire to change the world for the better, one community at a time.

Bill Murphy (BM): Could you tell us, briefly, a little bit about your background?

Udana Power (UP): Well, I’ve always wanted to know God. I don’t know where it came from, but I had to know. And I wanted to know. I mean, I was journaling about it when I was 11 and 12 years old. Sometimes I would just journal all night. I wanted to be also an actress. I was compelled to be, don’t know why. And I would write Love and God and Art and Nature and Sex – all those words started with capital letters.  Because somehow all that was part of my searching.

I don’t know what it was. It was core. Now I call it the Law of Blooming, being connected to our source. But at that time, I didn’t know what it was. I was just vaguely trying to find it.

So, my desire to be an actress was for many reasons.  I had a gift for it, but I had to know the Source. When I was acting, or when I ultimately started singing, I would reconnect to the Source place within me, and let that flow of energy sing through me. I would line it all up, and it would take over and flow.  I remember when I was flown to New York by Alan Jay Lerner and auditioned in front of the producers of Coco, starring Katharine Hepburn.  It was in her only stage CocoPlaybillmusical. Alan and I walked into the big lobby of the Mark Hellenger Theater one afternoon.  It was empty. It felt like I was walking into my own dream. I remember Alan was holding my hand. I was very young and very naïve at the time, and I felt like I was walking into a cathedral. As we crossed the lobby and walked I into the great, big, empty theatre, there were a few men in suits there. One of them was Andre Previn.  Everyone introduced themselves and then they asked me to go up on stage and sing.

It was a long walk. All I knew was this is where life was created. All I could think of was that and my personal relationship with God.  I walked up to the big empty stage and sang “Greensleeves” in French and “God Bless The Child.”  Alan said later that it was like they were watching a young Judy Garland.

And whenever I’ve been to a theatrical performance that’s truly wonderful there is something of the spiritual in it. So, that’s been my life, and that’s where I came from. I was an actress in theatre for many years, I was on television and film, I did a one-woman show for five years. And when I did my work, I called it a Yahweh. That’s a word for God. I couldn’t quite articulate what it was, but if I could fling myself out into that experience, and channel that. Then I was doing what I was put here to do.

And I did that many times over and over. People would come backstage just sobbing because the performance had such a profound effect on them. It wasn’t me – it was something that I flung myself into that came through me.  For me it was interesting, and it was easy.

I remember the producer for Applause at the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera. Larry Kasha had produced it on Broadway and was directing it here. I played Eve opposite Yvonne De Carlo. The producer was a woman who Continue reading