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Ian
Buchanan's Most Revealing Interview Ever! "I Marry Anna,
But...." "Good heavens, you don't mean the black widow spider thing, they kill their mates," I gasped. Ian laughed out loud, "Well, you never know where it's all going," he said not telling me a thing about the future of Anna and Duke and enjoying it thoroughly at the same time. To tell the truth, facing this fascinating guy from Scotland, I forgot all about Duke and wanted to know all about Ian. "How does a man from Scotland come all this way to General Hospital? Was it hard?" I asked. "No. I wouldn't know how to do it, if there are rules I don't know how. It just happened." Ah ha... the reticent Scotsman, I thought. "You just fell off a boat or a plane and landed on General Hospital?" "Well, right. Basically that is part of what happened. When I came to this country I had to have work. Hey we've got the same watch," he said suddenly. "Yes, it's in the Museum of Modern Art," I said. He nodded. "That's what my fan club gave me for my birthday, a watch," he beamed. Not to be sidetracked, I pressed on. "Did you act in Scotland?" "In Scotland I was in the restaurant business. Then I was in Spain and lived there for a year, went back to London, modeled there, modeled all over the world. I was in New York as a model." Coming from Ian, that was a lot of information. I cheered up. "A lot of actors seem to start that way." "Yeah, I didn't like it. One thing, I hated it. I didn't know how to go about it, still don't know how to go about it," he said laughing. "You know, for a long time I couldn't decide whether I liked you or didn't like you. I go by plots, either I hate this guy or I love him. So it's nice when you talk to someone else from the show and they say, "You're going to love him. He's great." I was talking to Robyn Bernard," I explained. "She's wonderful," Ian nodded. "Well, we certainly dispensed with what I thought would be an awful trauma, how you set out from a small town in Scotland and made your way here," I told him. "Well, I didn't come over in a canoe, so it's not really that interesting," he said grinning. "Where do you live here?" I asked him. "In Hollywood, quite close," he said. "I read that you can walk to work," I recalled. "Yeah." "Do you like it here?" "I do like it. My mother died about a month ago, so it's been tough being here. The people I know are so spread around, friends and all," he answered. "How do you furnish your apartment?" "I was so used to living in a loft in New York with nothing in it, then I thought I'm beginning to want things around me. I don't know, I'm living alone and I love art. I dragged 10 boxes in with little things plus the dust," he said laughing. "I have a couple of sofas, yeah, it's a very comfortable room. It's mostly black and gray, things like that." "You're not married?" "No, I've been close to it twice. I would love to have a family though, but I don't want to get married," he laughed again. "I think that could be arranged," I told him. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to raise them though. I wouldn't want to stay home and raise them. I'd like to have children and have access to them and support them, not raise them every day. I did that with my own brothers. My mother was always having babies, so I did that until it got to be embarrassing, when I was 13 and my mother was pregnant." "How did you explain it? How many children are there in the family?" "Six of us." "Are you the eldest?" "One is one year older, then there is a boy, two girls and two boys. Yes, they're in Scotland, I'm the only one who left." "You've been on General Hospital a long time now so how do you feel about it?" "It's work now. It was great fun before. Now it's work. I've learned now it's acting as well. Before I thought it was wonderful, a wonderful way to have fun and get paid," he laughed. Dropping that, I returned to, "So you've never been married but were sorely tempted twice?" "Yeah, sorely tempted once." "Is it hard for someone like you who comes to California to meet girls?" He looked puzzled, understandably and I thought, what a foolish question. "It's hard for girls to meet men," I added lamely. "But even the business is hard, it is hard, you know," he replied. "I would imagine the people you meet are actors." "Yeah, mostly and from the music business, film people too, not TV people, most of them are actresses. A lot of people I know are film people except for the people I work with." "Are you musically inclined?" "I must have been at some point." "You said people from the music business." "No, I'm not. I'd love to play the piano and sing." "You are so stiff and austere on the show. I can't imagine you going to a party and singing," I told him. Ian grinned. "Yeah, and dancing on the table. When Robyn sang at the lunch the other day, I thought, Wow, I'd love to be able to do that. I'd love to get up there and sing. She was just so wonderful." "Do you like sports at all?" "No, not in the least. I love to watch tennis and I like horse racing a lot. I like to watch polo, but don't like being a participant at all." "What do you lust after?" "I love a good book. I love the theatre. I love classical music, I don't know why, I wasn't raised on it. I don't know how I acquired the taste." "What kind of books?" "I love Russian literature. I like classics." "Mmmm, that's sort of how you came across, a little broody." "Definately, I suppose, he nodded. "Of course, that's your character on the show, I could be misinterpreting you, you know." "Yeah, I'm a lot like that. I'm probably a lot more fun than the character perhaps. Yeah, I like fun." "So you do everything for youself, go to stores and things, like cook?" "Yes, I can cook, haven't for quite a while. I eat out a lot, eat at the studio all the time. I'm there all the time, plus I travel around weekends." "You don't have a car so where do you shop?" "Locally, the supermarket." That boggled my mind, Ian in a supermarket. I decided to return to General Hospital where he said he spends all his time. "Now you and Anna, Finola, have a whole new thing going," I suggested. "It's kind of fun, you know, because Finola and I are now heavily romantic again. It's almost as if we wanted to be having romance, but she and I have had so much happen that it is a different level, like courtship all over again." "There was a time back when I could have killed you I was so mad at you," I told him and he laughed out loud. "You were involved in all these terrible things and you just kept looking at her say, 'I love you.'" "That's going to change now too. There's a lot more business with Anna now. I say she's stubborn and first she's mad at me and then I'm mad at her." "Anything else going to happen to you?" "To me personally?" he asked. "On the show... well, yes and you personally," I answered. "I'd like to do some other things pretty soon. I have this movie, a nice role in a movie that will be out Christmas." "What's the name of it?" "The Boarder. It's with Demi Moore. Yes, I liked it, it was a wonderful thing. There's Peter Friedkin, John Heard and others. It's a good movie," he said. "What do you do with your money? Have you saved any? Of course you have, you're from Scotland," I told him. "Yeah, short arms and deep pockets," he said laughing. "So do you have any hobbies?" I asked. "Not really. I'd love to write. I suppose I will someday." "It's a very lonely occupation and you sound like you're very social." "I'm a Live-r specialist," he laughed. "I'm incredibly social and then I'm not social for a long time. I'm quite a bit of a loner and then at the same time I'm out and I'm just wild and crazy." "How do you feel about being interviewed?" "I don't know. I suppose I always think I don't like to read other people's interviews and I assume they won't want to read about me. I don't really care what other people have to say. I like to meet them, but I don't care to read about them as much. Yeah, I don't like to read about myself." "I like to read about myself, but no one writes about me," I told him. He laughed, "I'll write about you," he said."What a charmer!" "Did I ask you what kind of women you like?" "I wish you hadn't. This is a difficult question to answer. I love beautiful women. I love intelligent women. I love to laugh. I really do love to laugh. I have the greatest time laughing." "I'm surprised you've lasted this long without a car in Los Angeles. Didn't you ever have a car?" "I drive in a fashion, " he laughed. "When we were on location I think I proved it to everyone. They think I'm just stubborn and I had to prove at one point why I don't drive. I was in one of those golf carts on a slope. I tell you I have a problem, I only go in the direction I'm looking, so if I happen to look over my shoulder then everything will go over my shoulder. I have this particular sense of direction. It's funny, Tristan leapt on the back and someone was alongside me," he laughed. "You're a wild man," I stated. "Better in a golf cart than a wild man in a Porsche, I suppose." "Tell me a little bit about working with Finola, is that good or bad?" "It's great." "You have a working relationship?" "We have a good relationship. We have a real solid working relationship, also a very interesting relationship between our two characters that doesn't exist between she and I, which is interesting. She's interesting. She's there when she has to be." "And so you are marrying her." "Yes. It's so funny. I think it's been so long in happening that she and I feel it's kind of after the event now. Something must happen after we marry. Maybe I'll start robbing banks or something," he said laughing again. "What do you do at night?" I wanted to know. "I got to parties and things. I'm a voyeur of people. I very seldom participate until I'm very comfortable and something just clicks. Suddenly I'm having the time of my life. It's lovely to be around people, just loving what I get from them. And they understand that I'm comfortable because they've made me comfortable. That happens. I'm very fortunate, it happens often," he said smiling. "Me too, I've been very lucky," I said. "It's funny though. I was discussing this last night with somebody. She's out here from New York and staying with me and I said to her, 'Last week was very difficult for me. I'm just so set in my ways, but suddenly last week I was terribly unhappy. I got very sad and felt abandoned... and I didn't know how to say it to anyone. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to say to them I don't want to be on my own. I found it very, very difficult." "This was just last week?" "Yeah. I think I just suddenly missed my mother being around, my family and wanted to be around them. Suddenly I felt very, very heavy with all this. I didn't know how to express it to people around me." "I always think I have to make a joke," I agreed. "Me too," he says. "There are great depths of pain a person goes through in life but my way of dealing with it is to kid," I said. "I always say if I don't laugh, I'll cry. So keep me laughing," Ian said, smiling. "Do you watch yourself on TV?" "Yes. I did for a while. I taped it and like it at first. But seeing a still picture is one thing, but seeing myself from the back walking out of a room," he made a face, "I've never seen myself like that before from the back, I didn't want to see it." "You do it very well. You leave a room beautifully," I told him. Laughing, he said, "That's the only way to go." |
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Scorpio
Articles and Interviews
Talking to a
handsome, happy Ian Buchanan over lunch made me realize that he's not sure his
TV marriage to Finola Hughes means wedded bliss forever. "It just could be
the start of a new kind of trouble," he says, laughing. That's
the surprise about Ian, he loves to laugh, has a fabulous sense of humor. He's
not serious, like Duke. 