On the Fly
6 Questions in 6 Minutes with Passions' Ben Masters
Soap Opera Weekly Magazine
September 26, 2006

Passions' Julian is finally proving that this leopard never really changed his spots.

It's been so long since we've spoken with you. How are you doing?
Still, oddly enough, doing this job (laughs). I've had a good summer. I have a house in Palm Desert that I've been spending time at and it's definitely been warm out there. I spend a lot of time with Tracey (Ross, Eve) and a lot of time on my boat. I've been working a bit more recently, so that's been good.

On the show, the pendulum is swinging away from the kinder, gentler Julian. Is Bad Julian taking over?
That's the road we're going down, from what I've been led to believe. If you put someone in a situation where they finally reach their last straw about someone, they can revert to what they were in the past. It's fun to do that stuff, but this is a side that hasn’t been seen for quite a while, so you have to massage it so the change doesn’t look so abrupt.

What kind of response have you gotten from fans so far?
There's this whole group of Evian (Eve/Julian) people and they're rather upset. They're calling Eve and Julian "The Pod People," because they're not their star-crossed lover selves. As a matter of fact, a couple of these intense fans won a lunch with Tracey and me through the fan club last year and we finally did it in August. They're really nice women and they were so upset about this nasty drinking and yelling at Eve. They just couldn’t believe it, so it was hard to prepare them for what they're going to see. The stuff that has been on is nothing compared to what's coming up. Maybe the Evian sites are going to shut down!

Could this really be the end of Evian?
Is it ever really the end for people who were each other's first loves in our fairy-tale world of Harmony?

Is there anything you'd still like to play?
I don’t think so. I've gotten to do a lot, both good and bad. It's a boring answer, but I can't think of anything. At the same time, I don’t want him to become totally unredeemable, like Alistair did. I don’t want people to think he's Satan himself on Earth. The trick is to do hideous things, yet make the audience still like you.

So what is it like to be around all those young, shirtless strapping Harmony boys for the summer?
It's probably more exciting for you than it would be for me, but the young women---and the women who aren't as young as the young women--are also wandering around with very little on a lot of the time, and I find that wonderful. What am I doing to stay in shape? Nothing. I do some sailing and I walk. I also try not to eat a lot of bread. It's hard. The trick is to never buy clothes that are bigger than the ones you wore the day before - even if they hurt when you put them on.