Interview with David Lago
From Soap City.com


Two years ago David Lago was a struggling outsider from Downey, CA with lots of credit card debt and no job. In fact, the call from The Young and the Restless offering him the role of Billy Abbott's faithful sidekick, Raul, came through just an hour before the desperate young actor was about to sell his truck. Now two Daytime Emmy nominations later, David is on the inside looking out, coping (surprisingly well) with all the media attention, and proving that yes, you can live it up in Hollywood and still live at home. SC's Donna caught up with the low-keyed leading man on the eve of his second Y&R anniversary to talk about Raul's groundbreaking storyline, Popeye, spinach, Seventh Heaven and much more…

SC's Donna: Your character, Raul, was recently diagnosed as diabetic. It's such an important storyline. We've seen Raul struggling to come to terms with his illness and then learning to manage his own treatment. You're doing a terrific job with the role.
David Lago: Thank you.

SC's Donna: How did you prepare for those scenes?
David Lago: The hospital stuff?

SC's Donna: Yes, the hospital sequence and then giving yourself the shot and injecting yourself.
David Lago: A lot of research. This was fun for me because I've always wanted to do roles where I had to do research. I actually had to go out and find information about diabetes. I remember when I was about 15 or 16, I was in a mall and somebody was having a diabetic seizure or hyperventilating. I remember having this image of what they were going through physically and the look they had on their face. As clear as day, I remember people running around and getting packets of sugar and giving them to the person. So I kind of knew what a person looked like [while having a diabetic seizure]. Then there were doctors here on set, and we got together a couple of days before we taped the scenes. I asked them, "What happens to you physically? What happens to your feet, your hands, your head and your eyes?" Vocally, all of your muscles contract… [When I began to rehearse] I said to them, "Stop me if I'm doing something wrong. I don't care if one finger is out of place, just tell me what I should do." We [rehearsed it] until they finally said, "It's so real that it's just scary." I was doing it exactly like they've seen a million times. So that was kind of spooky, but it was fun.

SC's Donna: Did you speak with Y&R writer Jack Smith who was a juvenile diabetic himself?
David Lago: Yeah, I did. He actually approached me and told me I was going to have some scenes coming up where I would be giving myself [insulin] shots. I said, "It would be interesting if I could really give myself the shots [and not just fake it]." The idea was kicked around, should I actually do it for the takes. Then, when it came down to it, nobody wanted me to do it here. I was kind of like, "You know what? I don't really want to do it, either." So we rigged something up that made it look like I was really giving myself the shot. Still, it wasn't like I could just do it. I had to learn how to hold [the hypodermic] like a dart. It was interesting to learn. It was hard enough to just do it once. I could picture how people would have to do it all the time for the rest of their lives.

SC's Donna: I have family members who are diabetics; in fact one of my cousins comes into my office every day to give herself her shot. We both work at Sony. She comes into my office and says, "Can you close your blinds and close the door?" I'm like, "Nobody cares if you have to give yourself a shot. It's okay."
David Lago: I know a couple of people who just do it right through their clothes. It's just bam right through their pants.

SC's Donna: It's always in different places.
David Lago: It's their arm or stomach or legs or butt, whatever.

SC's Donna: you still managed to guest star on Seventh Heaven last season as Lucy's Valentine's date, Jeremy (who later became more deeply involved with the Camden clan). What was that experience like?
David Lago: It was fun. It was interesting. At that time, I'd been doing the soap for a year and a half. To go to film, all of a sudden, was amazing. Soap opera is such an intense training; I didn't realize it until I left to go do Seventh Heaven. Here we shoot 80 pages a day. Over there we were lucky if we could crank out 10 pages a day, and that's a good day. One day we spent 13 hours doing one scene because it was five or six pages long and there were so many different people in the scene. We spent all day doing one scene. It was so weird because here you get two or three different takes and it's done. Over there you do the same scene and just "take" and "take" and "take."

SC's Donna: Did you hit it off with Beverley Mitchell, Jessica Biel, Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks?
David Lago: I knew Beverley before [I guested on Seventh Heaven], so it was fun to work with her and the chemistry was already there. Jessie, I had known from before, too. Stephen is awesome. I love working with Stephen. It was kind of like working with Peter Bergman. He's such a nice guy, a very comforting person to do a scene with. Catherine Hicks is hilarious. Everybody on that set is really nice, which is cool, because I was nervous going over there. [I kept thinking that] people weren't going to like me and stuff. Here [at Y&R] I work with such a cool group of people.

SC's Donna: Well, The Young and the Restless is a family.
David Lago: Everybody gets along. Over at Seventh Heaven, it's a big family also. They've all been together for years. They all accepted me and were cool. It was a very good experience.

SC's Donna: This summer marks your second anniversary in Genoa City. Did you ever think Raul would become such a key character?
David Lago: I didn't know what to expect, to tell you the truth. When I was brought on as Raul, [they said] "You're going to be Billy Abbot's friend." So I didn't know if that was all I was going to be -- just the friend. I had no idea the character was going to [develop and I'd get] my own storyline. I love my storyline. I'm glad that my character is where he is and I'm glad it's headed where it's going…I hope.

SC's Donna (laughs): Well, you're not going anywhere. I mean you have two Emmy nominations. How do you feel about that?
David Lago: It's amazing. I never expected it at all. It completely caught me off guard. I still don't know how to explain it, because it was kind of surreal just being at the awards. These were the awards you grew up watching. I remember watching them when I was younger, even just two years ago, and the Emmys seemed so far away. It seemed like something that you knew went on, but you would never be a part of. To actually be sitting there and be one of the nominees -- it was just insane and really weird.

SC's Donna: How did it make your parents feel?
David Lago: My parents were probably freaking out more than I was. My parents are my biggest fans. They're great. They've always been supportive -- ever since I was 15 and said I wanted to start acting… even though they didn't know anything about the business. So they're kind of like, "Okay. We're going to learn together." Instead of getting discouraged and pulling me out of the business, they saw that's what I wanted to do and they stuck with me and pushed me.

SC's Donna: Now I saw your brother on the set earlier. Does he want to become an actor too?
David Lago: Yeah. Willy and I started [pursuing acting] at the exact same time. He fell out of it, started surfing a lot and doing financial planning, and took some time off. He wants to get back into it, so I've been bringing him here and he's been doing some extra work. He looks almost exactly like me… (laughs) If I'm just not cutting it anymore, they can bring out my brother.

SC's Donna: Tell us about your audition for Y & R.
David Lago: I had originally auditioned for the role of Billy Abbott, and I guess I went to four callbacks for that. It finally came down to me and David Tom. It was on a Friday, early in the day; that's when the last call was. I came home and I remember thinking the audition had gone really, really well. As soon as I got home, I called my agent and said, "Hey, find out what happened." He said, "Well, it's Friday and we probably won't know until Monday, so just relax and we'll find out Monday." A couple of hours later, my agent called and said, "They gave it to David Tom." I was crushed, because at that point in my life, I was at a really low point. I had been broke for over a year or just about a year. I had so many bills and credit cards to pay. I needed about $1300 or $1400 dollars a month just to pay my bills. So, needless to say, I was sweating bullets. During that whole year of not having any money, I had really learned the value of a dollar and what I would do differently if I had money again. I wouldn't be stupid about it. I needed that whole year to…

SC's Donna: You needed it for the experience!
David Lago: I learned my lesson and I'm glad it happened when I was younger instead of now when I would really be in trouble.

SC's Donna: Did you have a game plan after you found out that you didn't get the part of Billy Abbott?
David Lago: It was really embarrassing because I hadn't borrowed money from my parents since I was 15. So I was dying. That weekend was the longest weekend ever because I didn't know what I was going to do. It came down to "Monday I'm going to sell my truck." I remember on Friday when [my agent] called me and said, "You didn't get the part, but they loved you and are going to keep you in mind for the part of Billy Abbot's friend," I was like, "Okay, I've heard that before. Yeah, we love you and we'll keep you in mind." I didn't even think about it. Well, come Monday, my friend was going to show up at 12 o'clock and get my truck. We were going to the dealer to transfer [the lease] so he could take over the payments. I'd lose the truck. The call came at 11 am, one hour before my friend was going to show up. My agent said, "Hey, you got the role as Billy's friend." I was like, "When do I have to go in and audition?" He was like, "No, it's yours." It just didn't click. He was like, "You've got a three-year contract." It took so long to register. It was one month later when I actually started working; so for that whole month I was just waiting for something to go wrong and for them to call and say, "Hey, it didn't work out." That whole month was the longest month of my life. I started working on July 8 and my first airdate was August 2. That's when I realized, "Oh man, this is actually happening!" Then, four months later I was nominated for an Emmy and I was like, "Wow. It all happened kind of quick."

SC's Donna: So, it was a good feeling in the end!
David Lago: Yeah. Absolutely.

SC's Donna: How did you first get interested in acting?
David Lago: It happened when I was nine years old. I had always been a Popeye cartoon fan. Always. I have pictures of me when I was two years old with a sailor cap and a little pipe.

SC's Donna: Show them your muscles!
David Lago (flexes muscles, laughs): I'm completely covered in spinach. I wanted to be Popeye so bad that I would eat it straight from the can because I thought it would make me stronger and bigger. My mom wouldn't let me -- and I don't know why. I have pictures [of me] just completely covered in spinach. Then I saw the movie and I was like, "Wow, Popeye, the movie!" And Robin Williams was playing Popeye. Then, I was flipping through channels and saw Mork and Mindy and I automatically recognized that Mork was the same guy as Popeye. I was like, "Hey, wait a minute." Then I started putting it all together. I was nine years old. Then I must have seen another movie like The World According to Garp or something like that. I was watching all of Robin Williams' stuff, and I thought it was cool and I wanted to do that. That's where it started.

SC's Donna: What about your friends? Do you still have the same friends that you had in high school?
David Lago: Yeah. I have friends that I've known for 15 years or more. The friends I met in kindergarten class I still hang out with now. I've met a couple of actors working here, but the majority of my friends aren't even actors. I've grown up with them and that's cool. It keeps me grounded. I stay at home. I don't live in Hollywood. I live far away from Hollywood in a little town.

SC's Donna: You live in Downey, right?
David Lago: Yeah, and I've lived in the same place my entire life. I still have the same bedroom. My crib was in that room. It's still my bedroom. I moved out for a while when I was 18 to do the bachelor pad life. From like 18 to 20 I was out and then I went broke (laughs). I moved back home.

SC's Donna: How do you relax outside of work?
David Lago: Um, with music. I'm a drummer and a guitarist and I like to sing a little bit. I go to the gym. That's pretty much it. I like hanging out with my friends and I'm a video game freak. I go out and rent [new releases] and old movies. My ideal night is the typical Blockbuster night. I have a bunch of friends over and hang out, watch movies and play video games and board games. Yeah, Play Station 2 I've got. I hang out with my girlfriend and it's great.

SC's Donna: What about Hollywood Safari, which aired on the Animal Planet Channel? What was it like doing that show?
David Lago: That was just plain and simply crazy fun. It was shot in Santa Clarita, up in the mountains on a dude ranch. There were horses and bears and tigers and lions and monkeys. Any animal you could think of.

SC's Donna: Did they have snakes?
David Lago: Yeah, they had snakes. They had anything and everything they could afford. Huge beetles. It was fun. It was like a family comedy/action/drama kind of The Fall Guy meets The A-Team. It was a good show and I did it for a year. I got a lot of great experience from that. I'm so grateful because it really was the training that I needed to get used to working in front of a camera.

SC's Donna: How would you compare that to working here at Y & R?
David Lago: Two totally different worlds. We had two camera crews on Hollywood Safari. One would film scenes and the other would film all the stunts. We had stunt cars crashing and stuff. We were out in the mountains every day, whether it was 113 degrees or 40 degrees. It was film, so you were shooting from seven to ten pages a day. You might do it for 16 hours. It was a blast.

SC's Donna: Well, were there any memorable moments with the animals?
David Lago: I got bit in the back by a tiger.

SC's Donna: You did?
David Lago: Not a big tiger, but still… it was a lion, actually, now that I think about it. It was a baby cub lion. This thing was that big. It bit me in the back and it was just playing. It bit me so hard in the middle of a scene where I was supposed to be playing with two of the cubs. In the scene, I had one [cub] behind my back. We were talking and all of a sudden I just screamed and was like, "Oh." The trainer came up and grabbed it. It was just playing and wasn't even trying to do it hard. I can just imagine if it was really trying to do it hard. I had four little puncture wounds in my back and I was bleeding. I got so injured on that show. It was fun, though. I would insist on doing my own stunts. I used to be really into martial arts; and there was a lot of fighting and running in the woods and jumping out of trees on the show. I was like, "I want to do it, I want to do it." I did it and I've got my scars to prove it.

SC's Donna: Whom do you think of as a mentor on the set?
David Lago: Oh, I don't know. I like Christian LeBlanc's work a lot. I love his style of acting. When I'm here and he's doing a scene onstage, I'll sit here and I'll watch it, because I like the choices that he makes and the way he plays his character. He's so real and alive. There are a couple of other people, too, like Jess Walton and Peter Bergman.

SC's Donna: What's it like working with Ashley Bashioum, David Tom, Alexis Thorpe and Lauren Woodland?
David Lago: It's awesome. I mean we all get along, so it's cool.

SC's Donna: You guys seem to be a great group.
David Lago: Well, we run lines and hang out after work. We meet up on the weekends and we all go out. We're all just friends.

SC's Donna: If you could do any great classical role what would it be?
David Lago: Any good classical role? I would love to be… oh, are you talking about an old film? I would like to play Anthony Hopkins' character in The Elephant Man. That's it, yeah.

SC's Donna: That's a good choice. Well, thank you, David.
David Lago: Thank you.

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