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Vincent Irizarry Puts It On The Line
by Andrea Payne
Soap Opera Digest
December 4, 1984

"I was raised a Catholic, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm very wary of organized religion. I'll probably get a lot of hate mail now," Vincent Irizarry speculates right before saying, "The Pope -- I think he's got a great job. He walks around in a bathrobe all day. I mean that's wonderful, that's up to him."

Like it or not, take him or leave him, Vincent Irizarry, who portrays "Guiding Light's" popular Lujack a.k.a. known to his on-screen mother as Brandon Luvoneczek, says what he feels and that's part of his charm. The other part--besides his off-beat good looks--is the amount of thought and deep feeling that go behind his sometimes controversial remarks.

"The church that I've grown up in, the religion that I'm accustomed to--there are so many repressions. There's so much conditioning and I've got enough problems, I don't want to have to wake up feeling guilty for doing something when I was just doing a natural thing that occurred, something that was given to me that I feel I have the right to exercise ... My saying that I'm against organized religion is not the same as saying I don't believe in God, because I do believe in God," Vincent stresses. "I believe there are forces much stronger than me that are governing parts of my life and created me. Now, I believe that I'm generally a very good person. I don't feel that I create sin or anything like that. And when I do have problems, sometimes I do pray ... I don't feel like I have to sit in some box and confess sins to some guy who's probably more of a sinner than I am -- if we're going to make judgments. I don't feel I have to do that to get to God. God is there."

Probably the only way Vincent Irizarry could make small talk is if you paid him. For the next two hours or so, we will sit in a Manhattan restaurant and while Vincent neatly eats his shark, we will talk about subjects from, as Vincent later comments, religion to the achievements of man. And Irizzary will discuss each topic intelligently and articulately, revealing a personality which eschews the obvious and the easy way out. Which is not to say that Irizarry is so heavy--as we labeled people like him when I was a teenager -that you walk away feeling as though you've just shared the problems of the world with this guy and are somewhat depressed as a result. Irizarry possesses the kind of intensity associated with AI Pacino without the brooding. He's got an easy manner, and at times, this 24-year-old man seems like just a big boy.

Cut to the photographer's studio. The cover shoot is over. All that remains is for Judi Evans, who plays Beth Raines, Lujack's present love interest, to have some single photos taken. Vincent, who earlier said something to the effect that he couldn't stand having to do this--pose for pictures--has thrown on a white top, opened to reveal a bit of chest, over worn black denim jeans. Although Irizarry seemed more than ready to leave a minute ago, someone's suggestion that he be photographed in that outfit appeals to him. His brown eyes light up. He likes the idea, but the art director's not certain. "I think it'll look good," he assures her as he strides away to be photographed. The art director smiles and so do I, for at this moment, Vincent looks like a happy kid, off to get his picture taken in his favorite duds.

Kids. The word conjures up pictures of darling little children at play unencumbered by the world's troubles. Vincent Irizarry was born in Queens, New York, has five brothers and sisters and is of Italian descent. Of his childhood he says, "I was a very precocious kid. At six years old, I was blowing smoke rings." Vincent's mouth immediately becomes a circle emitting imaginary smoke rings. "My friends used to go to Grand Union (a supermarket)," he continues. "The cigarettes were behind the counter, so we'd start a fight at the counter and someone would come and break it up and one of us would steal a carton of cigarettes and we'd go off into the woods right across the street and smoke cigarette after cigarette until we were blue in the face. We had to do Kent cigarettes because my mother and father smoked Kent," he recalls shaking his head with a wispy smile. Irizarry lived in Queens during a "very weird time." The Vietnam war, assassinations, which fueled racial riots, and the multi-ethnic and multi-racial composition of the community created a situation which Irizarry says was "very combustive ... You have people in your neighborhood whose brothers were sent to Vietnam and all of a sudden they get a letter saying that their brother is dead. You feel that," Vincent says flatly. I was only eight years old when I left, but I felt it and it was very hard, so there was a lot of anger at the time and a lot of fights."

The Irizarrys moved to Long Island, and the change was like night and day, Vincent comments. But it took a while for the young warrior to adjust to the difference. "I went there being who I was--the only way I knew how. All the people on my block who I became friends with, I beat them up at one time in the beginning. There was this one guy--I saw him and went over to him and started harassing him. I punched him in the face; he fell down. He got up and said, 'I'm Joe.' And I became friends with him. It took me a while to see that things weren't the same out there."

Vincent eventually graduated from neighborhood bully to classical pianist. He was in eighth grade and his guidance counselors had him convinced of the urgency of choosing a career so he wouldn't be "floundering" in college. Since Vincent loved music, he picked that as his life's work. Vincent later followed up on his career decision by attending Berkelee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

"It's funny," Vincent reflects, "because I look at Boston as being the end of my youth. It was very free, very relaxed and there was not a care in the world." However, after two years, Irizarry felt it was time to get out. He had become involved in acting at the prompting of his English teacher and had gone on to win roles in Boston-area productions. After a year of acting, Irizarry made the difficult decision to become an actor. "I was afraid. I spent five to six years of my life playing piano and then all of a sudden one day I finally make the choice to leave it to pursue something that I'd just started."

Although Vincent loved music, he says he felt "sitting in a piano room for eight hours a day by myself playing to myself" wasn't helping him at all. "It was taking me internally." Acting, Irizarry believes, helped him expose emotions he had suppressed. But even though Vincent knew that acting was right for him, it wasn't until weeks after dropping out of school that he got up the courage to tell his parents. "I called them up finally because I got real depressed about lying to them every week and I told them. They were very supportive. They just said, 'Look, this is your life; you've got to make your own decisions. Take your time, decide what you want to do."'

In New York, Vincent faced the harsh realities of an actor's life. There were times when he slept on people's couches and on dressing room floors (Irizarry now lives in a roominghouse and is very happy there). He also did a stint as a waiter. Between the hard times, he managed to land roles in "The Taming of the Shrew," "Everyman," "Small Circle of Friends," and he portrayed Paul McCartney in the off-Broadway play "Lennon." Irizarry was still working in a restaurant when he got a part as a day player on "Guiding Light." After his sixth appearance on the show, they offered him a contract.

When Lujack first swaggered into town complete with his hip-looking leather jacket and his fearsome gang, Vincent says he was a "loud-mouth, arrogant, egotistical troublemaker, just causing havoc all over Springfield." Irizarry can't help but laugh as he goes on to describe the macho character he played. "The funny thing about it was every time we had a fight, I'd call in my gang of two guys--Ace and Trimmer. Trimmer was this little runt and we'd have these guys on the show almost twice my size and built like two people--at that time I looked like a starving actor--and I'd come in and say 'Get outta here. I'm gonna break your head."' Vincent is squinting his eyes the way bad guys always do in the movies as he points a firm finger at an imaginary opponent. "We always lost. What a gang," he sighs. "The Mickey Mouse Club was more dangerous than my gang."

Despite Lujack's less favorable attrbutes, Vincent liked him. "I was trying to find qualities in the character so people would understand why he was like that. He was very sensitive ... The people he did care about--his gang--he was very protective of them."

But now all that has changed. The gang has gone and like most of daytime's anti- heros, Lujack has been transformed. He's gone from a social misfit to a guy who's loved by Beth, Springfield's sweetheart, and he's also the long lost son of one of the town's most prominent people -- the Baroness Alexandra von Halkein. It's a transition that Vincent, who isn't sure if he likes the new Lujack, is trying to get comfortable with. "As you know with soap operas, sometimes the transitions occur very abruptly and I've been trying to work it in. It's too much in the beginning to make a judgment on whether I really like what's happening with the character because now that we're opening his club, it could be totally different."

Later this afternoon, Vincent will tape Lujack's first serious argument with Beth. Although viewers may have been salivating to see Lujack and Beth in the sack together, as Judi Evans noted wryly, the only man Beth seems destined to have sex with is her father. Rather than lovemaking, it appears that storm clouds are ahead for the young couple. "They're trying to make it a little more," Vincent pauses and then, thinking about his own past relationships, continues, "I don't want to say 'realistic' because when you first fall in love, it's realistic. It is not grounded. You don't have a foundation, you're in the clouds for weeks or months.

"There have been times with me when it lasted for months and then ... you start to see things a little differently. I spent five months with a girl and for the first few months it was like that. Everything was great--in the clouds. It was like nothing could ever go wrong. Two months later, it started changing a bit and for the last three months of the relationship, four months," Vincent corrects himself, "we fought every day. Every day. And we lost. That's painful because when it's over, you still have the memories of how beautiful it was at one time and you're wondering how could that have gone wrong. I've become very cynical about love at times. It's like, how can you trust love? It seems like it's so beautiful, but then it turns out to be a horrible experience, where it's so painful and all that's left is the pain and the memories which are painful in themselves." But despite past hurt, Vincent is not giving up on love. For love, he says, is one of the reasons we exist.

Irizarry, who admits he's searching for the "perfect relationship," confesses with a shy smile, "Just recently I started going out with somebody. It's been going very fast and at times it gets scary, but I think she's great." As for that ideal union, Irizarry's looking for "an overwhelming amount of love for another person and having the same from them for you, to be able to give yourself freely without fear of being hurt or rejected, to be able to share what you really are inside--show a side of you that nobody sees that you'd like to let somebody touch and let it grow and make you a much better person, to be able to have children and love them -- that's an ideal relationship to me."

It's obvious. Vincent is a romantic. His greatest achievement, lrizarry says, would be a walk on the stars. "I want to write a book that nobody's ever written before. I want to do so much. I would like to do something that you can't picture."

Right now, Vincent's happy with his more earthly accomplishments. It's been a long half year and he's tired, but he feels good. "In the last six months, I've gone through such highs and lows and so many pressures. I feel I've always been able to rise above it. I've also come to the understanding that nothing is that important. Let's say something happened where I couldn't work ever again as an actor, I'll go live in the mountains someplace in Italy. Who cares? Life goes on. I love being able to act, but it's not the most important thing. There are certain other facets of life that I find just as important, some of them even more."

It's a brilliant New York day. Sun is kissing everything and the sky is blue with a couple of perfectly placed friendly-looking clouds. Vincent, who's headed to the laundromat, is walking beside me, or so I think. Glancing sideways, I realize that I've been talking to myself. Turning around, I see Vincent giving something to an old man. From his ragged appearance, he seems to be one of New York City's thousands of homeless people. It's a private act and I don't bother to ask Irizarry what he gave the man. Soon, Vincent falls in beside me and we continue talking about his career. #