An interview with Thaao Penghlis (Victor Cassadine, GENERAL HOSPITAL; ex-Tony/Andre Dimera, DAYS OF OUR LIVES) about his upcoming book, PLACES (available for pre-order at Amazon.com ), as well as his travels around the world.
OUTTAKES: What is PLACES about? Is it an autobiography? About your travels?
THAAO: You reach a stage where as a young man, you are
constantly moving forward. One day you turn around and realize what you’ve accomplished; and you must acknowledge that...what it is that you’ve gone through. The best way I saw of doing that is that I
usually take journeys every year. I took
a journey in my mind last summer; and I began to write about the journeys that
I’ve taken in the Middle East, South America and Europe. I thought I’d do it for myself...but slowly I ended up writing 24 chapters.
It was amazing what I remembered...to tap into the mind after all those years, remembering
incidences and expanding on them and reliving them. Some were not as wonderful as others. But it was part of what the map was for
my life. By putting these stories
out, especially on how one journeys. I thought it would be great to put in a book
where people can see somebody’s point of view, especially when you’re traveling. The pros and cons of knowledge before you get there.
OUTTAKES: How was the experience of writing the book for you?
THAAO: It was really a privilege for me...because when we go through life, you turn around and people die; and they never told you their
stories. They never told you what their
fears were, what their appreciations of experiences were. And that knowledge is gone. I left Australia at such a
young age that when I came to America, it was my first big adventure. So I looked at life always as an
adventure. Even when I did work as
an actor, that was to pay for the adventures. That’s how I lived my life.
Also I did the same to my family.
I sent my parents overseas six times and brought them to America just so
that they could catch up to where I’ve been. I really enjoyed doing it. It
was not a chore at all.
OUTTAKES: What advice would you give to someone who is writing a book?
THAAO: What I did was I looked at the beginning, the middle
and where I’m at now. I looked at the
high points of my youth...the high points of my adult life. Suddenly I thought...oh wow, yes, I
had that experience. I wrote all of
these experiences down as I could remember.
By tapping into one…it’s amazing what the mind does. It opens the door; and another memory suddenly falls down, one that you forgot. So I would do a whole synopsis of
all the different things in your life that were exciting...that would be
informative. The obstacles you overcame. The joys that resulted by going
through that tunnel. In many
ways, it’s a wonderful exercise for yourself.
Approach it like your life is worthy.
It is...because you’re here and you’re working it out. Everybody has a story to tell. That’s what’s so great about some
of the modern media is that people are getting a chance to tell the world, "Listen, this is what I did, even if it doesn’t seem too great". It may be done through words. It may be done through photographs. But in some way, that person felt that that
picture changed their lives or meant something to them.
OUTTAKES: How did you get interested in archeology?
THAAO: I think it had to do with when I was in school. I always topped the class in history. I could rattle it off. I could do a whole essay and then rattle it
off to the class; and the teacher said I was cheating, but even then I was
memorizing things. Even today with the way my memory served me, all the things that I did in my youth is the
foundation with what I’m doing today.
All the art world that I got involved with when I was 21. The
people that crossed my path...who were just extraordinary discoverers that I traveled
and sat with -- archeologists. I always think to myself that I would love to
find a treasure. Even if it was a little
bottle. So I started to climb over fences that I wasn’t allowed to. I
went to the island of Delos in
Greece (pictured above) where there is the most uncovered historical architecture in
history. This was a huge port in ancient
times that has not been touched. So I climbed the fence; and right away
within ten inches of soil, I started finding all of this stuff. I found pottery; and I found ancient glass; and
I found a chain. I looked at just
the discovery in itself. Holding something in my hand meant
something quite extraordinary to me...in the discovery in that it hadn’t been touched
in all those years...for hundreds and
hundreds of years. It is the same that I find with acting when it is done well. When I realize I’ve got
the part in me, there’s a revelation there...a euphoria that not many other things in my life have done, apart from
my family and the occasional love life that I’ve had that expressed itself and
became euphoric. So that’s why I decided
I wanted to be an archeologist. Then, of course, I got into acting by mistake.
That’s sort of a hobby or an interest. But now I want to do a show that deals with
the discovery and the knowledge that I’ve experienced and unraveling those
secrets. So in some ways, its still
paralleling my life, both creative and both discovering what I didn’t know
before.
OUTTAKES: How do you pick where you would like to travel to?
THAAO: When I finished Mission Impossible in 1991, I remember
coming back to LA. I was reading a newspaper. There was an article on people climbing Mount Sinai where Moses supposedly met God. I thought "Oh, my god, I thought that
was just a movie". I didn’t really think
of the fact that you could go there. That became the first time I
started taking journeys and working them out about what it was that I wanted to
do. When I went across the Sinai
desert and then took the camel up to St. Catherine’s Monastery and spent time
there; and then climbed it at one o’clock in the morning -- it was the beginning
of my adventures. And I’ve done that
again. I did it twenty years later...but it was just as euphoric as it was
before. When I went to Egypt my first
time, I went to a place called Saqqara where they have all the burial sites. They
had just found a new tomb of a nobleman. My guide, who was quite a
scholar and had a lot of influence, said, "Listen, I’ve been invited to go in;
and if you like, they’ve just uncovered it".
So I went in as they opened the door of an ancient tomb that was called
the Tomb of Mere (pictured above). When I went in there, I sat in the
sand because I wanted to meditate. I felt a
really strange attraction to that room. As I was
doing my meditation, I was feeling the sand with my hands.
And out of one hand came up a
wonderful necklace full of semi-precious stones...and in the other was a
mummified cloth of a jackal. I put
the necklace back because it didn’t belong to me, but I kept the cloth of the jackal. That was my
first discovery as an amateur; and it was unbelievable to the point where I
just began to sob. When I was leaving Saqqara,
I realized that maybe if one believes in previous lives that this
was a time that I connected to my ancient past.
OUTTAKES: What is the most amazing place that you have visited?
THAAO: Last 2010, I followed the Holy Family’s footsteps up from
when they escaped from Herod in the 4th century AD. I had followed all the places they had
hid...all up and down the Nile which
today has become monasteries and sacred wells and sacred caves. I went to all these places; and it was just
amazing to be able to sit in a place and think about where I was. This is where they hid; and the water was still running after two
thousand years. Those things stay with
you. Even when you touch water or you
splash it on you or you drink it, there’s something about it that registered something within myself. Maybe
because of my spiritual beliefs. For me,
when something talks to my inner core, then I have to pay attention. Those things feed me. So when I
would come back to LA, I was so full of discovery that my work became even better
because of it...because all of the passion that I had stirred up in myself in
these places. When I would go back to Days of Our Lives, the colors of the character would change strictly upon what I did
two weeks before that with my travels.
Wadi Rum desert; Jordan
OUTTAKES: What is the most danger you've been in on your travels?
THAAO: One of the most dangerous was when I met with my friend from
Australia who is Lebanese. We met in Egypt and went in Lebanon in Beirut -- which was not a great experience because of the traffic and the lack of rules
that people drive by. It was
insane. We went down to a place
where the King of Jerusalem, Montferrat, had been assassinated by the Hashashins -- who were the terrorists of their day in the 11th century. They were like black belts and assassinated him there
on the street. I wanted to go see where this happened because I was
investigating the crusaders, but because of the Israeli war with Hezbollah, there were cluster bombs being dropped in the area. The UN said that we could not go in that area because there were too many bombs. So when I was at a gas station, I was just
getting in a car when suddenly the door opened; and a man came in, pulled me
out and put me against the wall. He said to me, "Are you an Israeli spy?" The look on that man’s face was with just
such hatred. I said, "No. I’m Greek." And then my friend started talking Lebanese to him. They got into an argument; and my friend stood up to the man. As he’s doing this, I’m looked around. There were all these bullet holes in the buildings from the war. I thought, "Oh, my god, this is going to be one of those stories." My friend got the man to let me go, but for the
next three hours, we were always afraid we may be pulled over because it was
Hezbollah territory. And then we went to
go to Shabelle up in the north -- which is
their great state. As we were driving up there, we had machine guns on us
all the way up which took two and a half hours. And I’ve been in certain situations even
with Massad agents who thought I was a spy as well. I don’t know what it is. It’s all the roles I’ve been playing all my life, I suppose. I’ve come out
looking like an assassin!
Egypt
OUTTAKES: What attracts you to the Middle East?
THAAO: In different parts of the world, we have different ways of
expressing ourselves and getting information. When I went to the Middle East is that they are a veiled society. When you look at
their windows, they are all camouflaged.
They are very small tidbits of squares that you can see out of, but you
can’t see through. So they see about you; and we can’t see about them. So those places always had an air of
mystery. Even when I would sit with the
Bedouins in Jordan, there was always a sense of mystery. When you look at the movie, Lawrence of
Arabia, Arabs always had a
sense of mystery. So I suppose it
intrigued me; and I had to constantly uncover that mystery. That’s why I got involved with going to
places more than once. I've been to Egypt ten times; and I've been to Greece and Italy a lot. I've been to Jordan three times.
OUTTAKES: Where would you like to go that you haven't been?
THAAO: China. I studied
Chinese history for three years in my youth, so I know the periods, the history, the pottery and the different states at
the time. Their archeology is also
fascinating because it has a veil as
well. You
can’t read their mind. That is
fascinating. So that’s where I’d
go. India would be one as well. Probably China more than any other place.
OUTTAKES: What is your favorite place that you've traveled to?
THAAO: Santorini in Greece (pictured above). You walk along
there; and you see the whole ocean. Two
thirds of that island in 1500 BC went under because of what was probably the
greatest earthquake known to man...a volcanic
eruption just imploded what’s left. So when you go along there, there’s an innate sadness in that island. Someone said, after six weeks, you’ll end
up weeping here. It just permeates the
island. But what a beautiful landscape,
it’s just breathtaking.
This interview was previous recorded on Blogtalkradio (OutTakes Interviews; host: Laurie Baker, 8/28/12). Audio recording can be heard at link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment