Martha Byrne Talks GOTHAM on "Not Picture Perfect"

Two-time Emmy winner Martha Byrne was a guest on the "Not Picture Perfect" radio show last night. She spoke about her roles on AS THE WORLD TURNS and GENERAL HOSPITAL and offered some background and a preview of her upcoming indie soap, GOTHAM, which debuts on Monday, November 23, at 8 p.m. ET.

This is an hour drama pilot that I wrote a year ago. In shopping it around in the industry, the climate for soap operas was a little tepid. The passion for it wasn't there like it was fifteen years ago. With GUIDING LIGHT going off the air, and the amount of money it costs to produce a new show, it was a tough sell. I had some action with it that kind of fizzled out. I met with someone at FOX Television Studios and he said, "Look, you've got a great concept here. Why don't you do this on the internet? Why don't you do something yourself? Get it out there for people to see what you're doing and your concept."

So I literally flew back from L.A. and started typing these webisodes. The pilot was a standalone hour pilot and what I decided to do is a prequel to that pilot, understanding the relationship of the two characters, giving the audience backstory to who these two people are, Michael Park, who plays Richard, and myself, and keeping it very classic soap opera. When you have 4-5 minutes to tell a story each week or every other week depending on how we're going to air these shows, you have to keep it pretty simple.

I come from a school of the soaps I like to watch, what I like to play as an actor, what I saw on other soaps that I admired, and the response that I would get from fans that they liked. The things they liked the most are romance, love stories, and star-crossed lovers. This is my own experience and the only way to know if it's the correct way to approach this is the fans and to see how they respond to it. I was involved as an actor with Douglas Marland, who was probably the most incredible daytime writer of his generation. He had simple rules about writing soaps. I'm going to try to apply those rules.

To listen to the entire interview, check out "Not Picture Perfect".