Bellingham man a rising star on ABC soap opera

BELLINGHAM — Little did Matt Twining know that the secret to stardom was a bottle of Clairol.

"One day I'm a blond kid on the beach in California, the next I'm a brown-haired bad boy living in New York City," says Twining, a 1999 Sehome High School graduate who joined the cast of ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" in early July.

Improbable for a 22-year-old last seen starring in the straight-to-video horror flick "The Frightening"? Not as much as the fact that he landed the role of River Carpenter over six other guys because he sulked through auditions, having been turned down before.

Turns out they were looking for a moody rebel to play the 17-year-old ladies' man, who was 6 years old when the character "ran away" in 1997. OK, so the math is as fuzzy as the logic.

"And they've only dyed my hair once," says Twining between video games during a visit to his parents' home in Bellingham. "So my blond roots show up. We can't re-dye it — filming jumps all over the place chronologically — so it has been a challenge."

There have been others — such as relocating from Hollywood, where he played in a band, to New York, where the soap opera is filmed.

Although Twining has a four-year contract with ABC, "One Life to Live" characters can be written out of the show every 13 weeks. That made apartment-hunting tough, says his mom, Jeanne Twining. But he survived his first cycle.

What the producers do is assess fan responses, Twining says. That's based on letters to producers or the actors themselves, even things people say on online message boards. If it's good or at least voluminous, they keep you.

"But you know," Twining says, "it's one of the shows your mom watches."

Is his mom a fan?

"I'm slowly becoming one," says Jeanne Twining, who often catches the week's episodes on Sundays, when they're rerun back-to-back on the Soap Opera Network. "It's not by choice, though."

Of course, that comes with the knowledge that 7 million TV watchers have already seen him crash a Porsche 911, run over someone (who was dead already), get caught drinking and get caught numerous times with his forbidden Llanview squeeze, Adriana.

At least he hasn't flubbed a line.

"That's what people don't realize about soap operas — I've got to look at 30 pages of dialogue, memorize it on one look and shoot it in one take," Twining says.

"It's fun, but I have to remember scenes from their wardrobe, telling myself, 'I'm in shorts and a tank top; I'm sad today.' I've developed a respect for people who've stayed on here and stayed sane."

Meanwhile, the newly dark-haired Twining has stayed incognito on the streets of Bellingham. Friends don't even recognize him, though New Yorkers have.

"This ... lady grabbed me on the street and said, 'You naughty boy,' " Twining says. "The fans, they know you as a character, not an actor. So all I can say is, 'I'm really sorry. I'm just misunderstood.' "