All My Children alum Susan Lucci (ex-Erica Kane) consistently appears in mainstream pop culture references for earning nineteen Daytime Emmy nominations before finally taking home the gold. And in a new interview with NBC News, she admits that every year she lost the Emmy, she put some pretty serious pressure on herself to develop her skills and become worthy of both winning the award and starring on the ABC soap opera.
"I felt like, after each loss, I had go back and try to do better work, to grow as an actress and be worthy of the award, because I knew that the other people who did win worked hard, too, and obviously people just thought their work was better," she reveals.
That's not to say, however, that she felt any pressure from her bosses and colleagues at AMC. Quite the contrary, in fact.
"That pressure to grow as an actress came from me: I don't know how it was on every show, but on All My Children, there was no talk of the Emmy, nobody thought about it. Everyone -- the wonderful ensemble of actors, and also the cast, the crew and the production team -- just wanted to make the scenes work and do our best work. I definitely didn't want to be the weak link in that company, because I had so much respect for the people with whom I was working."
She continues, "And then there was our writer, Agnes Nixon: I was so lucky to be in her hands. I saw very clearly the intentions of what Agnes was writing, and I never wanted to miss a moment that she had conceived for my character. A lot of wanting to grow as an actress came from the fact that I saw what was on the page; a lot of Agnes' stories (and she was writing stories that were way ahead of their time) were told through Erica Kane, whom I had that wonderful opportunity to portray."
Lucci may perhaps be an inspiration for the many actors and actresses up for Daytime Emmy Award nominations this year. Many talented performers are vying for various awards, and they may want to keep her closing sentence in mind:
"I knew that winning that award was not the end game," she says. "It was a wonderful thing, but I had spent all those years doing something I loved and continuing to develop in this profession that I loved. And that itself was, and is, a tremendous reward."
For more from Lucci about her legendary Daytime Emmy Award history, check out the original NBC News article here.
What do you think about the way Lucci views her Emmy history? How do you react when you don't win various things in life? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
