LOS ANGELES — Mick Blue appeared last week in two episodes of the longest-running American soap opera currently in production, “General Hospital.”
Blue can be seen in a recurring role in Episodes 13 and 14 of the 62nd season of the legendary soap, which is also currently the longest-running scripted drama still in production.
The XBIZ 2022 Male Performer of the Year plays an underground casino poker dealer alongside daytime legends Steve Burton (Jason), Finola Hughes (Anna), Carlo Rota (Sidwell) and Emma Samms (Holly).
Blue spoke to XBIZ to share his experiences making television history as one of the very few adult performers to successfully cross over into a mainstream acting career.
“I’m still working as a contract talent for Brazzers,” he explained, ‘”but ever since I was able to join the SAG union last year, I’ve been focused mainly on mainstream work. I was very fortunate to get an agent right away, the wonderful Michael Zanuck of MZA, who’s been well-known in the industry for over three decades and really took a chance with me.”
Impressed with Blue’s acting skills, Zanuck contacted him and said he wanted to represent him as soon as the 2023 strike was over.
“When the strike finally finished in November, I actually started to do auditions, to do more acting classes to get better and ready for when the opportunity would rise — which it did with General Hospital.”
Getting over his initial uneasiness about self-taping — which post-COVID became the industry standard for auditioning — Blue eventually caught the attention of the soap’s highly selective casting directors, Mark and Lisa Teschner.
“After almost nine months of hard work on my acting, I was fortunate enough to convince Mark and Lisa that I was the right person for the role.”
A very important decision — with lasting consequences for all his adult industry colleagues — was the choice to book the role as Mick Blue.
“When I joined the union,” he revealed, “I used my legal name for the first two weeks. But then, I was thinking about it, and looking at all the pros and cons, and then I decided to go with the name Mick Blue. First, Mick Blue is already a brand, and both names are connected already. Because what’s the worst thing that can happen? You work hard, you put in the effort to make it in mainstream, and you get the audition, or you get the booking, and you end up on set, and I guarantee you there will be at least one person who recognizes you from your adult work. So if you hide it, or you lie about it, and then you come on set and you have a situation where the Second AD, or whoever is in charge, comes to you and they kick you off the set because of what you've done in your past. I decided to go with Mick Blue, because at least the people who don't want to have me on set because of what I've done in the past, they won't book me, so it saves me the drama. And then the ones who are okay with that, or who don't care, they're gonna book me anyway.”
Blue also noted that his Brazzers contract was a big part of his being able to pursue his mainstream dreams.
“Without the support from Brazzers, a career like this would have been really hard possible,” he offered. “Before the contract, I was working 25 to 30 days a month doing adult scenes. But putting in the work and trying to make it in mainstream takes a lot of effort, energy and time. Without the Brazzers contract giving me some freedom with my time, that would have been really difficult to achieve.”
A Well-Oiled TV Institution
Blue adds that it was a marvelous, awe-inducing experience to witness the machinery of ABC Daytime’s most famous soap opera at work.
“It’s crazy when you see it. They air from Monday to Friday, a new episode every day. Each episode is about 36 minutes, and has as many as five to seven different time stories going on at the same time! I felt like I was jumping into a time machine. General Hospital started shooting in 1963 and when you go to the studio, you have a giant building that actually looks like a hospital from the outside and says ‘General Hospital’ on it. Everything is shot and produced there. All the sets, the offices are there. The actors’ rooms are like little hotel rooms without a bed — you get your TV and a coffee machine and a bathroom and shower. And then when it’s your scene, you go up one floor to the soundstage, and the cameras they use are those enormous cameras that you see on live TV. They are giant, they shoot five at the same time, and everyone knows what they are doing with incredible precision because they’ve been doing it for so many years. They basically shoot one entire episode a day.”
Blue also had fun with the role he played, as a card dealer in an underground casino who is in cahoots with show villain Jenz Sidwell.
“Sidwell was played by Carlo Rota, who is a very seasoned actor, and I’m his poker card stealer. So, we got to have a secret connection. And I got to act opposite soap royalty like Steve Burton and Finola Hughes, who have been on GH for decades. For 80% of that specific storyline, we are at the poker table, and I'm basically constantly the card stealer and get so much screen time.”
Blue — who says he may be the first Austrian-born actor to book a major U.S. soap opera — also credits none other than Sacha Baron Cohen for his mainstream break.
“In 2017, Sasha Baron Cohen, out of nowhere, cast me as a principal actor for his short-lived TV show ‘Who Is America?’ It was canceled after six or seven episodes because it was too scandalous, so the episode that I was in was never aired! But the eligibility for joining the union was still there for me, so without him getting me the eligibility to join SAG, I would have never been on General Hospital.”
The Mick Blue episodes of General Hospital are now available on Hulu.
For more about Mick Blue, follow him on Twitter.
