Carry That weight

How stars balance reel-life and real-life when they’re on the front burner

Few daytime actors have been busier in the past year than GH’s Jon Lindstrom, who has been pulling double duty as twins Kevin and Ryan. “Frankly, there is no life!” he says of how his life changed during such a busy season. “There is no other life. We all feel it. When you’re working that hard and you know you’re spending that much physical, mental and emotional energy, it’s really important just to keep your life simple, stay focused, take care of yourself, get your sleep, eat right. If you’re filming a movie you’re on location for three months, and the most important thing is just getting the work into the can, it’s not going out and partying and going, ‘Look at me! I’m doing all this stuff.’

You can do that later. It’s no different when you’re working that much on a soap opera. It’s just really important to keep it simple, enjoy your life at home, keep it quiet, keep it drama-free and stress-free, which I tend to do, anyway — and also, to enjoy the moment, because you won’t be this busy six months from now.”

Lindstrom took the sacrifices he had to make in stride — mostly. “I do have to get into bed early. Cady [McClain, ex-Dixie, ALL MY CHILDREN et al, his wife] and I don’t get to go out and see a lot of screenings or have a great late-night dinner out, which I like to do, things like that. But the hard thing was that I was working so much right in the middle of ski season. I would have loved to take a week off and go up to Mammoth or go out to Colorado or Utah and just cut some tracks for four or five days. That’s something that’s good for me mentally and spiritually; it allows me to kind of get the stress burned off. That’s what I do. I had to find another way to expel that, so I go to the gym. I do miss that.”