In Print
Follow the links to our archive of Thorsten's print interviews and articles about the characters he's portrayed.
Above: On the cover of the June 26, 2007 issue of Soap Opera Digest.
Related Sections
The end of "Zen"?
Susan Haskell (Marty, OLTL)
and Thorsten Kaye (Zach,
AMCex-Patrick, OLTL)
Thorsten Kaye And Alicia Minshew Speak Out About Their AMC Split
Soap Opera Digest
by Mara Levinsky, Published April 28, 2009
It's been a rough few months for fans of ALL MY CHILDREN'S premier couple, Zach and Kendall, whose divorce was made official last week after betrayals of trust on both sides. In an ultra-rare joint interview, their portrayers, Thorsten Kaye and Alicia Minshew, speak candidly about the dissolution of the "Zendall" union.
Soap Opera Digest: Thorsten, in
your view, why did Zach
serve Kendall with the divorce papers?
Thorsten Kaye: Why? Because she
[had sex with] Ryan
in my bed! She was unfaithful!
Digest: What about the kiss with Reese,
not to mention
his admission that he desired to sleep with her?
Kaye: Let me tell you something: Kissing
somebody because
you're emotionally spent, you're sad and lonely and you just need a
little
comfort, that's different than [having sex with] someone in your
husband's
bed.
Digest: Fair enough.
Kaye: It's also very
disrespectful. I built that
house for her.
Digest: Beautifully, might I add.
Kaye: Thank you. It's a nice
house. Couple
of things: I think the kitchen should have been on the other side, but
that's me. That's for the next wedding.
Carolyn: Is Zach going to confide in
anyone about what
happened?
(Minshew enters.)
Alicia Minshew (sadly):
I just took Kendall's
wedding ring off today.
Kaye: To screw Ryan?
Minshew: Pretty much, yeah. In
the house that you
built for me!
Digest: He believes that he put the
kitchen in the wrong
place.
Kaye (mock hurt):
That was a private
conversation.
Digest:
Thorsten believes that was the point of no return -- her sleeping with
Ryan in the house, not Zach's kitchen placement.
Minshew: I think it was actually before
that, when Kendall
slept with Ryan [in Connecticut]. It was different than it
was with
Aidan; it was a conscious choice.
Kaye: It can all be forgiven, and we're
going to be sitting
here in three months going, "Really?" But there's something
sacred
about your home, your family home.... It's a sick thing.
There are
just certain things you don't do.
Minshew: It is sick, but some people
do. You hear
about it all the time, the woman sleeping with the pool boy while the
husband's
at work....
Kaye: We're not in Florida [Minshew's home
state] anymore!
Minshew (laughing hysterically):
The pool
boy, right. Right. Not in Florida, got it.
Kaye: The hardest thing for me is that
Kendall went to
someone who she should have been over.
Minshew: Right. It's
not like
it was some random
new person, or even Aidan. It was someone who has always been
an
issue in their marriage.
Kaye: Have you had grief sex
before? I don't grieve
that much, personally. There are women who've had sex with me
who
were grieving during it, but that's different. That's as
close as
I can get to explaining that plot twist that keeps coming up.
You
can forgive somebody like Aidan because he's not important.
This
guy's important to her. So, Zendall? I don't know
how you get
back from that. I don't know what believable journey you can
have
from naked man in my bed to me being in my bed. I don't know
what
that story would be. I couldn't write it.
Digest:
Kendall
appears to be going full-steam ahead with Ryan. Your
thoughts, Thorsten?
Kaye: [Zach and Kendall's] was a nice
relationship based
on trust and understanding each other, but it turns out that Zach
didn't
understand her at all; she always wanted to be with Ryan. The
saddest
thing to me is not that it's over, but that it never really counted for
anything because it was always him.
Digest: Ouch! So you believe
what Zach believes,
that it was never real between them at all?
Kaye: It couldn't have been! Or
else she wouldn't
have gone to Ryan! They're not just [having sex]; they tell
each
other how much they love each other, how much they need each
other.
That doesn't turn on and off. If you love someone, you love
them.
If you have a destiny with someone, it's always there -- soul mates or
whatever. He's the one. And that's tough.
I think through
the kids and the fights and the lobster, through all of that, she was
trying
to push [Ryan] out of her mind and it didn't work. I think
all she
needed was one excuse, however small or however big, to go back to
that.
Minshew: You know what I think?
I think that she's
trying to convince herself that she loves Ryan.
Kaye: But why?
Minshew: Because she's so desperate to
have somebody right
now.
Kaye: I think she's just so hurt, not
about Zach kissing
Reese, but about the baby, about Gabrielle. And the fact that
he
drew up the divorce papers. She was like, "What?"
She felt
blindsided. It was kind of like, "Oh, this is what you want?
Fine."
Kaye: I really don't see any way back
from this.
Minshew: Nor do I. You know
they're going to do
it eventually, but it's lost its.... We always work well together, but
the story will have lost its innocence.
Kaye: There's no trust between them
anymore. When
you're that close to someone there's a security in knowing what the
other
person's going to do; you just know they're going
to do the right
thing. But when they do something like that, that's
gone. Now
you're going, "Uh, I'm not sure..." I don't know if they will
be
together again, to be honest with you.
Minshew: Even my mother is like, "What's
going on?"
I'm like, "Mom, I don't know what to tell you!" But every
time I
have a moment with Zach, I make it a point to look at him with the
utmost
love.
Digest: And you will continue to play that
Kendall loves
Zach?
Minshew: I will not play anything but
that! Even
if it's written that it's over for us, even if I'm told it is over, I
am
not going to play that! I refuse. I have invested
seven years
into this character, four years with him, and I am not going to play
that.
Any chance I get to play that she still loves this man, I'm going to
show
it -- even if she's yelling at him, even if she's talking about, "Oh, I
don't care who he sleeps with." It's always there.