This month, One Life to Live becomes the latest daytime drama series to explore a gay storyline. This story, however, will not be like some of the other same-sex stories that fans have seen on other soaps. The show describes the story as a "journey," while one of the actors involved in the plot calls it a "love storyline."
While viewers may not yet be aware that the story is coming, it actually got underway last week -- albeit slowly. In scenes that aired June 18, viewers saw an exchange between former fraternity brothers Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish. The exchange was witnessed by another character, Layla Williamson, who is convinced that there's something she's not being told about the two men's relationship.
Turns out, Layla is very perceptive. While the complete details of Kyle and Fish's past are still under wraps, actor Scott Evans (Oliver Fish) confirms that the two men did have "some sort of relationship" in the past. The twist may throw some fans, especially since Fish recently slept with stripper-with-an-attitude Stacy Morasco. So is Fish gay, bisexual, questioning, or something entirely different?
"There was some experimentation by him in college. This new storyline is going to explore his journey dealing with it," Evans told Advocate.com. "It's going to be a struggle, and it's been a struggle. We have been working on that the last couple of weeks, and coming up, he's going to be working on it, and dealing with coming out and seeing where that goes."
The storyline is something that Evans says has great meaning for him. Evans is only one of a handful of openly gay actors currently working in daytime.
"It was something I thought about," Evans explains. "Maybe I should have thought about it more, but it was like I wanted to put myself first before my career. I did not want to go through life having to deal with extra issues when I am dealing with trying to get a job. So I went, 'OK, this is me. Either you like or you don't. Hopefully you can accept it, and if you can't, bummer. If you can hire me, great.' It was that sort of thing."
"We seem to be in a different time, as far as having gay storylines represented in daytime," Evans states, though he also admits that "there is still a long away to go."