Trevor St. John talks about indie film In the Family

Former One Life to Live star Trevor St. John (Todd Manning/Victor Lord Jr.) is currently starring in the new intimate indie film In the Family. It opens today in Toronto and Vancouver and is scheduled to play in Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa in the coming weeks. It’s already playing in numerous American cities. After eight years in the role of the villainous Manning, St. John was ready to seek out new and challenging roles.

“I loved playing that part as Todd, (or Victor, or whoever the hell I was),” he quips from his home in Los Angeles. “But I don’t miss it in the least. I miss many of the people and my friends, but I don’t miss the job at all. I’m so over Todd Manning.”

Trevor admits his diehard fans will forever associate him with OLTL. “There’s always going to be a part of Todd in me,” he explains. “People will see Todd in everything I do from now on if you watched the soap, because I brought a lot of myself to that role. People other than me are going to make comparisons. I don’t. But they are. All good things come to an end. I hope I can satisfy the fans in other ways.”

He’s been getting glowing reviews for his understated performance in In the Family as Cody Hines, a gay man with a life partner, Joey Williams (Patrick Wang), raising a six-year-old son, Chip (Sebastian Brodziak), together. When tragedy strikes, one of the men is left to fight for the right to keep the boy and raise him alone.

Patrick Wang makes his directorial debut with In the Family. His film faced rejections from over 30 film festivals before finally being accepted by the San Diego Asian Film Festival last Fall. “Then The New York Times gave us some good press,” Wang says with pride, “and it’s just one of those things where it very slowly built. Not on a big festival or a big distributor or somebody who kind of touched it and blessed it, but it’s all these people who once they see the film, they discover it and take ownership of it and do what they can to get the word out, and that’s why we’re opening in Canada now.”

Strangely, Patrick did a stint on One Life to Live years ago, but never met Trevor. “I was on during the music box killer storyline,” he recalls. “I had a couple of dozen episodes. I was the medical examiner. I was cleaning out my apartment last year and found an old script and apparently Trevor and I worked the same day and overlapped schedules, but we don’t remember each other.”

Since working together on In the Family, Wang and Trevor have become friends. “I’ve written a two-person script,” says Wang, possibly for Trevor and I to do. It’s called Steaks and Scotch. Maybe we’ll do it, maybe we won’t, but it’s a nice thing to think about.”

Meanwhile, Trevor  is currently in Munich for a few weeks to shoot a new Tarzan film. (Twilight’s Kellan Lutz plays the infamous jungle man raised by apes). Trevor  portrays William Clayton, the villainous, evil, power-hungry CEO of Greystoke Energies. Sounds familiar. Will the character make Todd Manning look like a goody two shoes? “Oh, I don’t have any idea,” laughs Trevor. “All I know is, it’s always more fun to play the bad guy.” ~Elaine Loring