Where in the World is Saundra Santiago?

O’Neil, Jerry. “Where in the World is Saundra Santiago?: She’s Alive and Well and Making Lots of Trouble in Springfield, USA.” Soap Opera Weekly, vol. 11, no. 6, Feb. 8, 2000, pp. 14-16.

Belying the popular belief, crime clearly IS paying off for Saundra Santiago – in the realm of televised fiction, of course. During the last year, the raven-haired, seasoned trouper has put her stamp on a pair of diameteric roles that have combined to put her back in the viewing spotlight in a manner she hasn’t enjoyed since the heady days of Miami Vice in the 1980s.

On daytimes she’s created quite a stir as Guiding Light‘s Carmen Santos, the “Godmadre,” if you will, of the Santos crime family. Since debuting on the the soap in January 1999 on a recurring basiss (she signed a 3 year contract late last fall), Santiago and her larger than life character have elicited a slew of strong responses. Love her or hate her, it’s virtually impossible and often deadly gaze on a putative Santos enemy.

Meanwhile, at night on HBO, she plays a “normal” woman in the hit series The Sopranos, now in its second season. Santiago portrays an upper-middle class Italian neighbor of the lead character, Tony Soprano. On the day we meet at her West Greenwich Village digs and walk to a neighborhood breakfast nook, she’d recently completed some long days on the set of The Sopranos. Not that she’s complaining mind you.

“I worked 16 hours one day,” says Santiago, ordering a much-desired morning cup of coffee. “They work long hours on that show. I play Jeannie Cusimano and [this season] her twin sister, Joan, as well. What’s funny is that David Chase, the creator and producer, didn’t know about my being on Guiding Light. David and the crew were shooting on location in Naples, Italy, a while back, and were in some villa owned by a detective in town. There were television monitors everywhere, and guns, too, which they found fascinating. They glanced at the TV monitors and all of a sudden realized, “That’s Saundra!’ If figured it had to be some old Miami Vice reruns they saw, but they said it was the soap opera. Of course, Carmen was speaking perfect Italian. They were blown away seeing me on Guiding Light over in Italy.”

Sitting across from Santiago, who looks quite alluring despite an absence of makeup, it’s easy to see why GL co-star Paul Anthony Stewart (Danny) has called her “the antithesis of Carmen.” Laughing heartily, she agrees with the assessment. “It’s true, we are nothing alike. It’s a creative thing. I’m creating this role, and I have the instrument to be able to do it. But just think of it this way: Carmen Santos would never eat in a place like this. This is very much Saundra, especially with the roach and all.” She’s referring to a critter that had crawled on the wall behind her a few minutes beforehand, which she coolly dispatched with a napkin and an absence of fuss. “If I’m anything, I’m a true New Yorker.”

The change of the millennium happens to be a harmonious and happy time in Santiago‘s life, both professionally and personally. She was actually so busy working that she had a difficult time planning and carrying out her November wedding to her mate of almost three years, musician Roger Squirtero. She me the well-regarded percussionist years ago, when both were part of the musical Chronicle of a Death Foretold. “When we first did the workshop of the play, I was happily married, a year later, when we brought the project to Broadway, I was unhappily married,” Santiago says pithily, explaining that her husband of five years was an unsuccessful actor from Greece. “He didn’t work much and that took its toll on our marriage. Also, he was very macho, and I suspect there’s a little insanity in his family. I had the support of some very good friends who helped me throught a very tough time. When the breakup started I was in Los Angeles, but I left immediately for New York. If it’s no fun going through a divorce normally, it’s even less fun going through it in LA.”

Having weathered a stormy marriage, what makes Santiago inclined to give it another go with this particular man? “Roger is very special,” everyone says that about the person they’re with, but if you talk to Roger’s friends you’ll discover they all adore him. My friends would say about me, “Oh, she’s so difficult, she’s so impatient’, they love me despite myself. With Roger, it’s unanimous. Everyone thinks he’s a great guy. He’s done a lot of work on himself, which a lot of men don’t do, and he’s had lots of different experiences. About the only flaw he has is that he can be mean to my dog, Prince. He’s not used to sharing an apartment with a lapdog.”

When told it seemed she had dropped of the TV screen since her days as Detective Gina Calabrese on Miami Vice, Santiago looks amusedly resigned. “I was married to that lunatic, but I was also doing tons of theater and living in New York. The plays I did were very interesting for an actor. I worked a lot of off-Broadway in lots of challenging roles, with talented, interesting actors. I kept active. Once in a while, to makes some money, I’d do occasional television movie of the week, or show pilots.”

When insisting that she fancied being part of an earlier telvision phenomenon, Santiago says she harbored no illustions that Miami Vice would launch her career into the stratosphere. “No, not at all. As a matter of fact, when I was on the show, a lot of opportunties went by the wayside. I couldn’t do much because I was under contract. At the time, I really didn’t want to do a series, but Bonnie Timmerman, who cast the show, sold me on doing it. This was right after I played the ingeue in the early ’80s Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge (which earned Santiago early acclaim). I thought for sure I was going to get into movies, but Bonnie wanted me for this project, which was initially called Gold Coast. It was meant to be During the course of the show’s run. I don’t think I was utilized very well. Like I said, a lot of other opportunities came and went because Michael Mann (Vice‘s creator and producer) wouldn’t let me off to do movies. What are you going to? I’m proud of being on the show, regardless.”

Oddly, one genre within the industry that she failed to take a stab at over the years was daytime. She was once offered an ongoing role on One Life to Live and was faced with a decision: “It was either do the soap or do a play with Kevin Bacon called Spike Heels.” she explains. “Off-Broadway wond out at the time. The call for [Carmen] came from Glenn Daniels (former GL casting director), whom I’ve known since 1981, when he brought me in to read for a movie he was casting. I respect Glenn.”

Intent on maintaining some freedom and career latitude, Santiago was perfectly content with her recurring status and held off signing on as a contract player for many months. But GL was amendable to her continuing to work on The Sopranos, and so she took the plunge. “There’s a sense of security, that’s for sure,” she says. However, “I wish I had more friends at work. I’m used to a more collegial environment, with more camaraderie, in the theater. I think people here are very concerned at all times with their own storyline, whether they admit it or not. More story means more days of work. I don’t blame anyone for that. I’m perfectly happy with two or three days. Your brain is not as fried at the end of the week, and the fans see less of you so they hate you less,” she says with a caustic chortle.

When she discussed the character with GL executive producer Paul Rauch, whom she calls “complex and fascinating,” he used Greek tragedy as a metaphor for Carmen’s life. The notion appealed to Santiago, who says, “This is not a regular family in Springfield: they are not the Bauers or the Spaulding. We really are like a family out of a Greek tragedy. I think now, based on the feedback I’m getting, the Santos family puts off certain people. They just don’t get it. Maybe if fans clicked into that notion” – that this is not your typical soap family – “I think they’d understand us, and Carmen, better.”

Conveying Carmen’s focused intensity is no easy feat, either. “Sometimes I just want to relax, but I can’t with this woman,” she says with a laugh. “That’s why it was so much fun working with Hunt (Block, ex-Ben Warren). We got to a point where we were able to relax with each other, because Carmen could be most relaxed with Ben. Hunt was a lot of fun to work with, and I wish he were still around. He turned into a great friend.”

Make no mistake, Santiago enjoys portraying Mama Santos. “I like the idea of being the boss, though I am getting some flak from people because they think she’s a negative stereotype of Latinos,” she says, “I just think of her as pure villainess. I can understand some of those feelings. I’ve tried to shy away from playing those kinds of characters. I’ve never considered myself as an ethnic actress; I can be anything I want, though because of my looks I’m not going to get to play a Danish woman. I never considered myself a beauty. Even when I was young and an ingenue, I was a character ingenue. As I’ve gotten older I look at myself as a character actor.”

“I do feel a responsibility as a Latina,” she adds, “to work and to let people know that we’re a group to contend with. America is going to have to face up to the fact that we’re out there in huge numbers. We come in all sizes and shapes and colors, and you can’t pigeonhole us. We’re not all fiery.”

Funny thing is, Santiago admits her spoken Spanish is “terrible. I can sing very well in Spanish, but I can’t carry on a conversation.” The daughter of a Cuban father and a Puerto Rican mother (now deceased), Santiago and her older brother, Jeffery, attended Catholic school in the Bronx, NY, before the family moved to Homestead, Florida when she was 13. “My mom made sure we learned and spoke the best English we could. She was concerned we become Americanized, and she neglected to have us learn Spanish as well. But if I got to a Latin island or country I can get by.”

En route to becoming a special-education teacher, Santiago turned her attention to acting, went on to earn her master’s of fine arts at Southern Methodist University near Dallas, arrived in New York to start her career, and has never looked back. Her father, Louis, always tells people, “With Saundra, what you see is what you get,” while she herself shrugs and says, “I’d like to think that even after all these years of being in the business, and having survived, that the nice girl with confirmation dress still exists.”

Tags: Carmen Santos, Danny Santos, Full Text, GL, GL Cast Update, Guiding Light, Paul Anthony Stewart, Saundra Santiago, Soap Opera Weekly