On the Tuesday, July 21 episode of “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart,” which sees the popular podcast back after a two-week hiatus, “Days of our Lives” star Emily O’Brien (Gwen Rizczech) is the featured guest, and in an exclusive clip shared with Soap Opera Network, the actress tells hosts Rebecca Budig (Taylor Hayes, “The Bold and the Beautiful”) and Greg Rikaart (Leo Stark, “Days of our Lives”) about being cast as Theresa Donovan on the long-running daytime drama series, working with co-star Eric Martsolf (Brady Black), and discusses her non-soap work, specifically her experience with motion capture in the animation/video games genres.
Emily O’Brien: Theresa Donovan Experience
In a clip discussing her being cast as Theresa Donovan on the soap opera after the sudden departure of portrayer Jen Lilley mid-storyline, O’Brien notes, “I don’t think in the real world, if I ever auditioned for Theresa, I would book it, ever, but I was put into this and… So I’m filling somebody else’s shoes and I had to play this sweetheart American blonde and so I changed my whole demeanor and my voice and it took me a few months to get comfortable, but Eric Martsolf was the most amazing person to be working with alongside that whole storyline and that journey. I was so lucky to be paired with him.”
Continuing to praise her co-star, O’Brien shares, “He was just so complimentary of me and supportive, and I felt very comforted knowing I was working with him, and I got to really know him on a deeper level. And he’s such an actor’s actor, and we would rehearse and play. And so by the end, it was like a nine-month stint. By the end of it, I started to feel very comfortable, and I sort of missed it when it was over.”
Emily O’Brien: Motion Capture/Video Games
Outside of soaps, Donovan has become an accomplished voice actress, lending her talents to such video games as “Batman: The Enemy Within,” “God of War,” “Call of Duty: Black Ops 4,” “Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms,” “Saints Row,” “Diablo IV,” “Gotham Knights,” “Spider-Man 2,” “God of War: Ragnarök,” “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III,” “The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road,” “Highguard” and, more recently, “Marathon,” among so many others, plus countless other animated movies and TV shows, including “Love, Death & Robots,” “Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham,” “DC Heroes United,” “Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft” and “Constantine: City of Demons,” among others.
Explaining how her experience in the animation/video game genres often sees her physically performing as her characters via motion capture, O’Brien says, “Motion capture is where you wear a suit, and you have markers on your face, and you go out onto a light stage, and they essentially capture your… They can capture your likeness, like your face, or mostly it’s your voice and your body moving. And then they can render that and make it anything they want.”
When Rikaart asked if the technology is the same or similar to what was used for films like “Avatar” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” O’Brien shares a fun fact, revealing, “I tested those cameras.”
“So this is how I got into video games,” O’Brien continued. “There was this job on Craigslist. Remember Craigslist? One hundred dollars. And yeah, it’s still around. And they were looking for a brunette who was British, who would be willing to experiment with facial performances. I thought, ‘How hard could that be? Okay, great.’ So I got involved with this company called Image Metrics, and this was cutting edge because this was the first time ever that they were – they called it the Uncanny Valley where emotions are so real that it sort of crosses over from when things used to look so animated, and then you get into ‘Avatar,’ and it’s this perfect blend between human and CGI. They were experimenting with that, and this was the first time they were doing markerless performances. So I had no idea what any of this was. I just thought, ‘Okay, it’s a job. I’m going to get a hundred bucks.” They stuck my head in this light box, and they just made me do like 50 different expressions from my eyebrows, and they were like, “Okay, that was great. Can we bring you back?’ And so I kept working with them, and then they started capturing my face for ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ and I would do all the faces like, ‘Watch out. Stop. Slow down.’ And then that turned into something else and turned into something else. And then Paul DeBevic was the lead animator working on that at the time. And he said, ‘We want to test out these cameras for ‘[The Curious Case of] Benjamin Button’ and ‘Avatar.’ ‘Can you be our test dummy?’ So they used all this equipment on me. And again, I had no idea what I was doing.”
In 2024, O’Brien was nominated for Best Vocal Performance in a Video Game for her voice role in the game “Starfield” at the Music + Sound Awards, International, and in 2018, she was nominated alongside her “Batman: The Enemy Within” co-stars for Best Vocal Ensemble in a Video Game at the Behind the Voice Actors Awards.
For more from O’Brien’s appearance on “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart,” tune in to the Tuesday, July 21 episode, which marks the show’s 20th episode from its current third season with more all-new episodes expected in the weeks ahead.
Episodes from the audio/video podcast series are available for free via the Audacy app and the CBS brand YouTube channel.
CBS
In addition to O’Brien, other guests appearing this season on the “Soapy” podcast has included her “Days of our Lives” co-star Eric Martsolf, actors Nancy Lee Grahn (“General Hospital”), Christel Khalil (“The Young and the Restless”), Elizabeth Hendrickson (“The Young and the Restless”), Tamara Tunie (“Beyond the Gates”), Tanisha Harper (“General Hospital”), Sean Kanan (“The Bold and the Beautiful), Eileen Davidson (“The Young and the Restless”), Robert Scott Wilson (“Days of our Lives”), Brandon Claybon (“Beyond the Gates”), Melissa Claire Egan (“The Young and the Restless”), Joshua Morrow (“The Young and the Restless”), Donnell Turner (“General Hospital”), Morgan Fairchild (“Flamingo Road,” “General Hospital”), Jackée Harry (“Days of our Lives”), and Donna Mills (“Knots Landing,” “General Hospital”), as well as “The Bold and the Beautiful” executive producer and head writer Bradley Bell, former head writer writer Ron Carlivati (“Days of our Lives,” “One Life to Live”) and director Owen Renfroe (“The Young and the Restless,” “General Hospital”).
The podcast is produced by the Paramount Multiplatform Production Group, with Mike Benson serving as executive producer.
