Kassie DePaiva, known to Days of our Lives fans for her Daytime Emmy-nominated turn as Eve Donovan, and Wally Kurth, who plays Justin Kiriakis, recently wrapped production on a new film titled “Common as Red Hair.” Robbie Robertson wrote and directed the movie, which delves into the story of two parents who need to make a difficult decision. DePaiva chatted with Soap Hub about her role in the project.
Kassie DePaiva and Wally Kurth Together Again
“Common as Red Hair,” Robertson says, is about Carol and Will Blackard, a mother and a father, played by Kassie DePaiva and Wally Kurth, who, following an emotional loss, re-examine a previous decision they made to have “gender normalization surgery performed on their intersex infant.”
“Intersex is often conflated with the trans community, but they really are separate in the fact that folks born intersex simply have physical or chromosomal differences from the general population that don’t fall clearly into male or female categories,” Robertson explains. He’s making the film to shine a light on stopping gender normalization surgeries on infants; many feel that it’s more appropriate to wait until individuals are old enough to decide what they want to do on their own.
“Robbie’s a very, very talented writer,” DePaiva tells Soap Hub. “I wasn’t sure what the subject matter of the script was going to be until I read it. Once I did, I saw how meaningful the issue is. It has a message and was something that I was unaware of.”
However, DePaiva can relate to being a parent and also being in the position of having to make a decision as to what’s best for her child. She and her husband, James DePavia (ex-Max Holden, One Life to Live; ex-Dr. David Bensch, General Hospital), have a son, J.Q., who was born deaf. The couple chose to have their son receive a cochlear implant when he was 18 months old. “Twenty-five years ago, there was a stigma to it,” DePaiva recalls. “[Some in] the deaf community were up in arms. They felt that you didn’t need to be ‘healed’ for hearing loss. The feeling was, ‘We have our own language, our own culture.'”
Unlike her character Carol in “Common as Red Hair,” DePaiva says she and her husband have no regrets about their decision. “It’s not the same as [Carol’s choice], but it is about parents having to make a decision for their child,” the actress offers.
DePaiva raves about working with Kurth again. The two got to share some screen time together after Eve’s daughter Paige (True O’Brien) was killed off by Ben Weston (Robert Scott Wilson), and the two knew each other from their time on ABC soaps; she played Blair Manning on One Life to Live, and Kurth still stars as Ned Quartermaine on GH. “I adore Wally,” the actress says. “I’ve known him forever from our times at Super Soap Weekend.”
Filming for “Common as Red Hair” has been completed. Soap Hub will keep readers posted on when and on what platforms the film can be seen.
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