Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

Daytime fans know her work as Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald on Passions, Arianna Hernandez on Days of our Lives, and Cara Castillo on both the ABC and Prospect Park versions of All My Children, but now get ready for actress Lindsay Hartley’s turn to the dark side in two juicy new roles, the first airing tonight … Nightmare Nurse!

Premiering on Saturday, March 5th, on Lifetime (8PMEST/7CST), Hartley stars as Chloe, an attractive in-home care nurse who is assigned to take care of Lance (Steven Good) after his car accident.  Lance has sustained a leg injury that requires him to be bedridden with at-home care. When Chloe (Hartley) is recommended for the job, she seems so perfect for the task.  However, when her troubled past comes to light, it becomes apparent to Lance and his fiancée; Brooke (Sarah Butler) that someone is out to destroy their lives!

Taking on the role of the Nightmare Nurse was a welcome change for Hartley, who along with her real life boyfriend, Jason-Shane Scott (Ex-Will, OLTL) have found their niche playing some not-so-nice, good looking individuals of late.  But that’s not all, Lindsay is also getting ready to shoot her first foray into the horror film genre, and it’s a doozy of role as one of the five evils of hell in Death House.

On-Air On-Soaps caught up with the beautiful and talented Hartley to get the lowdown on her frightening medical role, her upcoming horror flick, and if a Passions reunion should be discussed with so many TV shows about the supernatural becoming very successful on primetime, that a return to the town of Harmony might just be what the doctor, err, nurse ordered.

How did the role in Nightmare Nurse come about?

Courtesy/Lifetime

LINDSAY:  I did not audition for this one.  My agent called me over a weekend, and said they made an offer for me to play this part in this movie.  They wanted me to read the script in like two hours and get back to them since they started shooting on Tuesday.  So, I really quickly read the script and thought it was fantastic, and I loved it.  It kind of reminded me of Theresa from Passions having a bad day!  (Laughs)  It’s like her, but where she went dark, and where she really went down the wrong path.  It really reminds me so much of that character.  So I got back to them and said I would do it.  I ended up finding out, and this was so crazy and random, that my daughter’s girlfriend in her sixth grade class, her dad is the director of Nightmare Nurse!  So, I had known the dad and been over to their house before.  Then even crazier was I actually knew the executive producer.

So this was a bit of trial by fire in the shooting process of playing Nurse Chloe in the film?

Courtesy/Lifetime

LINDSAY:  Here I am on Tuesday morning, and they had re-written the script, the night before we started shooting.  I got to set and I basically had to learn as I would go throughout the day.  It was insane.  I was working on set, and then sitting on the floor and memorizing and going through the scenes.  Movies don’t shoot in order.   It was really hard to know: what I was doing, where was I coming from, because it’s a little convoluted what happens with my character, and trying to track that.  I think my soap opera experience helped me 1000% in this instance.  I don’t know how I could have pulled this off, otherwise.  Absolutely, the quick-thinking that you get from working on soap operas, and how they train you helped me get through this one.  I had an amazing time.  I loved working with the director who is a friend of mine, and the cast was such a great group of people.

So just what is Chloe, the Nightmare Nurse’s, problem?  Clearly, she must be off-kilter! It’s a Lifetime movie for God sakes! (Laughs)

Courtesy/Lifetime

LINDSAY:  There is a twist as to why she is there within the movie, but she shows up to take of Lance (Steven Good), and then things go wrong.  She starts going a little nuts.  In the teaser clip they released for the movie, you see that the nurse is thinking about overdosing Lance.  You think she wants to murder him and the movie is set-up in a certain way.  She is the ‘Nightmare Nurse’ though, and she does become unstable.  She legitimately has mental issues that she has been treated for in the past, so she has got some problems. Why she is still allowed to be a nurse?  I don’t know! (Laughs)  She is mentally ill and bad things happen with her, and the happy couple.  At the beginning, she is super sweet and hides it all very well.  But when she goes home, she is like a whole different human being.  Then she goes back to work, and she gets a little too close for comfort and gets more inappropriate.  However, she is the perfect nurse, but then she starts doing things that are pretty disrespectful, and then she has a breakdown, and things go awry from there.

So is there an attraction being played out between her patient Lance, and Chloe?

LINDSAY:  I think he likes her, but he loves his fiancée, but he sees the nurse as this amazing person, which is all part of the story.

Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

Your real life boyfriend, Jason-Shane Scott (Ex-Will, OLTL) also has been appearing in some Lifetime movies and such of late.  He has also been playing some creepy characters.  So are the two of you putting out there, “Hey, if you want any scary roommates or lovers, call us!” (Laughs)

LINDSAY:  Jason just had a Hallmark movie air over the Christmas break, and it broke ratings records when it aired for the channel, something like 4.3 million viewers watched it.  He was the one you were not supposed to really like, which now thinking about it just runs in our gang! (Laughs)   And then he was in the Lifetime movie which has been airing a lot called The Wrong Roommate, and he was the wrong roommate.  Jason was the bad guy in that one and tried to kill people.  Ironically, Jessica Morris (Ex-Jen OLTL), who had a part in The Wrong Roommate, is also in Nightmare Nurse.  Now Jason and I are writing something together that fits that genre, and it’s kind of fun playing these types of characters. (Laughs)

I posted picture of you, me, and Eric Martsolf from the Soap Opera Digest 40th anniversary party just the other week.  Fans commented, “Passions Reunion!” Would you love to see a TV special or movie of a return to Passions? Do you think it could ever happen?

LINDSAY:  I would love that.  Everyone could come back and be in the reunion, wouldn’t that be fun?  If we could get the money and the funding, I think it would be great if we could do some type of TV movie.  I kind of feel like Passions was ahead of its time.  Looking back on it, I wish Passions would have started its run a few years later.  Now, there is so much supernatural stuff going on with primetime television, especially on the CW, and of course motion pictures are coming out left and right with superheroes and supernatural stories.

Courtesy/NBC

What do you think Passions’ Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald is doing now?

LINDSAY:  When I saw Eric Martsolf (Brady, DAYS, Ex-Ethan, Passions) at the Soap Opera Digest party, I was thinking about that.  I guess she would have to be with her 4,000 children, and maybe living in the same house as Alistair and Julian.  They are all living together as one big unhappy family.  We would have to have Mrs. Crane (Kim Ulrich) and Andrea Evans (Rebecca) doing their thing.  Maybe everything has been hunky dory in the past, but now they reveal they have been plotting and planning to ruin Ethan and Theresa for the last decade.  They are coming in full steam ahead with Gwen to destroy everybody!

And on Days of our Lives, they have completely beefed up your former clan, the Hernandez family!  The series has brought in both A Martinez (Eduardo) and Jordi Vilasuso (Dario).  It’s unfortunate that your character of Arianna was killed-off back in 2010, and not around to be part of this.

LINDSAY:  I know, and all the people I have loved working with are there.   I love Jordi Vilasuso so much, and worked with him on All My Children.  He and his wife are pregnant with their second child!  Time flies so fast.

This has been a busy time for you.  You are also getting ready to shoot a horror film, called Death House!  You play one scary badass in this one?

Courtesy/TheHollywoodNews

LINDSAY:  Yes.  I am shooting my part in April.  They are saying the film will be released in 2017.  My character’s name is Balthoria, and she is one of the evils of hell.  There is this prison nine levels down into the earth, and the last level is where these five evils of hell are. This facility is a way of taking prisoners and bad people to retransform their brain to not think negatively, and to be more balanced.   It’s really torturous.  When I read the script I had to keep walking away and then coming back to it, and then continuing to read it, because it is so gruesome.  There was a scene that featured my character that just got me.  When I read it, I went, “Wow!  I would like to experience that on camera!”  Throughout the movie they talk about the five evils, but you don’t meet them really till later, but you do see them through the use of flashbacks.  They are the worst of the worst, and they are supernatural.   However, then the audience meets us at the end of the movie.  The plan for this is to do six sequels of Death House,  and each sequel is to have a movie based on one of the evils and how they became who they are.  Right now, it is my understanding that my character would be featured in the third movie, and that is where you will meet her, and learn all about her.

Do you have any trepidation doing a major part in the horror film genre? 

Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

LINDSAY:  I think it’s a great idea to do a horror film!  I love how dark and powerful this character is.  She is a heavy hitter in this. I am shocked that this happened.   One of the things I have personally always wanted to do was be in a horror movie, because they scare me!  I can’t watch bloody things in movies, but I also thought, what would happen if I get cast in one of these?  Will I be able to handle it, or will I still be the same going, “I can’t watch it?”  Ironically, Freddy Krueger haunted me for so long when I was a kid, and he is in the film Death House!  What they have done is bring in all of these iconic and amazing actors from the horror film genre, and grabbed them and put them in this movie.  They are promoting as The Expendables but of the horror genre. Dee Wallace from E.T. who was on General Hospital last year, and who has done a lot of roles in the horror genre is also in this.  It’s very exciting.

So, will you be checking out Lindsay on tonight’s premiere broadcast of Nightmare Nurse? Looking forward to seeing her playing some villainess roles? What do you think of her role as one of the five evils of hell in Death House? Would you like to see a Passions reunion special? If so, what would you like to see happen to Theresa and the gang in it?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below, but first check out the trailer for Nightmare Nurse.