Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Santos The Rustle of the Sheets . . .
Soap Opera Weekly

Michelle is Shocked by Her Feelings For Danny

"Crazy for Love ... or Just Plain Crazy: Michelle Can't Shake Her Feelings" -- 4/6/99

Danny agrees to an annulment this week on Guiding Light thinking it's what Michelle wants. But when Michelle doesn't take off her wedding ring after the papers are signed - and her reunion with Jesse isn't what she expected -- it's clear that Danny is far from out of her system.

"I think Michelle is in love with Danny, she just doesn't know it yet," Joie Lenz (Michelle) says. "You know when you're at that point where you have all the feelings and the symptoms of love and you just won't admit it to yourself? Maybe she's just not aware of it in the first place, but she knows that she feels all these things. It's a different feeling than what she's had for Jesse, so she's thinking: Oh, it can't be love because what I felt for Jesse was love, so if I'm feeling something different, it can't be love. She's young and she doesn't realize that love has many different ways to feel."

Now that Danny has offered Michelle her freedom via an annulment, Michelle has to decide if she's fallen in love with her husband after all. Jesse walks in on an intimate moment between Michelle and Danny, but she appeases Jesse by telling him about the annulment. Earlier, Jesse realizes Drew and Danny slept together, but he doesn't tell Michelle -- and prevents Drew from telling her -- because he doesn't want to hurt her. It's Michelle who might end up hurting Jesse, who begins to sense something is wrong when he and Michelle have a romantic dinner and he notices she's still wearing her wedding ring.

"It's a little awkward," Lenz explains, "because she's gotten used to being around Danny, who is a completely different personality than Jesse is. She's adapted to that, and being around Jesse, it's almost like she's not used to some of the things that he says, and she may find herself comparing Jesse to Danny, and vice versa.


"It's possible to be in love with two people," Lenz adds. "She had a conversation with Aunt Meta where she said how she's confused. She talked to Drew, too, about how she still cares for Jesse, but she does have feelings for Danny." Indeed, although Michelle agrees to the annulment, she refuses to say that there was nothing ever between her and Danny.

Michelle wears her heart on her sleeve at week's end. Michelle sees Danny with a beautiful womanAt Millennium, she and Jesse run into Danny, who is with a beautiful woman. Who this woman is will surprise Michelle.

At the time of this interview, Lenz hadn't taped those scenes, but "I would assume that the initial reaction would be, 'Oh, great. He said he was in love with me, and now he's over me that quick.' But I'm sure she doesn't realize what she's jealous about."
-- Mark McGarry


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