WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ATWT's Colleen Broomall

We Love Soaps is launching a new feature with "Where are They Now" interviews with former child actors from the soaps. I'm starting with one of my favorites, Colleen Broomall, who debuted when she was only two months old as Danielle "Dani" Andropolous, the daughter of legendary couple, Steve (Frank Runyeon) and Betsy (Meg Ryan), on AS THE WROLD TURNS. Betsy believed that her husband, Craig, was Dani's father at first, but later found out her true love, Steve, had fathered her, and the two of them got married in one of the highest rated episodes in soap history. 1 Colleen remained on the soap for the next several years which saw Runyeon leave the show and Lindsay Frost assume the role of Betsy. In early 1988, she appeared in a "Soaps' Most Adorable Babies" feature in Soap Opera Digest: What happened at the soap audition: The casting director picked up Colleen and played with her and made sure she had no difficulty separating from her mother. Favorite Song: "This Land is Your Land" Favorite Story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears Favorite Actor on the show: The entire cast, she loves everyone. Best unplanned moment during taping: Colleen was about one year old and had just begun talking. There was a scene where a brain-washed Craig told Betsy that he had to take Danielle away from her. Colleen looked up at him and said, "No, no." A lot has changed since then. In this interview, Colleen talks about her time at ATWT and what she's doing now, almost 25 years after she debuted as Dani. We Love Soaps: You were just two months when you were cast on AS THE WORLD TURNS as Dani. You were six when you left. Do you remember much about the show and that time? Colleen Broomall: All of the memories that I do have are amazing ones. The ones that stick out the most would have to include the annual ATWT holiday parties, charity softball games, meet and greets with fans, and the wardrobe team who so kindly allowed me to try on all of the "grown up" shoes, dresses and jewelry -- talk about a little girl's dream. I also absolutely loved my time with Scott Bryce, Lindsay Frost, and Patsy Bruder. During the summer months, production arranged it so that my brothers and sister were extras at the beach club. It was so fun for all of us to be on set together 1 WLS: Steve and Betsy were one of the all-time great couples on AS THE WORLD TURNS. Fans remember your version of Dani very well from those days. Have you had any contact with either Betsy, Meg Ryan or Lindsay Frost, since your ATWT days? CB: Thank you so much! It's so cool (not to mention flattering!) that people would remember me because I feel like it was so long ago. We did send letters for a little while, but there hasn't been any recent contact. After I left the show, my mom started graduate school and she was also raising four children at the time, so it was pretty chaotic in the Broomall household. I'm sure it would have been a lot easier to stay in touch if we had things like cell phones and Facebook back then! WLS: Do your friends know you were cast as Meg Ryan's daughter as a baby? I would think that would be an interesting story at parties. :) CB: It's actually really funny, because my life has had a lot of interesting chapters, and ATWT is just one of them, so it's not really something I share with people unless it comes up for some reason. I do remember one time during my senior year of college, I was at a party and Meg Ryan came up in conversation. I said something along the lines of, "It's so weird to think she played my mom on TV." One of my closest friends - I'd known her since freshman year - really thought I was joking around and didn't believe me until I took her upstairs to a computer! A few weeks before I graduated, my college newspaper did a feature on me, so the word kind of spread and everyone joked that I'd been hiding a secret life all this time. More recently, people have been constantly telling me that I look just like Alison Sweeney (Sami from DAYS), so if I'm feeling silly, sometimes I'll respond with, "It's funny you say that, because I actually used to be on a soap opera myself!" 1 WLS: What have you done in your years since ATWT? CB: Well, the thing with my family is that we were only in the business to help us pay for our college educations, so our lives were always really normal. It was almost like going on auditions was an after-school activity like Girl Scouts or karate. I remember begging my mom to let me audition again, but it was time for her to pursue her career as a special education teacher. Plus, she knew that this business wasn't a place for any kid to spend their adolesence, so I just really threw myself into both my education and my extracurricular activities. During high school I played soccer and was class secretary - pretty normal stuff. After my freshman year of college, however, I got an internship at a teen magazine and absolutely loved it. Combining my love of writing with my love of entertainment was the perfect gig for me. I also think that I had a unique perspective when I interviewed these teen stars because my experience as a child actor helped me relate to them more. That internship led to many other opportunities during college and I worked steadily in magazines up until college graduation, when I moved out to LA to work as an editor at Tiger Beat and BOP magazines. On a more personal note, I am really sad to say that my brother, Jim, was killed in a car accident in 1999 and my other brother, Tom, passed away last February. Going through something like that forces you to reevaluate everything in your life and so I decided to move back home to be closer to my family at the end of last summer. For a while, I was seriously considering going to graduate school and becoming a high school teacher, but I recently made the decision to go ahead and try and see if the acting world has any room for me. I also recently got a puppy and am training her to be a therapy dog, so I'm really excited about that. 1WLS: Now that you are getting back into the acting scene, would you consider a role on a soap? What are your long-term aspirations in the industry? CB: Oh my gosh, definitely! Only I'm not sure if they'd take me because it's been so long! Haha, but honestly, as cheesy as this might sound, I just want to make a difference. I think that some of us don't realize the power we have to make a difference in the world and it's so important to embrace that. When I would write articles for the teen magazines, I'd always pick topics that might empower and/or help a kid get through anything negative that might be happening in his or her life. I've been through a lot of difficult times myself and it's things like movies and television shows that help me forget about them for just a little while and make it possible for me to go on. If I can use my talents to do that for someone else, whether it's acting on a soap opera, hosting a tv show, or even appearing in a 30 second commercial that makes somebody smile, then I'd be absolutely thrilled. I also love to write and recently started working on a novel.