Lindsay (Mitchell Haaseth (NBC))
"I'm just hanging out and taking care of Isabella (4)," Lindsay Hartley told soaps.com when we ran into her and hubby Justin Hartley at a CW party in July. "It's great. She's at such a great age. She's a girl! She wants to dress up and wears my heels all the time. We do a lot of arts and crafts and read together. Today, I taught her bingo with math problems. You take away cents and the apple goes on the number you end up with. She's just starting, but I was surprised. Kids today are smarter. Maybe because programs on TV are so educational."
Word is several ex-Harmony locals are anxious to find a new gig, but as a member of Harmony's most persistent love triangle, Hartley is thrilled to be taking it easy for a change. "Did I want a break? Yeah!" Lindsay laughs. "Over Christmas, we always got a few weeks, but I've never had more than two or three weeks at a time. It's different, but I like it."
It helps that her hubby, Passions alum Justin, is back at work as Smallville's Oliver Queen, aka Green Arrow. "That makes it easier," admits Lindsay. "I'm like, 'Whatever, he's taking care of business.' It's great."
Of course, that means Dad has to go to Canada to shoot. "He just started the trips back and forth," she explains. "He returned this morning from two weeks on, so he'll be home almost two week and then he'll go back, but we'll go back with him this time. Then I'll hang out with Isabella up there. It's beautiful up there."
Hartley is clearly enjoying her new lifestyle, but that doesn't mean walking away from Harmony was easy. "It was a tough last few weeks," Lindsay recalls. "Every time you walked to your dressing room, it was like, 'This is one of the last times!' People that had left were able to come back and walk on the set at the end, so there were a lot of castmembers there the last day. For the people in the actual story, it was hard."
Since wrapping, the Hartley's have done their best to keep up with their old castmates, if not first hand, then through the grapevine. "I see Eric Martsolf (Ethan) all the time and of course Eva (Tamargo, Pilar)," Lindsay reports. "They're pretty much the ones I've kept in touch with. It's the people that I worked with, if you think about it. Then if they talk to other people, we get to check in. Like Heidi talks to Eva a lot, so I'll check in on Heidi, and Galen (Gering) just had a second baby (a boy, Jensen), so I'll check in."
While life moves on for the castmembers, Passions end is in sight and Harmony's destruction looms. We had to ask Hartley what to expect!
SPOILER ALERT! "It's a harmonious ending to Harmony," Lindsay previews. "Everyone's happy at the end."
Soaps.com hopes Passions cast and crew live happily ever after, too!
Deanna Barnert
Reporter
Soaps.com
