Where Are They Now?

Christine Toy Johnson (ex-Detective Lisa West, OLTL 1998-2001; ex-Prue, ATWT, 2001)

She was only supposed to be on for four episodes of OLTL — and had a character originally called Mei West (yikes) — but Christine Toy Johnson ended up staying in Llanview for three years (and being renamed Lisa). We caught up with the busy actress, who recently returned from a two-month theater stint in Boston, MA, to dish about who she feels Lisa really should've hooked up with, and where her alter ego mysteriously disappeared to.

By Naomi Rabinowitz
Christine Toy Johnson
—Bruce Johnson
Soap Opera Digest: Hi, Christine! Thanks for speaking with us so soon after coming home from Boston. What were you doing there?
Christine Toy Johnson: I was doing a play for two months. It was called 36 Views. It was a contemporary drama asking about authenticity in the framework of the art world. It was a very dense, esoteric play, which was great for the Boston audience, which is very educated and bright; there are so many colleges. It was a fantastic experience. I love Boston. It was a great town to do the play in, and there's great seafood.

Digest: Was your husband, Bruce, with you?
Johnson: He came back and forth a lot. He works at home, so he's able to have a flexible schedule.

Digest: What else have you been doing?
Johnson: I've continued to work in the theater. I was in the Broadway revival of The Music Man and the national tour of Flower Drum Song. I did a CROSSING JORDAN, a GROUNDED FOR LIFE and couple of LAW & ORDERs [SVU and CRIMINAL INTENT]. I've also been writing a lot and through my new company, Reimagined World Entertainment, I wrote and produced and played the lead in our first short film last year. It's now playing in festivals; it's called All American Eyes. It's about inadvertent discrimination and the question of what "all-American" means. John Bolger [ex-Sykes, OLTL] makes an appearance in it. And my husband directed it. That was a really fantastic experience. Now I've written a feature-length script that we'll hopefully be able to shoot next year. I feel like in order to take control of our creativity, we all need to take a larger role in it. So, I've started writing roles for myself that I'm interested in doing and stories I've wanted to tell and I've loved it.

Digest: I hear you also do speaking engagements.
Johnson: Yes, I do a lot of speaking to college students about diversity issues, so I've been invited to several places to bring the film and talk about it.

Digest: It sounds like you do it all! You must also sing if you were in The Music Man.
Johnson: I do! I've done a lot of musicals. I'm getting ready to sing with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra this summer, as well. I have a lot of different interests and I'm blessed to get to do a lot of them.

Digest: Is your husband as talented as you?
Johnson: I think he's more talented [laughs]. It's fun for us to work together. We've been together for 10 years and last year, we looked at each other and said, "Wow, we have the combined talents to make a film." Who knew? He went to film school, so he's coming back [to] it. He's a photographer and graphic designer, but he's taken the role of director in our projects.

Christine Toy and Nathan Purdee
—Robin Platzer/Twin Images

Digest: Who else do you keep in touch with from the show besides John Bolger?
Johnson: John and I are still good friends. I see Tim Stickney [RJ] sometimes, and through the events that I was invited to during my time on ONE LIFE, I'm still involved in certain charities. Animal Haven is a big one that I try to support as much as possible. When I go to those events, I see a lot of people. Catherine Hickland [Lindsay] is involved with Animal Haven, so I see her more than probably anyone. John was always one of my closest friends there and remains so. He's terrific. He was a really good sport when he did my short. The scene was a little parody on the number of doctor roles that Asian-American actresses get asked to play. This scene was supposed to be like a soap-opera doctor/nurse scene. It was fun. Almost all of the nighttime roles I've played have been doctors, nurses or something in the medical profession. Even on CROSSING JORDAN, the scenes I did had nothing to do with being in the medical profession, but my character was identifying someone from the morgue, and when I got there, they put her in scrubs, like she'd just come from being a doctor.

Digest: It must've been a nice departure to play a detective on ONE LIFE.
Johnson: It was; I had a good time. After I did that, I did a couple of cops. People get wind of the fact that you're playing a certain profession and then they're like, "That's a good idea." Maybe they thought I was actually qualified, that I had real training as a cop [laughs]. But I did do a role on AS THE WORLD TURNS shortly after [OLTL] and I was in the fashion industry. I was with Colleen Zenk Pinter's [Barbara] character. That was a nice set. I had a good experience at ONE LIFE, too. I never thought it would last so long; I was supposed to be on for four shows.

Digest: Whatever happened to Lisa?
Johnson: That's a good question. She was last seen at the airport trying to arrest Blair or Todd, then I guess she got on a plane and left. They never explained that. Maybe she just got fed up with Llanview's police system and decided to change professions, so she got on a plane and went to Oakdale.

Digest: I always thought it would've been interesting if Lisa had hooked up with Sykes.
Johnson: John and I thought so, too, because we're such good friends. I always liked when Lisa and Sykes were like tag-team cops. It never happened, though, and they put her with Hank. But I don't think they really knew what to do with them.

Hank You For The Memories: On OLTL, Lisa (Christine Toy Johnson) was briefly paired with Hank (Nathan Purdee) though Toy Johnson has some other ideas as to who could've romanced her character. Also pictured: Robert S. Woods (Bo)
—Ann Limongello/ABC

Digest: Wasn't your character originally called Mei?
Johnson: Yes, they changed my character's name about two months after I came on the show. She was originally Mei West. That's a very common name — Mei — for television people to give Asian women. As I understand it, the reason she was called that was because when I came on, RJ was caught with a gun over Drew Buchanan's body. So he was insisting he was innocent, and my character was in charge of questioning him. In a scene that was cut, he claims that it's a racial thing and that's why we're accusing him. There was a scene where she says, "It's not a racial thing. Do you know what it's like being an Asian woman named Mei West, being looked at as a China doll all the time?" That's why the name was put in there. But when I started to do more episodes and they started having Hank date Lisa, they were like, "We can't call her that." So, the first date she had with Hank, he brought her to The Palace and we ran into several people, including Nora, and every opportunity the writers had, they called her by her first name. "Oh, you remember Lisa." "How are you, Lisa?" "So nice to see you, Lisa." So by the end of the day, there was no argument. Her name was Lisa.

Digest: Maybe her real name was Mei and she decided to Americanize it and not have to deal with the Mei West thing.
Johnson: There you go!

Digest: In the scene that was cut out, it sounds like the show might have been doing a little chemistry test with Lisa and RJ.
Johnson: Maybe. That would've been interesting.

Digest: Do you still get recognized from ONE LIFE?
Johnson: I get a lot of fan mail, especially from overseas. It's mostly from Germany. That's funny. People didn't recognize me much while I was on the show because I looked different with the hair and makeup off-camera.

Digest: Would you ever return to soaps?
Johnson: Sure. I love to act. Daytime is great because it reaches a lot of people and is a lot of fun. I'd be open to any possibility.