kent king – working 9-to-5
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photo by steed media service |
Actress, “Night Shift”
Kent King, the almond-eyed beauty who’s been gracing our television screen since her preteen years, is drawing the ratings on ABC’s “General Hospital” spin-off, “Night Shift.” King plays the lead character, Dr. Lainey Winters on the steamy “Night Shift,” while still pulling her weight on its daytime counterpart. She recently shared this inside scoop on the primetime drama, “The ratings have been record-breaking. It’s really challenging for the crew. The producers and the writers have to do both shows at the same time.”
Kent’s acting chops were whetted when she landed her first gig on the popular ’80s NBC drama, “Hill Street Blues.”
“My first professional job came when I was 12 years old on ‘Hill Street Blues.’ [Then] I entered a couple of acting competitions and got my first agent,” offers the actress.
Calm and refined, King finds that she’s really in her element on soaps. She highlights, “One really good thing about soaps, [even though] it is a really hectic pace – which can be good and bad-is that it teaches you to relax and to connect to other people on the scene, because you only get one take.”
Though King started her acting career at a young age, she thought it was necessary to go to college. She earned a degree in cinema-television at the University of Southern California (USC). The drive to excel academically runs in her family. Her grandmother earned her Ph.D. in her 60s, while her own children were in school seeking their master’s degrees. “I never ever considered not going to college,” she continues. “With my mother’s encouragement, I wanted to learn other sides of the business and explore other avenues that would give me more opportunities and a little more control, other than just being an actor on the job.” King enjoys raising her two cats, Blue and Isabell (her grandmother’s namesake). – yvette caslin
Catch “Night Shift” Thursdays at 11 p.m. (EST/PST) on SOAPnet.
