Having one actor play twins _ and usually one is evil _ has been a common practice on daytime dramas since the genre started. Despite Lindsay Hartley appearing in the neighborhood of 1,600 episodes of the daytime dramas "Passions," "All My Children" and "Days of Our Lives," she never got the chance to do the double acting duty. She landed the twin-starring role in the Lifetime movie "Killer Twin" to get to play identical sisters (and yes, one is evil).
"You work twice as hard," Hartley says. "I think I was in every scene in the movie except the opening, which is a flashback to when the twins were little kids."
Hartley plays twin sisters who were separated at age 3. One ends up with a perfect life, the other gets by through whatever illegal means necessary. When the sister who got the short end of the life lottery sees the bounty her sister got, she puts a plan in motion to get revenge.
Hartley had little time to prepare for the roles. In the short time before filming started, Hartley pored over the script, creating a detailed outline of each character's life and how they overlapped. Once she had the history of each character clearly, the rest was just learning the dialogue and the other dialogue.
Making the two sisters act differently is the major element in getting the tale to work. Just in case the audience might have any doubts, hair, makeup and wardrobe were all designed to make the sisters come across as distinctly as possible.
Years of acting for the California native helped her tackle the task. She started singing at the age of 11 and was a national talent winner in the Young Miss America Beauty Pageant. She went from headlining as a singer at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel to appearing on Broadway in "Grease!" She started her long TV career in 1999 with the daytime drama "Passions" and has since then appeared on numerous TV shows and made-for-TV movies.
The biggest challenge with one actor playing two roles is shooting scenes where they are together. Most of the time Hartley would do a scene with both sisters by filming one part while looking at a stand-in and hearing the lines being delivered by a script person from behind the cameras. Then she would do it all again from the other sister's point of view.
"I was a little anxious about it because when you are working with someone you eventually get a feel for what the other actor is going to do," Hartley says. "I didn't have that. I didn't know what was going to be happening on the other side because I had not done that part. I had a little anxiety about that.
"But playing twins is not that far from what we do every day as actors. It's just a different version of it that's a little more technical."
The film features several scenes where stunt work was required, and that added to the pressure. She had to learn the choreography of each side of the stunt and make the work look as seamless as possible.
The experience of producing a one-hour show daily was a great training ground for Hartley. Being able to work fast and trust her instincts comes in handy because cable movies tend to work on very short schedules. Hartley's lost count of the number of movies she's made for Lifetime. Her only concern is the number continues to grow, either through acting jobs or with the scripts she has written scheduled to become movies for the cable channel. Lifetime has announced the cable network will produce 75 original movies in 2019.
"I like the genre. Working is fun. Telling stories is fun. Getting the audience invested is fun. Seeing how they react is fun. Actors are super blessed when we get a job because it is a tricky business. I am just grateful to get the opportunity," Hartley says.
Hartley calls playing twins a "bizarre" job that requires having a lot of faith in everyone from the director to the stunt team that they will make it all look correct. After working on "Killer Twins," Hartley would embrace any future opportunities to take on double duty.
