40“
I
t was kind of meant to be,” says
Coby Ryan McLaughlin of being
cast last year on GH as Shiloh, the
self-help guru/sex cult leader who
brought Dawn of Day to Port Charles. That’s
because in his early days as an actor, he spent
a lot of time at the show’s studio, studying
with its acting coach, John Homa, who was
instrumental in getting him started in the
industry. “I’ve been hanging around that place
my entire professional life, and now I’m a
part of it!”
McLaughlin, who grew up in California,
Illinois and Missouri, was raised by his moth-
er and stepfather, but he was first exposed to
the entertainment biz via his bio dad, a pro-
duction sound mixer. “By the time he retired,
he was in the business for 47 years. I would
go on set with him when he was working. I’d
hold the boom when he would mix on some
gigs. At a very young age, I knew that I was
going to be involved in this line of work, I just
didn’t quite know how at that point. My uncle,
who was a dolly grip, got me a job scrubbing
camera cases on a show called BURKE’S
LAW when I was 17 years old. I was like,‘Okay, I’m going to go into camera.’ And I
did. I became a camera assistant for a while.”
The future thesp met Homa while work-
ing as a restaurant host. “He told me that he
would let me come to his [acting] class if I
could answer one simple question, and that
was, ‘Why did I want to be an actor?’ He
told me not to rush it because if I gave him
the wrong answer, this was a one-time shot.”
McLaughlin freely admits that his initial
interest in being on camera “was 22-year-old
hubris and ego. I wanted to be on the cover
of Entertainment Weekly and have a house
in the [Hollywood] Hills and buy a bunch
of Porsches. I was going to give him some
bulls--t spiel but right at the last second, I
just stopped and said, ‘It’s all I ever wanted
to do. It’s what I want to be. It’s what I want
to devote my energy and my time and my
life to.’ ”
That was precisely the answer Homa
was seeking. Welcomed into his class,
“He proceeded to kick my ass for the next
five or six years,” McLaughlin chuck-
les. “I was horrible!” He remembers
Homa’s class as “this actor utopia. It
was like a who’s who in Hollywood
circa 1997,” with Freddie Prinze, Jr.,
Sarah Michelle Gellar (ex-Kendall,
ALL MY CHILDREN) and Kirsten
Dunst among his classmates.
He began to work professionally,
and points to being cast in 1999’s
UNDRESSED on MTV as a turn-
ing point. “After getting that gig,
I made a promise to myself that I
was an actor, that I was no longer a
bartender or a waiter,” McLaughlinCONQUER
AND
Coby Ryan
McLaughlin Is
Thrilled To Be At
The Center Of
Controversy As GH’s
Sinister Cult Leader.
By Mara
Levinsky