Michael Fairman recently interviewed two of the internet's most buzzed about soap personalities, Crystal Chappell and Kim Turrisi about all things Venice. One of the things the chat reveals is that Daytime Emmy winner Jeff Branson will be joining the web series after all. The All My Children and Guiding Light hearttrob will be playing Gina's "nasty, sexy bastard" cousin! Okay...Crystal you SO have a title for a Venice spinoff featuring Branson's character—Nasty, Sexy Bastard!

Crystal Chappell: In regards to season two, we are going to see that Gina is going to start her healing process, and a lot of stuff is going to happen between she and the Colonel. We are going to discover some not so attractive things about Lara, and Ani is going to figure a few things out. There is a beautiful story being played by Galen and Gina, and then Van is coming back to town, who is Guya’s son. And…. he is a nasty sexy bastard!

(Later in interview)

Michael Fairman: Have you cast anybody? Can you let one out of the bag for us?

CC: Yup! Jeff Branson is coming on board as Van! So it will be Gina and Jeff and Galen, in a story, and that is going to be messy. READ MORE

Crystal Chappell

Tatyana Ali

Rachael Hip-Flores

Sophie Tilson

Rachael Hip-Flores

I just finished watching the season finale of Venice, the groundbreaking, web soap opera from Guiding Light and Days of Our Lives' superstar Crystal Chappell, talented writer Kim Turrisi and sharp director Hope Royaltey, and all I can say is I hope a fly doesn't get a chance to head down my throat before I can pick my jaw up from the floor! If you are one of those people who opted not to subscribe to the web series, let me just say the season one cliffhanger featuring GL alum Jordan Clarke as Col. John Brogno— the homophobic father of Chappell's principle character Gina— alone was well worth the 10 bucks I paid, if only to make sure I know the backstory for what is sure to be a much stronger second season. But for now, let's talk about the season that was.
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Paging all Otalia, Venice and Carly Manning fans. Head to your local bookstores to pick up the latest copy of Curve, the nation's best selling lesbian magazine. A snippet of my interview with Crystal Chappell is featured in the magazine's March issue (the one with former As The World Turns star Ming Na on the cover)! While the print issue only includes a few questions from my chat with Chappell (see tearsheet after the jump), the full interview is still available at Curve's website, check it out here!  READ MORE

The online soap opera may have aired only one episode, but Crystal Chappell's Venice has already made enough money to fund a full second season of the serial! Chappell tells Soap Opera Digest purchases fans made from Venice's online store funded the sapphic sudser's premiere season, and that enough money was made just from the initial airing of Venice to produce a second season. Someone hire Chappell to run a daytime division already!

According to  the article, the official Venice website has had over 24 million hits since September, and saw 225,000 unique visitors in just the first week of December, which would explain those crashes. Never fear; La Chappell has hired a Colorado firm to add four new servers for all her rampant fans,  the actress/producer tells Digest.
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