Actress Jodi Long chatted with Digital Journal’s Markos Papadatos about her 2021 Daytime Emmy nomination for “Dash & Lily” on Netflix.
She is nominated for her portrayal of Mrs. Basil E, and the show itself is up for six Daytime Emmy Awards, which include a nod for “Outstanding Young Adult Series.” “The nomination was a complete surprise,” she admitted. “I had gotten an e-mail from our executive producer congratulating me. That was so sweet that he was the first to tell me. Then, a minute later, I got a call from my agent and then, my manager, so it was really great.”
“Playing Mrs. Basil E was so much fun,” she said. “It was the perfect marriage of everything I had done as an actor and it allowed me to use so many different parts of myself to create a character that was different than the book.”
“The show got six Emmy nominations, holy moly. I am so excited,” she exclaimed.
“Dash & Lily,” created by Joe Tracz, deals with a whirlwind holiday romance that builds as cynical Dash and optimistic Lily trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations all across Manhattan.
She shared that Joe Tracz, the executive producer and head writer, was a fan of Broadway musicals so he thought it would be “really fun” to make Mrs. Basil E a “Broadway musical star.”
Long is nominated alongside such actresses as Carolyn Hennesy (“Studio City”), Alicia Leigh Willis (“The Bay”), Tiffani Thiessen (“Alexa & Katie”), and Jacklyn Zeman (“The Bay”).
For young and aspiring actors, she encouraged them to “believe in themselves.” “I have always felt that I have a unique voice of how I say something and that comes from every part of me. There are lot of great actors in the world but nobody can say something quite like me because whatever I do is a culmination of my whole life’s work and experience,” he said.
On the title of the current chapter of her life, she said, “We are finally emerging from COVID.” “I am so happy,” she said with a sweet laugh.
She defined the word success as “finally attaining what makes you happy in life.” “For me, success is a lot of hard work to attain that, and it’s also, doing what you love. I’m an actor and a performer. I creatively get to do what I love, get paid for it, meet wonderful people and work with amazing people, and that is a true gift and I am very blessed,” she said.
Long concluded about “Dash & Lily,” “I think this series is about being true to yourself. Lily is true to herself and stands up for herself, and I think that all people ought to do that. It is important to stick to your guns.”
To learn more about Emmy-nominated actress Jodi Long, follow her on Instagram and on Twitter.
