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To Forgive, Divine? Heather (Alley Mills) apologizes to Trina (Tabyana Ali), but will she accept?
Tabyana Ali (Trina) says that both she and her character get behind the determination Trina’s mother, Portia, has exhibited in so fervently opposing the idea of Heather Webber being released from Pentonville, extenuating medical circumstances be damned.
After the hell Heather put Trina through, “I think Trina understands the sentiment,” Ali asserts. “She obviously gets that her mom is trying to protect her. As Tabyana, I’m like, ‘I stand beside my mom!' I stand behind Portia fully! I think she’s in the right to feel the way she does.”
But, Ali notes, Trina also understands why Laura was inclined to explore whether Heather’s medical condition might mean that she has been wrongly incarcerated. “I think Trina is able to see both sides of the situation,” the actress says. “Yes, Heather did horrible things. But from Laura’s point of view, we have to have some compassion. We can’t hold things over people’s heads forever.’ ”
Where does Trina stand? “I think Trina falls in line with being a pacifist,” Ali muses. “She wants to do the moral thing, the gentle thing, the right thing, and I think she is generous in that she always wants to understand where the other person is coming from.”
Sorry State
Trina's pacifist nature gets put to the test on the August 8th episode, when Trina encounters Heather while the inmate is at GH to undergo a medical examination. When the two women catch a glimpse of each other, Portia quickly runs interference. Or, as Alley Mills (Heather) puts it, “I only see her for a fraction of a second before Portia lights into me! And Heather is like, ‘Dude, I’m just in the hospital for a blood test!’ Like, ‘Back off!’ I understand a mother’s ire, that’s for sure, so I definitely know where Portia is coming from. But I genuinely think that Heather fully just wants to apologize to Trina.”
Later, after a heart-to-heart with Portia in which she states her desire to fight her own battles, Trina enters Heather’s hospital room to face off with the woman who caused her so much heartache. “Heather’s head is kind of spinning, like, ‘Okay, what is she doing here?’ ” picks up Mills. “Heather thinks she’s there to yell at her. But she’s not mean, she’s not aggressive. She gives me the opportunity to talk, and Heather takes that opportunity.”
Mills describes the ensuing conversation between the women as “very interesting scenes. Heather tries to apologize and lets her know how horrible she feels about Esme, and about [the loss of] Spencer, too. And when I bring up Esme’s name and Spencer’s name … that’s when the scenes sort of flip [in terms of the emotion Trina brings forth]. It gets very, very powerful.”
Forgive And Forget?
Mills was thrilled to get to share these key acting moments with Ali. “I’ve known her just from the makeup room and stuff. She’s a doll, such a sweetheart, and has such a good heart,” says Mills. And when Ali brought the full bore of Trina’s pain and grief into the performance, “It was like, ‘ Whoa . It was so emotional, and I could feel it.”
The encounter leaves Heather shaken. “Portia yelling at me is one thing; I think that just gets Heather’s hackles up,” Mills explains. “But I’ll never forget the line Curtis said to me about Trina: ‘You’ve taken the light out of my daughter’s eyes.’ Oh, it just kills me — just talking about it now makes me cry. I don’t care what drugs Heather was on, that’s just a horrible thing to do to someone. It’s a horrible feeling to know I did that to this young girl, and [to stand before] the girl I did it to. Trina is such a darling human, and normally very forgiving. But when you take away the love of someone’s life, and you take the light out their eyes because their heart is broken … It's really hard to crawl out of that pit.”
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