Catching up With All My Children's Colin Egglesfield

It takes a lot of courage to pursue a seemingly impossible goal. But as Colin Egglesfield (Josh, ALL MY CHILDREN) explains in his new book, it takes even more to achieve it and then purposely change course. Titled Agile Artist: Life Lessons From Hollywood And Beyond, the tome reveals that prior to joining the cast of the soap opera that made him famous, he’d been living across from the World Trade Center on 9/11. “I realized that if I’d been trapped in those towers and had not yet fulfilled my dreams, I would have regretted it,” he recalled to Soaps In Depth. “Life is short. Why let doubts stop me from going after what I truly want?”

Egglesfield also discusses the frequency with which he faced rejection as an up-and-coming actor. Yet he continued to show up at auditions or on sets to “create truth and certainty in an imaginary circumstance. You can apply that to anything in life,” he insisted. “You don’t necessarily have to be 100 percent prepared or know exactly what you’re doing in order to start something.”

Egglesfield recalls his AMC dad, Emmy winner Ian Buchanan (Greg), as being “someone that I looked up to and admired. I appreciated that he took me under his wing.” (Photo Credit: ABC/Jeff Neira)

Eventually, the per former landed on AMC, where he said he had no idea his television producer character would turn out to be the “transplanted, unaborted fetus of Erica Kane.” Six months later, Egglesfield was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which he tried to hide for fear of losing his job, but couldn’t as he wound up with a lengthy battle to fight. “Instead of being marginalized and stigmatized, I was embraced at AMC,” he reflected. “What I share in my book is that when going through adversity, deciding who you need and want to be in the face of it enables you to be empowered.”

Egglesfield went on to do movies and star in RIZZOLI AND ISLES, but missed the sense of community that he’d felt at the soap and recently moved home to Illinois to get it. In addition to now being a local real-estate broker, he’s also remodeling residences. “I’d found myself going [there] every other month to manage my projects,” he explains. “And since I submit auditions on tape and online, I realized that if I got a call-back, I could just go back to Los Angeles for that.” In addition to his upcoming movie, Final Choice, fans can also look for Egglesfield in his Amazon Prime reality show, FLIP CREW, next February. “It’s a look at a day in the life of seven guys running around Chicago and fixing up houses,” he offers. “We expose the real, gritty side to it.”

Agile Artist book cover Colin Egglesfield

BUY THE BOOK

An avid believer in giving back to the community that he’s now joined, Egglesfield is donating 10 percent of proceeds from his book to Project Osmosis. His hope is to “help inner-city kids learn about careers in art and design.” Visit Amazon.com to order your copy.

For more on what your favorite AMC stars are up to now, keep reading the ABC edition of Soaps In Depth magazine.