As Cindy Walsh, the Beverly Hills, 90210 mom transplanted from Minnesota, Carol Potter played the quintessential mother-you-could-confide-in. And in some ways, Potter was like this in real life.
“What they were looking for with that character was the mom you could talk to,” she tells Snakkle. “And I have cultivated a similar relationship to my son. But it’s harder to get there in real life. On the TV show, you have one issue, you work it out, and by the end of the show it’s over. In life, the same stuff keeps coming up and you have to keep learning how to deal with it in creative ways.”
Now happily self-employed as a family and marriage counselor in California, Potter gives us a Snakkle exclusive on her current profession, meditation, and what a person needs to survive the rigors of fame.
Snakkle: Tell us about your career evolution.
CP: I had always sort of expected that I would become a psychologist — my dad was a psychiatrist, and I had studied psychology in college. But I always had this passion to act, and I thought, Here’s this thing I’ve always wanted to do, why don’t I try it? And so I did, and it just kept going, and then here I am on this hit TV show.
I was very involved in my church at that time, and one of the clergy members and a friend of mine got me involved in a counseling program for members of the parish—you saw a person a limited number of times and you got supervision from a licensed therapist.
So I got involved in this ministry, and then during the last few years at 90210, I realized that getting work after the show was going to be a real slog. And I said to myself, You know what, I’d better find another way to make a living, and I’m kind of on fire with this counseling thing right now, so why not follow it up?
So I started a two-year master’s program. It’s been a gradual process, and it took a while to get my practice up, but the last year and a half it’s been going like blazes, knock on wood.
Snakkle: You were a real-life mom while you were a mom on TV—which was easier?
CP: Well, first of all, when I was doing the show, my son was 3 to 8 and my children on the show [Brandon and Brenda] were 15 to 20. So that was a big difference. There was also a tendency for things to be on the show one week and disappear the next. Like when Brandon totaled the car, and then the next week—the next week!—he’s driving my car. I’m going, I don’t think so!
Secondly, the kids on the show a) weren’t my children and b) didn’t see me as any kind of authority in their lives. I used to do these interviews where people would say, “Do the kids look up to you?” and I’d say, “God, no!” God, no. I mean, if I were Sally Field or something maybe they would, but they’d look at me and say, Oh, God, she’s still doing this minor character on a TV show, and she’s this age, I hope that’s not me.
Snakkle: Are there skills from your acting career that you use in your profession now?
CP: Well, I’ve become completely engaged in this whole mindfulness practice. I’ve been a meditator for over 40 years, and I’ve committed myself to the Christian path and the contemplative prayer developed by Thomas Merton, which is about being present. (The Buddhists call it mindfulness.)
And to me that’s what I’m trying to develop in my clients—their presence and awareness in their lives. If you have behaviors that you don’t like, if you get carried away by feelings in ways that don’t feel good for you, these approaches of awareness help you address those things with a certain dispassionate curiosity rather than judgment, and that dispassionate curiosity is a place of learning and where new things can start to happen.
That’s something you have to do as an actor, too—you have to be really present.
Snakkle: What’s your take on fame at this point?
CP: Well, I think we love to adulate people and see them fail because it makes us feel good about ourselves. But I also think people get this wacky idea that just because you’re a celebrity all of your problems are solved.
By and large, celebrity brings more problems than it solves. It was very interesting to watch the kids on the show because they were all pretty young, and for the guys it was a heady experience of power—girls were throwing themselves at their feet. For the girls, it was terrifying because people were coming after them. And it was so interesting to see the difference in how it affected the males versus the females. The women felt very vulnerable and the guys felt like, Oh, man, I’m king of the world.
Snakkle: It sort of underscores the way that kind of power isn’t always power, especially for women.
CP: That’s right. It’s exposure—not power. We all have this expectation that when we become famous we’ll be happy. There’s no relation to fame and happiness. You can get addicted to all the attention, you can start to confuse yourself with your P.R., and it’s very easy to lose your foundation. The people who survive fame are people who have a really strong foundation, whether it’s their faith, or having a strong conviction of who they are, or a strength of personality. It’s just a monster.
Snakkle: Do you think that getting back to helping people mitigates that?
CP: I do, absolutely. I feel very proud and happy about my work on 90210. I know that it touched a lot of people. But I don’t have any direct contact with those people, and they’re relating to Cindy Walsh and not me. So this is an opportunity to have direct experience with having a positive impact on people’s lives, and it’s exciting. It can definitely be challenging, but I do love it.