Because of the lack of preparation... soap operas reveal your acting skill quickly. The good ones are very good... the bad ones awful.
On the soap that Roger plays in I don't watch anymore because it is boring... but the character (Todd Manning) he plays started out rapist... then transcended into some sort of hero. (He actually quit the show because he felt a rapist was being turned into a romantic hero, and felt that was beyond the pale). He's back now... still flawed... yet Roger has the ability to move you by revealing Todd's inability to rise above his faults and the pain that weakness causes Todd. It's very subtle, and powerful to behold.
I wouldn't recommend that you watch the Soap now... because its very stupid. I don't like what they have done with the Todd character... and it would take weeks before you saw the contest between doing the right and wrong thing.
ROFL! So true! I remember some storylines taking MONTHS to develop...
BTW, DDL is also in his 40's, just like SC...