“One Life to Live” head writer talks to AfterElton.com about what’s next for Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish

The weekly Gays of Our Lives column on AfterElton.com by Anthony D. Langford has become an absolute must-read for commentary, recaps, spoilers and interviews.

This week’s column features an in-depth interview with One Life to Live head writer Ron Carlivati who is responsible for the best gay storyline on a daytome soap – ever.

I wanted to share a portion of the Q&A dealing with the future of our favorite couple Oliver Fish (Scott Evans) and Kyle Lewis (Brett Claywell). But there is plenty else addressed including Carlivati’s desire to have Scott’s brother, movie actor Chris Evans, drop by for a guest spot.  He also shares the good news that we have not seen the last of Nick (Nicholas Rodriguez) who was recently jilted by Kyle.

AE: What is next for Kyle and Oliver? They went through all that and now they’re dating, so what can we expect next for them? A lot of people think now that they’re together they’ll just disappear.
RC: That’s always the trick with any show. Keeping the couple apart is the way to keep people interested. Like with the show Moonlighting, it was always about keeping them from sleeping together, keeping them from being a couple, and then once they were, it was like, now what do we do?

The story is almost easier to tell when you’re just coming up with ways to keep them apart. Once they’re together it becomes more of a challenge. Now what do we do? In their case, we focused on the coming out, and then once Fish came out, the challenge was Kyle said, “Well, it’s too late. I’ve moved on.” Then we had this buildup to could Fish get Kyle back? Which is up to where we are now.

What’s great about it is that you’ve never really seen them together, so we can play on those first moments that the audience didn’t get to see. It really is a “now what” for them. They admitted their feelings for each other, and the trick for us was that they’ve never even had a date in public. They dated secretly in college. So that’s where we are in the story. I’m trying to plan their first date, then trying to see how we move forward in a relationship. Of course, being a soap opera, we find many ways to complicate that. [laughs] We can’t make it too easy for them to get together.

AE: Will there be other bigger stories for them?
RC: Oh yeah, absolutely. The other story that’s going on with them at the same time is that from his one night stand with Stacy there’s a pregnant girl out there that’s carrying his baby. As their relationship moves forward, you know that complication is lying out there. Obviously I’m farther ahead with the writing, but what you’re seeing now is just playing out the romance and the love story without the obstacles at the moment. Down the road, the baby story will become a big part of their relationship.

We. Can’t. Wait!