Mario Van Peebles heading to All My Children

Actor/director Mario Van Peebles has a new gig: he's joining the ABC daytime soap All My Children.

Van Peebles will come to Pine Valley and play Samuel Woods, an attorney who runs for Senate and just might get romantically involved with Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). If you've never watched the show, everyone at one time or another gets involved romantically with Erica Kane, and often marries her.

I think everyone's first reaction to this will be "gee, his career has really gone downhill, eh?" But I don't think that's necessarily the case. Van Peebles works a lot and often does his own stuff, so maybe he just thought it would be a good gig and we shouldn't read anything else into it. No word on whether it will be a temporary role or a long term stay.

Maybe he should come to the show as this guy.