Soap Opera Digest: There’s been a nice uptick in Michael/Josslyn interaction since Eden joined the show in 2015.
Chad Duell: Yeah, I like having that interaction with the siblings. Michael can’t talk to Josslyn like she’s a little kid anymore! She is kind of wise beyond her years, which makes for a fun dynamic. And Eden is sweet and fun to work with — and she’s easy to make laugh, too.
Eden McCoy: He makes me laugh with, like, pretty much everything he says and does.
Duell: I do goofy things all the time to make her crack up. It makes me feel better about myself.
Digest: Did the two of you hit it off right away?
McCoy: Oh, yeah. From the start, he was really warm and super-welcoming to me. I feel like [our dynamic] is almost like the actual relationship that they’ve written for us. I definitely consider Chad to be a brotherly figure and he was such a good role model for me to look up to when I started, just from how he treats people and the respect he has on set.
Duell: I liked Eden right away, for sure. She carries herself very well and she’s super-talented. Any time someone comes on that I know I’m going to be working with, I want them to feel very welcome and comfortable. With her, I wanted to make things as fun as possible to kind of help get her out of her head, because I know firsthand how scary it can be when you’re new.
Digest: Have you ever given acting advice to Eden, Chad?
Duell: Hmm. I don’t really give her advice, but I try to be as helpful as I can. If she has an emotional scene, I do my best to be there for her and present, not joking around, asking her, “Do you need to run this again? Is there anything you need to help prepare you for the scene?”
McCoy: He’s been a great teacher to me without even needing to say anything. Just by watching him, watching how he kind of becomes Michael, I learned a lot. He’s really helpful to me in our scenes, also, because he always comes prepared, and we’re able to get stuff done fast. He’s been fantastic to work with.
Digest: I think you make a very convincing brother and sister, looks-wise.
McCoy: Everyone does! I think the casting was so spot-on, it’s crazy.
Duell: Yeah, I see the resemblance, too — fair-skinned, blonde. They did a good job.
Digest: Do you think losing Morgan has brought Michael and Josslyn closer together?
Duell: Definitely. He’s very protective of everyone in his family, and I think Morgan dying has only made him more protective. With Josslyn, the kidney transplant is the most serious thing that’s happened; she hasn’t had any crazy drama happen since then. But if she did, he’d be there every step of the way.
McCoy: Michael has always been the more steady brother for Josslyn. He’s really her safe haven. He’s her only brother now, she’s not close to Sonny anymore, so it’s kind of like Michael is all she has at this point. He’s the person in her family that she can really talk to, and she needs that, with everything she’s going through.
Digest: When it comes to their mom, Michael has been more accepting of Carly’s reunion with Sonny than Joss has. Does Michael understand why she’s struggling with that?
Duell: He totally understands why she isn’t relenting when it comes to Sonny, especially with what Sonny did to her father, getting Jax kicked out of the country. She’s like, “This is how I feel and I’m not budging.” Eden does a really good job of playing that.
McCoy: I do think Josslyn feels bad sometimes about the way she talks about Michael to Sonny. She’ll kind of lash out and then after she’s done and she calms down, she’s like, “What did I just do?”
Duell: That doesn’t bother Michael, though. Josslyn is the kind of teen who is mature in some ways and less mature in others. He gets that you grow a lot at that stage in your life.
Digest: What have been your favorite scenes together so far?
Duell: We did a scene after Morgan died, sitting on the bench, where she’s venting about it and he’s trying to be supportive even though his heart is broken, too. I felt like that was really real.
McCoy: We just did one where Michael is kind of freaking out over Josslyn’s new sort of love interest [Oscar]. Talking to Chad about it in the scene and outside of it are kind of similar, because we’re close and he is kind of like another brother to me. We brought that into the scene and it made it a thousand times better because it’s perfectly natural, like we’re not even acting.
