Although BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL’s Brooke Logan loves her children deeply, she’s hardly a candidate for mother-of-the-year. Interestingly, Katherine Kelly Lang is finding that playing mom to Bridget, Rick and Hope is helping prepare her for the challenges of raising her real-life kids: sons Jeremy (ex-Eric Forrester, Jr., B&B), 12 and Julian, 10; 6-year-old daughter Zoe and stepdaughter Danyelle, who is 12.Soap Opera Weekly: Do you bring any of your relationship with your real children to the way Brooke tries to relate to hers?
Katherine Kelly Lang: No, because of the age difference. But I look at them, my TV kids, and I think, “My gosh, is this how you relate to them when they’re older? Is this how it’s going to be?”
Weekly: A little tryout.
Lang: Yeah. (laughs) It’s kind of warming me up for the future.Weekly: As a person and as a mom, what are the good and the bad traits you’ve passed on to your own kids?
Lang: (laughs): Well, you never want to admit the bad. (laughs) I think I blocked all the bad out of my mind. But the good traits, well, hopefully. I instill good morals in their everyday life. They seem to understand what is good and what is right and wrong. I don’t really like saying “right and wrong” because I don’t know if I believe in that, but good and bad I think is more important. How you should treat people, how you should treat yourself, what it means to be responsible, independent, things like that. And that is something you have to work with the kids on every single day, especially my 12-year-old. He’s at an age where you really need to remind him which way, because then they get kind of strung out with their peers, or they get confused. And then, “Oh, I forgot my backpack,” or “I forgot my project for this class,” and “Mom, will you bring it to me?” “No, you are almost 13 years old. You need to be responsible and you need to be doing these things for yourself now.” So instead of just doing everything for them, which you tend to do at a younger age, you have to start letting them go and learn and be responsible for themselves.Weekly: Do you see them following in your acting footsteps?
Lang: Well, my daughter, she’s like, “I want to do theater,’ and she’s only 5. “Theater, mom, I want to do theater.” (laughs) And she sings amazing. I don’t even know the songs that she sings to herself half the time, and I don’t know how she understands the words in the lyrics. I’m like, “What are you singing now?” “You know, that girl with pink hair.” You know, Pink. (laughs) And she knows Pink‘s song forward and backwards and sings it great.
Jeremy has already done school plays and has gone to the Lee Strasberg Institute for acting and done a summer session there and ended up doing two parts in the same play back to back. And he does his little home video movies and makes up his own commercials. He’s very talented and very excited about doing the directing/acting thing. My stepdaughter is doing musicals and stuff at school. Julian — no. He doesn’t want to do anything — but he will be an actor in Jeremy’s movies (laughs). So Jeremy gets the camera and goes, “Come on, Julian. You gotta do this for me.” Julian is like his guinea pig.Weekly: What kind of movies does he do?
Lang: He does action, thriller — he gets the ketchup out and the guy falls and the ketchup bursts and it looks like he broke his shoulder (laughs). And then they continue on for a little adventure. He also does commercials, and shorts for different products, and they’re always funny. He’s very funny. A comedian.Weekly: If any of the kids decide to make show business their career, would that make you happy or worried?
Lang: I know how frustrating and difficult it can be, and I’ve been lucky. I was doing the runaround and TV shows here and there and a movie here and there until I got this show. But this show is really something that has enabled me to have a base and a foundation and learn even more, and to set up a life for myself. It’s hard for people out there — they can even be talented but they’ll never go anywhere, they’ll never get anything. It’s a lot about timing, a lot about luck, it’s a lot about being in the right place at the right time. And when you do have that opportunity, it’s the way you run with it.So as far as my kids, I find it exciting because that’s what I do, and I like seeing my kids grow up being interested in and doing what I’m doing. But I also worry about it because it’s not easy.Linda Susman interviews Katherine Kelly Lang in the June 17, 2003 issue of Soap Opera Weekly:, on sale June 10. “Auld Lang Syne” is a rare, revealing interview with the woman who plays daytime’s most controversial character.
