The 50th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will be held on Friday, Dec. 15, with the ceremony airing live on CBS starting at 9 p.m. ET. Soap Opera Digest chatted with the nominees to get the scoop on how they found out, what episodes they submitted, and more as we count down to daytime’s biggest night!
Outstanding Lead Actor
Billy Flynn (Chad, DAYS OF OUR LIVES)
Chris Haston/NBC
How did you find out you were nominated? “I was driving home and had heard they were going to announce the Lead Actor category early. I was trying to figure out what time EXTRA was on. You know how you can ask a question [on your phone] and it will pull up a news article real quick? I guess it had already aired on the East Coast. It said I was nominated, and my picture was there.”
Did you do anything to celebrate? “No, not really. But my parents were in town and were watching my son, and my wife was getting back from a trip to New York. My last two nominations I wasn’t able to find out with my parents and with my wife. So it was nice this time to kind of hear the news together. The enjoyment is just finding out that you’re nominated. So that was enough for me.”
You had a heavy storyline. Were you hoping for a nomination this year? “You’re always hoping to, yeah. For the last few years, I hadn’t even submitted, because I haven’t had the material. I’m really specific in what I feel is good enough to submit. It certainly felt more special this time because myself and Kate Mansi [ex-Abigail; Kristina, GH] and Marci Miller [ex-Abigail] spent a decade telling a really beautiful love story about these two characters. The three of us have been nominated multiple times over the years. For it to be the end of it, at least for the time being — you never know what’s going to happen on soap operas — it felt nice. The work that I did with Marci, specifically in the end, felt really authentic, especially the scene I submitted. It wasn’t the biggest scene. It wasn’t the most dramatic scene, but it was probably one of the most truthful. And that was a scene of me saying goodbye to my friend, who had been telling this love story with me since Kate left.”
What scene was it? “The final scene of my tape, my reel, was Chad and Abigail in the graveyard just after they found out Clyde was the killer. It’s when Chad is telling Abigail he’s so angry and doesn’t know what to do with his life. She calmly says you have to go on. It ends with them slow dancing and him telling her how he sees her in their children. It was a scene I felt to be very truthful, a saying goodbye to this thing we had built.”
What other scenes did you submit? “I always want to tell a little bit of story within the reel, so the audience or whoever is voting isn’t like, ‘What’s happening?’ I did a short clip of Chad and Abigail in the morgue, where Chad’s crying over her, but there’s no real dialogue. That went into a scene with Thomas, where I’m apologizing for yelling at him. I thought that was a beautiful scene, and Cary [Christopher, Thomas] was so good in that. Then there was a very short scene with James Read [Clyde] of Chad and Clyde in the graveyard. Chad has a gun and says, ‘That was my wife. How could you do that to me? Tell me what you did.’ ”
What does the nomination mean to you? “It’s extra special for the end of the Chad and Abigail story and for where I’m at in my life. I feel like the other nominations have been followed by anxiety and fear and not really being present in the moment. Just immediately thinking, ‘If I don’t win does it mean I’m not good? If I do win, what am I going to say?’ It was clouded by my head. As I’ve gotten older, all that’s gone. So I was really able to just enjoy the moment and the nomination. I have a son now and a wife, and it’s been almost 10 years since I’ve been on the show. Ultimately, this nomination was just enjoyment and I’m not worried about the results or anything that happens next.”
Who will you be bringing to ceremony? “My wife. We’re very excited. It will probably be our first date night that we will have had since our son was born.”
What do you think about your fellow nominees? “They’re incredible. I personally know Maurice [Benard, Sonny, GH]. I’d done a recent podcast [of his show, STATE OF MIND]. I reached out to him, sent him congratulations. Peter [Bergman, Jack, Y&R] ended up reaching out to me. He’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. I texted him, too. I’ve seen Jason [Thompson, Billy, Y&R] throughout the years and am a fan of his, as well as Thorsten [Kaye, Ridge, B&B]. They’re all amazing. They’re all legends. It’s an incredibly intimidating category.”
How do you feel about your TV son, Cary Christopher, getting a nomination? “I was probably more happy to hear that than I was my own nomination. I was so happy for that young man. He works really hard as an actor. Him and his mom and his dad, as well as Autumn [Gendron, Charlotte], who plays my daughter — I have such a great relationship with them. I had a feeling Cary was going to get nominated. I think I told him after I found out I got nominated, ‘You’re next.’ His work was just so good.”
Does it feel special to have a father-son nomination? “Not only father-son. We have four DiMeras nominated: Chad, [Stacy Haiduk’s] Kristen, [Dan Feuerriegel’s] EJ and Thomas. It’s the whole clan!”
