JPI
“I’m really excited to start working on The Bay,” enthuses Jordi Vilasuso (ex-Rey, Young And Restless, et al) about his new job playing Justin Ramos, a character originated by David Lago (ex-Raul, Y&R) on the soapy streaming drama. “The feedback’s been tremendous, and everybody’s really excited for me to be back on a show. It’s gonna feel good to be on a set again.”
No stranger to the daytime arena, Vilasuso, who has played Guiding Light’s Tony, Griffin on All My Children, Dario on Days Of Our Lives before his more recent run as Genoa City’s good-guy police detective, is elated that Justin is a type of character that he hasn’t yet portrayed. “I would describe him as an ambitious businessman, which people haven’t really seen me do,” he points out. “I’ve played a cop and doctors, and a guest appearance once as a sleazy businessman, but Justin is on the up and up. He’s a good guy who gets entangled with one of the richest families in town as well as involved with partners who are not as agreeable as he would want them to be. There’s also tension between him and other characters that may lead to romance.”
The Bay’s creator, Gregori J. Martin, has been eager for Vilasuso to join the show. “Throughout the years, I would see Gregori at parties and other events,” the actor explains. “He’s a really cool, friendly guy and has followed my career. He would ask, ‘Hey, how would you feel about coming to The Bay?’ and finally, I said, ‘I would love to.’ So he reached out to my management and here we are.”
Vilasuso admits that he was taken by surprise when Y&R decided to kill off Rey back in 2022. The actor recounts, “I had just signed on for another three years, but in retrospect, I should have read the writing on the wall, because once you’re the only one of a [soap] family left, your days are numbered. I really enjoyed some of the stories I got to tell but it’s a gig and you’ve got to take those blows and then move onward and upward. Fortunately, I have a great agent and reps who still believe in me.”
The actor is touched that fans continue to miss Rey. “I was shopping in a Hobby Lobby with my daughter and I was recognized by this lady, who was very upset that Rey was gone,” he shares. “I’m not kidding you, she was near tears telling me how sad she was that Rey was off the show. She couldn’t have been nicer and that was very bittersweet for me.”
After leaving Y&R, Vilasuso and his wife, Kaitlin focused on the arrival of their third daughter (the couple had already welcomed Riley, 11, and Everly, 7), who was born at the tail end of 2023. “There had already been a few miscarriages and this time it was a difficult pregnancy,” he explains. “Kait was on bed rest for half of her pregnancy. At 35 weeks, we were at a Tesla dealership buying a car when she went into labor, so we rushed to the hospital and everything happened super-fast. Kait pushed like twice and the baby came out at five pounds and she was fairly healthy for being so early. She was only in the NICU for two days and we got to bring her home. My daughters were doting over this little baby doll and the first week was just lovely.” They named the new addition Lucy, after St. Lucia.
But a week after the little girl was released from the hospital, a pediatrician diagnosed her with RSV, a repiratory problem common with premature infants. To be safe, the parents were given a device to measure the oxygen saturation of her lungs. “An hour after being home, Lucy’s [oxygen level] dropped below 90 percent and we rushed her over to Children’s Hospital,” Vilasuso recalls. “They had to put in the nasal cannula to give her oxygen. They moved her to NICU and she was there for two weeks. It was one of the toughest things we had ever gone through as parents, but Lucy got wonderful care and the nursing staff was incredible. We’re still friends with them.”
INSTAGRAM/Kaitlin Vilaruso
Party Of Five: The Vilasuso family — Kaitlin, daughter Everly (l.), Riley, Jordi and Lucy — are all thriving.
Vilasuso is happy to report that Lucy made a full recovery. “She made it through that challenge without any side effects and she’s doing great,” he smiles. “She’s very strong and her lungs are perfect. She doesn’t cry except for feeding and sleeping, and she’s a little flirt. And now she’s in the 99 percentile for weight.”
On the work front, for much of last year Hollywood was paralyzed by the actors’ and writers’ strikes (“It was like a ghost town”), but with production now back in full swing, Vilasuso is not only thrilled to have landed on The Bay, but he has another project in the works. “This is something that I’ve created with a friend of mine and we haven’t gone to the market yet,” he hedges. “It’s something that I’m super-passionate about and have been working on for almost a year. I’m feeling really excited about it, so hopefully we’ll be able to talk about it soon. For now, I’m all about The Bay. I’ve been acting since I was 11 and soaps started knocking on my door when I was 17, so soaps have been very good to me in my career.”
