Exclusive: Cirie Fields On Her BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL Cameo

Cirie Fields — one of the most popular contestants in SURVIVOR history, who went on to compete on THE TRAITORS and, more recently, CBS’s BIG BROTHER — will be playing a doctor on B&B on Wednesday, December 20. The episode also features her BIG BROTHER housemate, Matt Klotz.

This is not Fields’s first foray into daytime; way back in 2006, not long after appearing on her first season of SURVIVOR, she notched a cameo on GUIDING LIGHT. “What made that experience so special for me is that my mother watched GUIDING LIGHT,” says Fields. “I remember coming home from school at lunchtime and mother would be watching her stories. She’s always been a Channel 2 [CBS] person — like, my boyfriend at the time, his mother watched Channel 7 [ABC], but my mom watched Channel 2. She was a GUIDING LIGHT fanatic and she got to come with me and got to meet Billy [Jordan Clarke], who was one of her long-term favorites. She was so thrilled and excited, and he gave her a tie! It was so thoughtful and she had it framed. It’s still up in her house right now! So that made it beyond worth it and beyond amazing for me, that she got to experience that, as well. That’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

Debut Performance: In 2006 Fields and fellow SURVIVOR player Melinda Hyder appeared on GUIDING LIGHT with Tom Pelphrey (ex-Jonathan).

Fields also made this B&B appearance a family affair, bringing her son and fellow BIG BROTHER contestant Jared Fields along with her — and she was glad to have him by her side when she realized on the day of taping that she’d made a grave error in her memorization strategy. Chuckles Fields, “This is so crazy. When I got the script, I started studying and I had it down pat. I went over it with my son, like, ‘Okay, you play this part, I’ll play this part, this is my part.’ But I immediately assumed I was playing the part of Bridget,” Ashley Jones’s role. “I had Bridget’s part down pat! Then I get on set and we were in the green room or the very nice dressing room they had me in, and someone comes in and was like, ‘Okay are you ready? You have a copy of your lines?’ And she was like, ‘How do you feel playing the doctor?’ And I was like, ‘Wait a minute — I’m the doctor?!’ So then, right then and there, I start studying [the doctor’s lines]! I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ Now I was nervous because I like to be super-prepared. I’m a surgical nurse [in real life], right? And we prepare days in advance for your upcoming surgery. We have to have all our ducks in a row and that’s how I am. So not being prepared, I was freaking out! My advice to anybody else that has the opportunity to be a guest on a soap opera, ask questions, clarify and make sure you know which part you’re playing [laughs]! But when they told me, ‘You’re not Bridget, you’re Dr. Martin,’ my son was there with me and I was like, ‘Start reading!’ ”

It’s A Family Affair: Fields brought son Jared to the set.

Though being in front of TV cameras is old hat for Fields, working on a scripted show is quite different from the reality universe. “It does give you different kinds of butterflies, because I can easily play myself,” Fields notes. “I don’t have to study for that. I don’t have to read a script, I don’t have to prepare in any way. And most of these shows that I’ve played on, I’ve primarily been myself. So when I’m getting ready for a scene on THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, now I’m nervous. Am I gonna be able to do it? Am I gonna give it the right emotion? Am I gonna remember the lines? Am I gonna look crazy? Am I gonna mess it up? So all of that comes into play, which it doesn’t when I’m just being myself.” Fortunately, she had supportive colleagues at B&B to help her keep her nerves at bay. Fields marvels, “Ashley was so kind to me. I couldn’t believe how accommodating everyone was. I felt so welcomed and so special and so well-received. I can’t say how much they made me feel like a part of the family, and I really appreciated that. Even John McCook [Eric], he took the time to talk to me and my son and we took photos. You see these people on TV and you’re starstruck immediately when you see them. You have this preconceived notion that stars and celebrities are going to be too busy to be human and to take the time to talk to you and be warm with you. You don’t expect that type of warmth in a big studio and a big production like THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, but that’s what we received.”

Like many a daytime guest star before her, Fields was blown away by the breakneck pace of production. “It is so fast-paced; you’re like, ‘What?!’ And then when you watch it on TV, it seems so flawless! When you’re there, you see how fast-paced it is and how they keep up and how it just goes from one scene to the next to the the next — it’s like a well-oiled machine and then they put it together and it just flows like a symphony on TV and you’re like, ‘Damn, these people are incredible at what they do!’ I don’t think they get enough credit. I think we just assume, ‘Oh, I could do that, this is easy.’ Yeah, it’s not so easy!”

The Doctors Are In: Fields played a physician alongside Tanner Novlan’s Finn and Ashley Jones’s Bridget.

Also not so easy is what Fields has accomplished by conquering three disparate reality shows. “The only thing I think that is transferable [as a skill she brings as a contestant] is that every one of them, from THE TRAITORS to SURVIVOR to BIG BROTHER, they all have a social aspect,” she observes. “That’s a huge percentage of the requirement of the game. SURVIVOR is a little more physical than BIG BROTHER; physicality, I would say, maybe 30 percent of [SURVIVOR] and the social aspect of the game is 70 percent. BIG BROTHER, the social aspect is probably, I would say, the same ratio as strategic; the strategic aspect of BIG BROTHER is way more involved than the physical aspect. But across the board, for THE TRAITORS as well, there has to be a social aspect, a social prowess, to get far in the game, because if people don’t like you, they’re going to target you in all of these games. So I think the common denominator is that you have to be strong socially.” She thinks she’s done so well in the reality sphere “because I’m a caregiver at heart. I’m a registered nurse by trade and I think that whatever that is in me that always wanted me to be a registered nurse and take care of people, I think that is the energy that people connect with — people like strangers when I go to dinner, or people at Marshall’s or TJ Maxx or Target who come up to me and talk to me — and this was prior to any reality TV! My husband always says, ‘You’re like a magnet for people.’ I think that’s just because I give off that caring energy, like a genuine caring energy. I don’t care who you are, what race, creed, color, walk of life, socioeconomic status — I am attracted to people and I want to help people, and people help me regularly. I think that makes me good in these games; I think people can feel that energy.” That said, if she was to play a longer-term character on B&B or another soap, she wouldn’t necessarily cast herself as a caregiver. Instead, she grins, she’d love to play “the sister that’s the black sheep in the family, the sister that everyone loves, she’s a good time, but she’s always in some trouble. I feel like that would emulate my real life!”

Fields sees some similarities between soap fans and reality fans, who are both known for their devotion. “When GUIDING LIGHT went off [the air], my mother cried. She had watched it long before I even came along! I’d get home from school and I knew when I had to be quiet because she was paying attention to [her soaps]. I know Victor Newman [Eric Braeden’s iconic Y&R character]. I know the names of the all the major players because they have a cult following, just like reality TV! It’s the involvement, the attachment. When I watch SURVIVOR and I get to know a character, now I’m attached to that character and I want to follow their journey, and it’s the same for the soaps. You follow the juorney of those characters and you get involved in their life— who’s marrying who, who just had a baby, who’s fighting with who. It’s almost like they become a part of your family, the characters on soaps and the people on reality TV.”