Howard Wise/jpistudios.com
Stuck In The Middle: When it comes to Phyllis (Michelle Stafford), Christine (Lauralee Bell) has just about had it with Danny’s (Michael Damian) kindness.
Some fans are upset that Danny is being too kind to Phyllis, which has given her leeway to come between him and Christine. What’s your take on that? “I think he sees the good in everyone and he really wants Phyllis to succeed and to better herself as a person. But I think he got sort of surprised when she tried to, I guess the word would be, seduce him. It kind of caught him off-guard and confused him, but he’s madly in love with Cricket. That’s his true love.”
That seems obvious, but it also seems like other people are trying to cloud that up; of course Phyllis and Christine, but even Lauren asked Danny, ‘Are you sure there’s nothing between him and Phyllis?’ “What’s really quite clever with what Josh [Griffith, executive producer/head writer] wrote is that Danny thinks that it’s turned into a competition with [Christine and Phyllis]. He has said, ‘I’m tired of being the chess piece in this game you two are playing and I want out of the middle.’ And then Cricket is like, ‘Are you sure you’re not enjoying this?’ and he’s like, ‘What, are you kidding? No, I hate it!’ Some men would be thrilled to have two women vying for them, but Danny is in love with Cricket. That’s it.”
This is supposed to be the “new and improved” Phyllis, but it seems like she’s just up to her old tricks, especially when it comes to sticking it to Christine. “Is this 2.1 or 2.3 Phyllis? What version is she at? We’re on Apple 17.3 on our iPhone, so we don’t know what version Phyllis is at. I love Michelle [Stafford, Phyllis] and I love working with Lauralee [Bell, Christine]. I think that she has really elevated her performance. That scene a while back when Cricket told Danny about what happened with Paul, I personally would like to see that submitted for an [Daytime] Emmy! I told her, ‘Do you realize how hard that was? You had basically a 13-page monologue where I interjected a couple of times and you really kept building it with the emotion and it was so real. It just kept getting better and better because you could level off, find levels and the emotion has to keep surging back.’ I thought she did that so well and she did it all in one take, too, which is amazing. It just pushes me to try to be even better.”
Despite what Christine has to say, Danny just doesn’t seem to have his eyes fully open when it comes to Phyllis. “He does say to Cricket, ‘Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and give her another shot.’ And Cricket is like, ‘How many chances are you gonna give her?’ ”
So, why is he willing to do this for Phyllis? “I think he’s willing to because of Daniel.”
But even Daniel is on to what his mom is doing. “Oh yeah, he tells her, ‘Why are you doing this? Don’t do this.’ And even when she claims she has feelings for Danny, Daniel is like, ‘Oh, come on. You’re up to no good, Mom. Back off.’ ”
And everybody seems to know this but Phyllis. “But it’s fun. I know on my Twitter, some people are very upset. They’re like, ‘Just wake up, Danny, wake up!’ ”
With all of your other endeavors, it’s amazing that you’ve been able to devote this much time to Y&R these past few months. Why is the show still so important to you? “It’s really like going back home. I spent so much of my life there and have made so many wonderful relationships and friends. On a personal note, it’s been just wonderful but on a professional level it’s really helped me as a filmmaker to get back on camera, and to really constantly remind myself what it’s like from an actor’s perspective. It really teaches me a lot as a director and producer. When you’re on the other side, you kind of forget what it’s all about sometimes, so when you get in the actor’s shoes, you really understand where they’re coming from.”
