Soap Opera Digest: Let’s go back to when you first found out that you’d be paired together. What was your reaction?
Heather Tom: Well, I was excited! I thought that it was a good pairing and it would be a great story. I always thought Darin was a wonderful actor, so I was excited to kind of play ball with him. I thought it would really work.
Darin Brooks: I 100 percent concur! I was super-excited, too. I heard I was working with Heather and honestly, it’s the same thing. I’ve seen her work and I’m just so impressed by her every day.
Tom: And I like that the relationship is kind of different. I like that they weren’t “in love” right out of the gate. It’s kind of casual, just a friendship with benefits thing. They gave it some time to breathe, which was nice.
Digest: What was the relationship between the two of you as actors like prior to working together?
Tom: Well, I think the great thing about THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL is that we all do hang out together. The cast actually genuinely likes each other and sees each other after work. We have these actors’ dinners and things like that, so in that regard we certainly were friends.
Brooks: The cast really does get along well and we all hang out and John McCook [Eric] has his actor dinners, but we never really worked together. We only had a couple of scenes in the kitchen once and I was like, “We need to work together more!”
Digest: Did you work to develop a rapport or did you just let it play out on camera?
Tom: Not really. I think we were both concentrating on finding the uniqueness with these two characters so that it didn’t feel like something people had seen before. Darin’s a lot of fun to play with. There’s a lot that’s not on the page that we were intent on finding, so I think that’s how I approached the material and finding the relationship and the chemistry between the two characters.
Brooks: I tend to ad-lib a lot and Heather’s actually a pro at going with it.
Tom: I enjoy it! It’s fun! You never know what’s going to happen.
Brooks: I think Heather is just terrific at making strong choices, too. The slightest line, the slightest word, whatever it is. I think we both try and make the strongest choices we can, which is really great.
Digest: What do you like most about Katie and Wyatt’s relationship?
Tom: I think they’re fun!
Brooks: The mustache!
Tom: Yeah, the mustache! It has its own storyline now.
Digest: The mustache made a comeback recently!
Tom: Katie has a thing for facial hair, I guess!
Brooks: We were just talking that we’re championing to hopefully bring it back for something else.
Digest: How would you describe this relationship?
Tom: I think that they’re unexpected in a lot of ways and I think they’re even kind of surprising to themselves. It’s a different kind of relationship for each of these characters, and Katie’s always kind of been second-best in a lot of ways, not just even in love, but in her life.
Brooks: Wyatt, too!
Tom: Yeah! Wyatt, too! Maybe they’re relating to each other on that level and for the first time they’re not second-best. I think that’s a really interesting and lovely thing to play.
Brooks: I think at the beginning of the relationship, it was nice to have Katie be a little less comfortable with certain things and Wyatt to be calm, and we kind of met on that level. I think that the two characters helped each other be better and grow together in a nice way.
Tom: Honestly, this is like the first time Katie has had fun since I’ve come on to the show [laughs]! She’s clearly had other relationships but they weren’t just for fun. In my opinion, it’s a whole new side to her and I’ve really enjoyed it a lot. Just being able to be silly and not have to worry about the consequences of it.
JPI
Digest: Are you surprised how frisky these two have been?
Tom (laughs): I have had more love scenes in the last six months than I’ve had on 28 years in daytime.
Brooks: Our music guy came up to me at the holiday party and he was like, “Um … We ran out of music for you so I had to rewrite like 30 more cues,” and I was like, “That means there’s more to come then!”
Digest: Katie and Wyatt also do a lot of role-playing. Do you have a favorite
character?
Brooks: Oh, yeah!
Tom: I personally like the plumber the best.
Brooks: We have a lot of fun with that and they have fun writing it, too. It’s great. I think it’s playing really well.
Digest: What have your spouses had to say about your pairing?
Tom: We really haven’t hung out together as couples. I know Darin’s wife, Kelly [Kruger, ex-Eva], really well. James [Achor, husband] is so funny because he’s so disconnected. He really doesn’t ever watch the show. Actually, Darin, I don’t think I told you this. He was sitting in a diner with one of his band members who plays drums and they had the television on and Kevin [the friend] looks up and he sees the TV and he’s like, “Is that your wife making out with some dude on the TV?” And James didn’t even turn around. He was like, “Yeah, probably.”
Brooks: I met James a couple of times at the parties and stuff like that but we’ve never really talked. I remember telling Heather last time at the Emmys, “Your dude looks exactly like [the surfer] Kelly Slater!” He just seems super-cool.
Tom: He does!
Brooks: Kelly [Kruger] just loves it. I may not have told you this, Heather, but when she found out that you and I were working together she was like, “What?! Yes! Finally! I’ve been waiting for you to work with her because she’s just so good.” Honestly, she was super-excited when she heard it was happening.
Digest: This relationship started out as friends with benefits. Do you think they’re ready for something deeper?
Tom: I think that they have been there for each other and I think they’re both trying to play with this agreement that they made where it’s like, “We’re not getting involved, we don’t have strings, no commitments.” I think for Katie that might be a little easier said than done, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to obligate him to anything, so I think they’re both trying to kind of feel each other out.
Brooks: That’s what’s kind of nice about the relationship and that’s what I think she was saying is different, too, is that friends with benefits thing. We’ve been playing that as much as we can every morning when we discuss new things. We’re always like, “So how can we make it so it’s a friend thing, but in the back of both our minds, these two are obviously falling for each other?” I just think it’s kind of inevitable for two people to be in that situation.
Digest: Have you talked about what will happen when Bill finds out?
Tom: That should be interesting! He doesn’t really have a leg to stand on though, let’s be honest! I’m sure he won’t see it that way.
Brooks: Depending on how Bill reacts and all that stuff, it just might bring them closer together or tear them apart. You really don’t know. That’s what we’re wondering.
Digest: Where does Will fit into this?
Tom: Will who [laughs]?!
Brooks: We don’t talk about Will!
Tom: I put him in the kitchen with some Cheerios and he’s fine. I guess we’ll see how Will plays into it.
Brooks: That’s the hard part. Heather and I talked about the fact that the only thing the fans are probably not going to nececessarily agree with is the whole Will situation, so let’s try and just sweep it under the rug and avoid it for a little while.
Tom: I mean, it’s going to have to come up, but for as long as we can, we’re like, “Let’s just not talk about this!” Look at Brooke, though. She’s been married to all three Forrester men, so I kind of feel like our situation is tame in comparison to others.
JPI
Digest: Should Wyatt be concerned about Thorne?
Brooks: I don’t know. Thorne in everyone’s side!
Digest: There was some chemistry in those scenes, too. Sorry, Darin!
Brooks: Oh, come on!
Tom: We’ll see.
Digest: Who would you say is the bigger romantic, Katie or Wyatt?
Tom: I think Wyatt. What do you think?
Brooks: I think he is, too. That’s the thing; Wyatt tries to play a game but he’s super-romantic at heart. I’ll agree with you there.
Tom: Katie has had relationships with both Ridge and Bill, but I don’t know that they were always super-romantic. They were always so fraught with drama that there wasn’t really room for romance, so I think this is kind of almost the first time she’s been really exposed to that kind of thing, in a way.
Digest: You don’t think the “string ring” was just so romantic?
Tom: No! It was romantic for the first show! Not three months later! Three months later I was like, “Get this string off my finger!”
Brooks: It was the same thing with the tattoo ring for Wyatt. I hated putting that thing on every day.
Digest: So if it gets that far with these too, we’ll have a real ring, I imagine?
Tom: I hope so. Maybe it will be a mustache ring!
Brooks: I was just going to say that! A mustache ring.
