B&B’s Darin Brooks and Courtney Hope Are Thrilled To No Longer Be Castaways
Soap Opera Digest: What was your reaction when you heard you were going to be a couple?
Darin Brooks: I was super-excited. We never really got to work together much before. It was sort of in passing. But when this came to fruition, we were like, “Oh, great, cool! Let’s do it.”
Courtney Hope: Yeah, I was really excited. I think Wyatt is good for Sally. Obviously, I like Darin and he’s awesome to work with, so I was excited about that, but I also was excited for the potential of the couple, in general, because I feel like there are so many similarities and so many places we could go with it.
Brooks: When we first started, what were the fans calling them?
Hope: Castaways.
Brooks: Castaways! I was gonna say “shipwreck”. I was like no, it wasn’t that.
(They both laugh.)
Brooks: It’s such a fitting title, because it does describe how these two characters came together.
Digest: You mean, after being cast off from their respective partners, Katie and Thomas?
Both: Exactly!
Digest: Did you feel any pushback from the “Watie” fans?
Brooks: Well, their demise was abrupt, and I think that left the fans going, “Whoa, what happened?” But I think they’ve come around. If we get a little half-and-half there, a little quadrangle action with Katie and Thorne, that could be fun, to shake up the happy couples and see Katie and Sally throw down.
Digest: Are you up for that, Courtney?
Hope: Oh, yeah! That would be tons of fun.
Digest: How is Sally feeling about Thomas these days?
Hope: Who’s Thomas?
Brooks: Well played!
Hope: I don’t think that he crosses her mind whatsoever. I think she finally learned, “Okay, here’s a good guy who I can invest in, who’s not taken, and this is how I’m supposed to be treated.”
Digest: Is this a rebound romance?
Hope: Yes, and that’s not a bad thing. For Sally, the rebound is what she needed. She did not need to be in a serious relationship at all. She was not in the headspace for it and she couldn’t think clearly. The blessing was that Wyatt came along and they could create a flourishing, substantial friendship — in addition to the sexual, romantic aspect of it.
Brooks: Courtney said she likes that Wyatt doesn’t take Sally’s crap, that in a way they find each other as worthy opponents, and they bonded over that. They can keep up with each other.
Digest: Now that Wyatt’s working at Forrester Creations, is that a good thing?
Hope: I personally think it’s fun because there is a lot of potential for great drama. It’s inevitable. I mean, he’s working with his mom, who doesn’t really like Sally. He’s working with his not one but two ex-wives, who also don’t really like Sally.
Brooks: I completely agree — so much drama! Hopefully, we can explore a lot of that.
Digest: Quinn has not been fond of the women in Wyatt’s life. Courtney, would you like to have more scenes with Rena Sofer (Quinn)?
Hope: Absolutely! I don’t feel like I’ve had a lot of time working with her. I love the tension that she throws everyone’s way in her “Quinn-ness” queen stare.
Brooks: She makes great choices. Rena’s a pro at that. She really takes on that “mama bear” quality. She’ll purposely ignore people. She’s ignored Sally a couple of times.
Hope: That stuff she does intuitively is just perfect.
Brooks: I want Wyatt to be sitting in the corner eating popcorn and watching it happen when they finally have those scenes.
Digest: What has been your favorite “Wally” moment so far?
Brooks: I don’t know.
Hope: They’re all his favorite.
Brooks: Yeah!
Hope: I actually liked when Zoe came in briefly and there was a bit of tension and back and forth between them. I do hope we can have some more of those, where they’re butting heads against each other — or we’re rallying together against someone else.
Brooks: Agreed.
Digest: What challenges would you like to see this couple face?
Brooks: With our show, and I’m just throwing it out there, but a couple really isn’t solidified until they travel somewhere and then it’s like, “Boom!” So, if they want to take us to Italy to solidify the relationship, well, I’m for it!
Hope: I second that!
Brooks: I would really like to see if they can survive that and Monte Carlo.
Hope: You really get to know someone when you travel with them, so I completely agree.
Brooks: See? Another thing we have in common! But closer to home, it would be interesting to explore some of those opportunities with the exes, since Wyatt’s past is so readily available. They all work at the same place so obviously, there could be arguments and whatever. We could also explore something with all those people who might be trying to hold Sally back. Or, we could pull something out of their distant pasts, since we don’t know much about either of their backgrounds.
Hope: That’s true. They both had to scrape by and look after family members, so that’s more they have in common.
Digest: Starting out, what was your initial impression of the other?
Hope: To be honest, I don’t remember the first time I ever saw him. I knew of him because I had a friend who was on DAYS when he was [playing Max], so I knew who he was and I knew that he was a jokester. I was a fan of his work. I feel like the first time we actually got to hang out was in France when we went, and Darin and Kelly [Kruger, Mackenzie, Y&R, his wife] and Chad [Duell, Michael, GH, her boyfriend] and I met up. That was the first time where I was like, “This is an easygoing person.” That was really nice to see.
Brooks: Same thing. We didn’t really hang out much here because we didn’t have storylines together. I met Chad at your birthday party and he was a cool dude. Kelly and Court get along. It’s awesome.
Digest: Did it take long to find your rhythm?
Hope: For me, it felt pretty natural. It just came. Darin’s very present in scenes and so it was easy to just dive in. I felt like we hit the ground running and it just worked.
Brooks: Yeah, I 100-percent agree. I said to her, “I’m sorry if I ad-lib a little too much,” and she’s like, “No, it’s cool. I’m fine with it,” and I was like, “Okay, perfect! This is going to work just fine,” because some people can ad-lib and some people can’t. She’s great at it. For us to just tango in these scenes and incorporate our own inflections here and there, it meshes great. We have a good time, too, so it’s perfect.
Digest: At Hope and Liam’s wedding, you two didn’t have much dialogue but your facial expressions and bits really stole the show.
Hope: We did barely say anything but we still took it!
Brooks: You better believe it! I love those moments, like when Hunter [Tylo, Taylor] and Katherine Kelly Lang [Brooke] walked out with the cake on their faces and our reaction was the same. We both took a drink at the same time. We didn’t plan that. It just happened and everybody was like, “That was perfect!”
Digest: What’s something you’ve learned about each other since working together?
Hope: He’s a big jokester, that’s no secret, but what was really interesting to see is that he’s very grounded and very intelligent, and that speaks for Wyatt and for Darin. We’ve had some really good conversations about a lot of different things. I’ve grown to really respect him as a person and as an actor.
Brooks: Same thing. I’m learning a lot about her, like she studied with Ivana Chubbuck, which I did, too, so we understand the way we go about things. It’s total admiration all around.
Digest: You mentioned that you and your significant others bonded while abroad. Have the four of you ever gone out for a night on the town in L.A.?
Hope: I feel like we’ve been planning that since the beginning.
Brooks: We definitely have been trying.
Hope: The truth of the matter is, both of us are homebody couples. I talk to Kelly all the time. We text all the time. We’re always talking about random things — dogs and working out and food and just nonsense. I feel like it’s one of those things that once we do hang out, then we are going to hang out more. But when Friday or Saturday night comes, we have our family of dogs, each of us —
Brooks: Everybody has dogs!
Hope: So, we stay home and hang out with our family.
Brooks: We’ll get there. I swear it’s
coming!
JPI
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