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Interview

Jennifer Gareis And Sharon Case Reflect On Their Real-Life Friendship

CBS Daytime #1 for 30 Years Launch Party
Tamara Clatterbuck, Jennifer Gareis, Sharon Case CBS Daytime #1 for 30 Years Launch Party The Paley Center for Media Beverly Hills, CA 10/10/16 © Jill Johnson/jpistudios.com 310-657-9661 Credit: JPI

Did you meet for the first time on the Y&R set, where you played besties starting in 1997?

Sharon Case (Sharon, Y&R): Yeah, I didn’t know her before that. I just met her as my co-star and she was a delight. We clicked on set, started hanging out and then we started traveling together and we clicked even more.

Jennifer Gareis (Donna, B&B): We’ve been besties practically since I arrived in L.A. — and our friendship just keeps growing and growing!

Sharon and Grace’s friendship went south after Grace slept with Sharon’s husband. Was it fun to play adversaries?

Case: It was fun!

Gareis: So fun.

Case: It’s so much better because as real-life friends, whenever you have to have an argument or a physical fight, you really trust each other more with what you’re going to do in the scene.

Gareis: We had a lot of laughs after we did those fight scenes.

Case: And, nothing changed when she left the show. Our friendship went on and on. It’s the same with Lauren [Woodland, Brittany, Y&R] and Tamara [Clatterbuck, ex-Alice, Y&R], too.

Gareis: And it just keeps growing. We also have Lauralee Bell [Christine, Y&R] and Heather Tom [Katie, B&B; ex-Victoria, Y&R] and Katherine Kelly Lang [Brooke, B&B]. The last birthday I had, I had a huge bunch of soap girls at my house and it was just so cool.

Case: It really was.

Sharon, you work a ton on Y&R, and Jen, you are raising two kids. Is it difficult to find the time to hang out together?

Case: It depends. Some years are better than others with her schedule or mine. Some years I work more at Y&R but then we also have a lot of hiatus weeks, so it depends on the year. It’s the same with her with whatever she’s got going on with the family and the kids.

Gareis: We always say, “When we have time…”, but it’s not always easy, so we have to be sure to make the time.

Case: We don’t live far from each other so we can just jump down the street and grab sushi together for dinner. We have done that a few times when things are busy.

Gareis: And Sharon is so great with the kids. She has actually come to dinner with me and my kiddos a number of times, and I know they enjoy it just as much as we do.

What would you say is the other’s greatest quality as a friend?

Case: I love that she is a really open person. I feel comfortable telling her anything, without any judgment, and I really appreciate that. As my friend, she makes me feel accepted. She has this kind, generous, open quality about her.

Gareis: Aw! I love how confident she is. Whatever comes out of her mouth, she says it with such assurance you’re just like, “Whoa! I wish I was that confident about everything.”

Case (laughs): I don’t know about that!

Gareis: She is super-smart. She’s über-talented. She’s really sweet and she has a great outlook about people and life, and I think the combination of all that makes her really confident. I love that about her.

Case: Aw! I am loving this interview.

What are some of your common interests?

Case: We like to grab dinner and have little dinner parties — and we travel. We started traveling together when we were still working together as co-stars. We’ve traveled all over the world.

Gareis: My first time traveling with her, she could invite anyone she wanted for a photo shoot and she invited me, so I went to Mexico with her. We had such a good time.

Case: The trip to Zihuatanejo, Mexico. I really loved that trip. We did a lot of boating around. I remember it was Christmas time, and that was a nice time of year to go to Mexico, too.

Gareis: One of the best was definitely the girls’ trip when we all went to Vegas. I can’t really get into detail about exactly where we went.

Case: What happens in Vegas….

Gareis and Case: Stays in Vegas!

Gareis: And we do like our wine! Sometimes, I’ll go to Sharon’s house and we’ll just sit at the kitchen counter, munch on some food, have our red wine and five hours will pass and it’s like, “What have we been talking about all this time?” We don’t gossip, we just talk about life.

Case: We will just talk nonstop about everything in the world.

Do you see yourselves as lifelong friends?

Case: Oh, absolutely. I mean we’ve already come 20 years. What could get in the way now?

Gareis: I could never picture my life without Sharon in it.

 

 

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