From librarian to vampire slayer to cosmetics company CEO, Lucy has the most amazingly soapy resumé. “Definitely! She’s been burned, and lost a lot of money and made bad choices, so to actually have her succeed and be successful, it’s fabulous! All the near misses Lucy has had makes this success all the more sweet because she’s never really quite made it. Ever!”
When you think about Lucy’s pivot into the business world, what comes to mind? “Kin [Shriner, Scott] and I were talking about this recently, that when the whole Deception thing first started and we were coming up with ways to make money, I think we turned people’s faces green with the face cream that never worked, I think they were worried about poisonous ingredients in her lipstick. Nothing was quite right! But her mistakes have given her a little bit of wisdom, and now she has something the public can buy that doesn’t hurt them [laughs]!”
Before she started her own companies, she was involved with ELQ, but she seemed more interested in the cachet than the actual work. “Oh, yes, the cachet and the name started it, but I do believe she has a good mind for business, despite her many verbal faux pas and mistakes. I think something about sorting things out and problem-solving, sitting on the board the couple of times she got to do so with the Quartermaines, was very appealing. I think it’s a shame they didn’t play that a little bit more, that maybe she would have had some good ideas. Not even the Quartermaines are successful all the time. They could use some new ideas occasionally!”
When you came back to the show in 2012, Lucy was running CoeCoe Cosmetics, which went south. “Yes. Sad but true.”
But Meredith Vieira played her colleague, and that’s not too shabby! “That’s the problem right there! Meredith Vieira is good at news and interviewing, not at cosmetics! But that company was kind of just a Lucy thing — it didn’t have the involvement of other characters, like Maxie and Brook Lynn. So I’m glad that failed so that Deception could happen.”
Deception, in its original incarnation, was so pivotal in Lucy’s life. Were you excited to see the company resurrected? “Oh, definitely. I love that continuity with the past, and for her to have a renewed chance at success is a kind of redemption for Lucy. I enjoy working with those girls — Kirsten [Storms, Maxie] and Amanda [Setton, Brook Lynn] and Sofia [Mattsson, Sasha] so much.”
Who is Lucy’s most valued employee? “Maxie. They have such a history, because she’s Felicia’s daughter. Lucy watched her grow up, and Maxie is very tolerant of Lucy’s bossy silliness. She leans on Maxie for the creative side of things, and she’s invaluable to Lucy because their relationship is both personal and professional.”
Do you enjoy getting to throw corporate lingo around as Lucy? “I do, except I get stocks and shares messed up, and the other day, they kept having to stop me: ‘Lynn, it’s shares.’ ‘Lynn, it’s stocks.’ Lynn has never figured that out in her mind! Lucy knows a lot more about such things.”
What do you think of how Lucy dresses for work? “I love that dresses are still her thing. In the real world, I see a lot of women in pantsuits with beautiful blazers, but Lucy still wants that feminine side [on display in her clothes], and I think she could never quite get away from adding a bit of sexuality, maybe because early on, she made her mark using that, which isn’t always appropriate. But dresses are her thing. She’s not in baggy, boxy suits. She’s still trying to have some allure with her little fitted dresses. Maybe it’s not perfect boardroom wear, but I think her team has accepted that that’s just her.”
When you’re not playing Lucy, you live on and run a ranch. Do your friends think it’s funny that you play a glamorous executive? “Oh, yes. When they tune in, they just don’t see Lynn at all. But you can always tell by my hands. Before we started talking today, I had to feed a bunch of cows and do a bunch of work with some fence posts and I have dirt under my nails. That’s the one thing Lucy can’t fix — I’ll always have ranch hands! No matter what manicure you give me, you’ll still see these really strong muscles in my hands with big knuckles from being used and abused all these years from the critters and the field work. I just laugh, because I’m in these beautiful dresses and I love my hair and makeup and then you look at my hands and go, ‘Oh, my God! Well, I’ll just hide them behind my back!’ ”
Do you think if Lucy could have figured out a way to monetize her vampire-slaying, she would have continued in that direction? “Oh, of course! There could have been a whole line of vampire-slaying clothing [laughs].”
Could you ever have imagined when you started playing Lucy that she would become so successful in business? “No! I never dreamed that she would actually be a success. When Lucy talked about them ringing the bell [at the stock market when Deception went public], I completely visualized that. And that is so amazing, that Lucy has risen to that. That’s a big deal!”
