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Interview

Quick Take With John McCook

How did you react when you heard Eric has been cheating on Quinn with Donna? “I thought, ‘This is great. Eric is back! He’s alive and well and a healthy man of a certain age.’ He is enjoying being with a woman who is not 20 years old, a woman who he has had a full relationship with before and he is now re-examining how lovely that relationship was.”

Were you told about the twist ahead of time? “I first found out about this when I turned the page and saw Eric under the sheets — and it was with Donna, so that was pretty cool. When you turn the page and there is a reveal like that, it is glorious.”

Eric is certainly getting a lot of romantic action. “And rightly so. He has earned it. He suffered through the machinations of Stephanie for a long time, who he deeply loved, and then he married Sheila, which was the embarrassment of all time, and then he went through a couple of romances and then he married Quinn. That was a wonderful love story. But then he found out she was a manipulator and it brought up in Eric a mistrust and a darkness. There is a darkness in the corners of the Forrester mansion. When he pushed Quinn away and encouraged her to be with Carter, that was a big mistake.”

Describe Eric’s attraction to Donna. “It is joyful and it is fun and it’s without anxiety and he gives into it. I’m thinking, ‘Is this Eric being a horndog?’ That’s an old cliché that Eric is looking for sex outside of whatever marriage he is in, but he’s always looking for that kind of happiness and here it is.”

Having played Eric for 35 years, how did you rationalize this latest move? “I see Eric as my friend. I don’t always agree with him. I don’t particularly like that Eric is breaking his marriage vows with Quinn. It goes against his morality, for which he feels guilty. He doesn’t like doing this to Quinn but he also says, ‘I can’t stop thinking about Donna.’ He can’t help it.”

If Quinn eventually finds out about the affair, could this bring back the devious Quinn of yore? “I guess we will see if that happens. They’ve set up the jealousy factor already, when Quinn persuaded Eric to fire Donna [during the ED storyline], so this will be a new chapter. I can say, we are all enjoying this. We are playing a different story than we did before. Eric is thinking about himself and Donna, and yet he can’t get Quinn off his mind, either. Ramifications to follow.”

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