How did you feel about Elizabeth being thrown in the “Nikolas holding Esme hostage at Wyndemere” story? “Oh, it was so much fun for me to do. I loved, loved, loved being interjected into that storyline and I love little Avery [Pohl, Esme] — she’s just such a sweet person and I really like her. Very professional, very mature for her age, and I love that she doesn’t put her shoes on the bed when we’re rehearsing scenes [laughs]. I feel like our chemistry immediately just kind of jelled and we got the whole relationship between Esme and Elizabeth down pretty quickly.”
Her collusion with Nikolas also led to interactions with Maura West’s Ava, which we haven’t really gotten before. “I hold Maura up on a pedestal. I love that woman and really enjoy working with her. Maura makes such awesome choices and I’m always really happy when I get to work with her. It’s been a lot of fun for the two of us to kind of be thrown into each other’s universe, and it makes sense because Ava was married to Nikolas, and Elizabeth has this huge history with Nikolas, so they are two women who are very passionate about this man for different reasons.”
I was a little disappointed that it came out so quickly that Elizabeth wasn’t actually carrying Nikolas’s baby. I was down for a fake Liz pregnancy! “I was, too. I feel like, it’s a soap, you should keep that secret! I was really excited when they put me in a storyline with Nikolas because Elizabeth has so much history with him, there are 25 years of layers between them — they’ve been friends and lovers and enemies and I’ve loved him and I’ve hated him. There’s a lot going on between those two, so I was sad that that aspect of it didn’t go on longer and that the whole pregnancy thing didn’t turn into more. And I’m sad that there’s no more Nikolas on the show because I think for Elizabeth, it was really great having that character to spar with like that because it was real. We didn’t have to, like, make up history, because people remember the history. I wish we could have enjoyed that relationship a little bit longer.”
Speaking of decades of history, the scenes between Liz and Laura at Kelly’s, where Liz tells Laura that she’s the mother she’s always wanted, were so beautiful. “I thought so, too, and I know the fans really love seeing them together. Having Elizabeth’s parents come back on the show and being able to put a face to the name and having her history explained, that was all great, but I’ve always felt that Laura filled that motherly role for her and it’s a great lesson that sometimes family is who we choose, not necessarily blood. And I think Elizabeth definitely chose Laura all those years ago to be her mom. Honestly, when I first read that script, I welled up with tears when I read that line, ‘You’re the mom I always wish I had,’ because it is so 100 percent true, and I was really happy that Elizabeth got to say that because even though she’s been through all this other stuff with her bio mom, the woman sitting across from her has truly been her mother, you know? So, yeah, I welled up — and I don’t usually well up over any script I read! It was just so sweet.”
