Young and Restless Head Writer Josh Griffith on Casting the Matt Clark Story: ‘It All Fell Into Place’ (EXCL)
When Young and Restless head writer and executive producer Josh Griffith initially conceived of the current storyline that would bring Nick and Sharon face to face with their old nemesis, Matt Clark, certain elements needed to be brought together in order to put that tale on the screen. And one of the most important aspects was casting, as two recasts and one new character were to be introduced as the focus of the dramatic new storyline.
Mr. and Ms. Right
Finding just the right actors was crucial to bringing the whole saga to life, starting with casting a new Noah Newman. And when Days of Our Lives alum Lucas Adams (ex-Tripp) auditioned, Griffith says he knew he’d found their guy. “We were looking for someone who could be strong, who felt like he’d been living on his own for a while,” he tells Soap Opera Digest. “We really were looking for someone that really felt like the next generation Newman, really felt like Nick and Sharon’s son. When Lucas came in for the audition, he just nailed it.”
As fate would have it, Tamara Braun, who played Ava, Tripp’s mother, on DAYS, proved perfect to play the part of Sienna, the married woman with whom Noah was having an affair. “I wanted somebody that really felt like they’d been living in an L.A. rock and roll club world for a long time, and instantly thought about Tamara, because I’d worked with her on DAYS,” the scribe notes. “I said, ‘Well, she’s just great and badass! She can do anything!’ I could just imagine her in the role. I reached out to her and luckily, she was available and interested, and it all fell into place.”
Roger That
Probably the most important casting, though, was finding just the right actor to bring the dastardly Matt Clark back onto the canvas. “He had such an evil past, but I wanted someone that would be layered,” Griffith shares. “I didn’t want it to feel like any kind of cartoon villain.”
Having written for One Life to Live back when the ABC soap introduced Roger Howarth as Todd Manning, the scribe was well aware of the Emmy-winner’s talent. Griffith co-created the character, who was meant to be a short-term villain introduced in 1992 in a storyline where he and two other college students raped Marty Saybrooke, played by Susan Haskell. But the character proved so popular with fans that the soap worked to redeem Todd and ultimately made him part of the Lord family and the brother of matriarch Viki (Erika Slezak). Howarth also took home the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in 1994.
“That whole story, the whole creation of Todd Manning, and then where Roger took it for so long, is definitely a high point in my career,” the writer declares. “We knew that we had found somebody special with Roger and with Susan Haskell, who played Marty, but didn’t know that it would take off and that the character would take off as powerfully as he and it did at the time. It was very gratifying to just see it grow and grow.”
Griffith had hoped for the opportunity to work with Howarth again, but their professional paths had never overlapped, and for the majority of the time Griffith has been head-writing Y&R, Howarth was busy at General Hospital, where he had originally played Todd, then later played Franco and Austin. “But if there was ever a role, this is it,” Griffith enthuses, saying he was confident from that start that “Roger is going to bring so much to this. He’s going to bring so many levels to this character that he will never feel one note or cartoon villain at all. He’ll be a fully fleshed-out, complex, high-stakes antagonist to Nick and Sharon. It’s almost as though the role was tailor-made for him.”
And Griffith is excited to be able to work with Howarth once more. “I was so happy that all the stars aligned with this one,” he enthuses, “and he was thrilled to come in. We talked about the part, and I said, ‘Now, this is a guy that’s done horrible things and is going to do horrible things, but there’s going to be a lot of complexity there.’ And Roger was, ‘I’m in. I love it.’”
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