Young and Restless Star Peter Bergman Reveals How He Joined Cast Of Pluribus: ‘I Had To Sign An NDA!’
On November 7, Apple TV+ dropped the first episode of one of the most highly anticipated new series of the year: Pluribus, a sci-fi drama created by Vince Gilligan (the mastermind behind the acclaimed dramas Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) that stars Emmy-nominated actress Rhea Seehorn of Better Call Saul fame. Now, Peter Bergman (Jack, Young and Restless) is revealing how he came to score a key, top-secret role in the prestige project — and it’s connected to his own soap opera past!
Friends in High Places
In an interview with TV Insider, Bergman explained that he met Gilligan years ago through decorated actor Bryan Cranston. Bergman and Cranston first became pals in the early 1980s, when Bergman was starring on All My Children as Dr. Cliff Warner and Cranston was playing Doug Donovan on another ABC soap, Loving. Over the years, the actors’ wives — Bergman has been married to Mariellen since 1985, and Cranston tied the knot with Robin Deardon (ex-Kate, Generations) in 1989 — also became close friends, and the two couples frequently vacation together. Cranston, of course, has found huge success in prime-time, first with Malcolm in the Middle and then with Breaking Bad — but there were a lot of lean years in his career, as well, Bergman noted. “We’ve been with Bryan’s career when he could not get work… I went to see Bryan in plays that he and friends put together, and I’d come home and I’d tell Mariellen, ‘He’s a very good actor. He was really good in this thing.’ So, when Malcolm in the Middle happened, I thought, ‘Oh, fantastic. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.’”
It was through Cranston that Bergman became friendly with Gilligan, who offered him the role in Pluribus without an audition. Explained Bergman, “Vince texted me and said, ‘Hey, I have this thing coming up that I think you’d be perfect for.’ I said, ‘As long as it fits into my Y&R schedule, I’d love that.’”
Details about the project were being kept extremely close to the vest, Bergman discovered after Gilligan sent the script of the pilot episode his way. He noted, “I had to sign an NDA, and it was a watermarked script and very secretive.”
Bergman filmed his appearance this past January — and his years of daytime training definitely came in handy! Chuckled the actor, “I read my dialogue, and I realized, ‘[Gilligan] knows I’ve done a soap, and I can learn copious amounts of complicated dialogue.'” Bergman’s pivotal monologue appears in the last seven minutes of the first episode, and, he hinted, “[When] you watch it, you’ll understand why we could only shoot it from beginning to end every single time. Once they said, ‘Action,’ I was talking for almost seven pages.”
The actor figured prominently into the trailer for Pluribus, and he marveled, “The first teaser that they sent out, you would swear I was a costar on this show. They use so much of what I did for the first teaser — it’s me and Rhea Seehorn, and that’s it.” He was also tickled to see Pluribus billboards as he drove through Hollywood one day. “One is with Rhea Seehorn kind of screaming at the sky, and another one is a little further down, and just over it is the Hollywood sign, and in giant bold, black letters on yellow, it says, ‘We’re sorry we upset you, Carol,’ which is one of [my] lines in their teaser. It’s just funny to see my dialogue in giant bold letters on a big billboard.”
Pluribus is streaming now on Apple TV+, and you can check out the trailer below.
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