Young and Restless’s Christel Khalil Breaks Her Silence on Cane Recast
When Aristotle Dumas showed himself to his guests on Young and Restless, they were stunned to discover that the mysterious and reclusive businessman was actually Cane Ashby. (Well, everyone but Victor, who had naturally figured it out already.) Lily was especially stunned to discover that her ex-husband had come back into their lives and was behind the elaborate deception, and portrayer Christel Khalil opened up to TV Insider about the recast and the big new storyline.
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Y&R Head Writer and Executive Producer Josh Griffith managed to keep a pretty tight lid on the actual role that Flynn, Days of Our Lives’s former Chad DiMera, would be playing on the soap. “I didn’t realize they were bringing Cane back until a week or two before he started,” Khalil said. “I was super excited; it was such a great character, and it was a shame to not have the character there.”
The character of Cane Ashby was previously played by Daniel Goddard (now Hank on General Hospital) from 2007-19, so it has been a good six years since he’s been on the canvas. Which means that the character will have changed more than just his appearance over all of that time.
“It doesn’t feel like we’re trying to have someone step in Daniel Goddard’s shoes,” Khalil shared. “It’s pretty much an entirely new character, to it’s been interesting to have scenes because we have the history there, but it’s a little bit different. They’ve also added in flashbacks that Lily has of interactions that she and Cane have had in the past five or six years [since he’s been gone]. So, it’s almost a little bit of a new relationship again, in a way.”
Despite Lily and Cane sharing history together as well as their children, Mattie and Charlie, the one thing that viewers will not be seeing in the immediate future is a romantic reconciliation, given his recent lies and deceptions as Aristotle Dumas. “As of right now, no, absolutely not,” Khalil declared of a potential romance between the exes. “She’s very disturbed by his behavior and how much he’s lied and kept secret and what he’s hidden from the kids and what he’s hidden from her, and the fact that she finds out he was working with his dad, Colin, who is a very bad person. So right now, it’s very much like, ‘I want nothing to do with you. We’re never getting back together, especially after all of this. It’s never happening.’”
As the new storyline continues to play out and Cane once again becomes part of the drama in Genoa City, the actress hopes that fans will give this recast a chance. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to be the same Cane,” Khalil stated. “It’s a completely different person, and I really hope that everybody gives Billy a chance and tries to look at the character through new eyes, because it is a new person, and honestly, it’s a new character. He’s nothing like Daniel Goddard, and that’s kind of the point. The point was to make this character something completely different. And so hopefully, people give it a chance and look at it like a new relationship rather than like an old one coming back.”
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