Scene and Heard

Mary Beth Evans (Kayla, DAYS) says she learned a lot from her on-screen mom, the late Peggy McCay (ex-Caroline). “Peggy was the ‘Queen of Business’, as they say in the acting world,” recounts Evans. “If she was working at the pub, she always had a dish towel over her shoulder and was cleaning things. When I came back, at one point, I was working in the pub. I remember one day I had one line. I felt kind of bummed and thought, ‘What has happened?’ I slinked out of there feeling not so great. Then I remembered Peggy and just became the best background player. I filled the condiments, polished the glasses, wiped down the bar.... All of that came from watching her being ‘Miss Business’ over the years. And I rocked it. I rocked working in the bar. I learned that from her.”

Devon’s paternity story on Y&R could have gone in a whole different direction reports his portrayer, Bryton James. “I actually had pitched [former Head Writer] Maria Bell an idea that they loved of Michael Baldwin being my dad,” he reveals. “I did a lot of history research on the show, and knowing about Michael’s dark past and the kind of character he was, I thought it really made sense that he could’ve knocked up someone and left her high and dry. I thought the fact that he was so close to the Winters family, as well as the lawyer who did the work for Devon’s adoption by Neil and Drucilla, it was kind of a perfect match, and the writers loved it. I thought they were going to go through with it and so did Christian [J. LeBlanc, Michael]. That was changed, and to not only have Stephen Nichols [ex-Tucker; Steve, DAYS], who’s a legend and just an incredible actor, as my dad, but Jeanne Cooper [ex-Katherine] as my grandmother, it was like I hit the jackpot.”

Jacklyn Zeman (Bobbie, GH) has fond memories of filming daytime’s signature supercouple wedding, the nuptials of Luke and Laura, back in 1981, where sister-of-the-groom Bobbie was one of Laura’s bridesmaids. She recalls, “It was actually shot in the neighborhood I was living in,” she recalls. “So we all show up, we all drove our own cars there, and the hair and the makeup and the clothes and the gowns and everything were all there. I’m forgetting how many days we were there; I think it was a three-day shoot. But I remember on the second day, saying to everybody, ‘Don’t eat the food!’ It was the same food that was still laying out on the buffet on the second day! It was so hot out. So if you watch it now, you’ll notice in the background that everyone is just sliding their food around [on their plate]. It was like, ‘Just pretend to be eating the food!’ But it was fabulous. It really was amazing. You know, we were young; we had a lot of energy. We didn’t mind the long days. It was all just very exciting to be out on location. It was a fun few days.” She learned a valuable lesson in the process: “Bring your slippers! I used to kick off the four-inch heels every chance I got and walked around in my little ballet slippers, which I still do to this day!”

Darin Brooks (Wyatt) sees some big-screen similarities to his current love story on B&B. “Wyatt truly believes that Flo is back in his life for a reason,” rationalizes Brooks. “It’s like they’re kindred spirits. Kelly [Kruger, ex-Mac, Y&R, his wife] and I will sometimes talk about the characters, and a good reference for me, and the way I like to play, is that it’s similar to The Notebook. If you think about it, there are a lot of similarities: These two were deeply in love back in the day, when they were just kids, and because of unforeseen circumstances, they split up and were forced apart. Now, they’re back in each other’s lives but there are complications. I guess my character would be the Rachel McAdams character, because she had the boyfriend and Wyatt has Sally, who is still a part of the equation. So, I like to compare it to The Notebook romance ... and whether things work out the same way for the characters, well, that remains to be seen.”