Although Camryn Grimes (Mariah, Y&R) was only 7 years old when she joined Y&R to play Cassie, she clearly remembers the first day that she met Eric Braeden (Victor) for the first time. "It was during one of the famous Newman pool party scenes, so there were a lot of people on the set and Cassie was being introduced to Victor," the actress recalls. "My grandfather used to take me to the studio and early that day he told me, 'Okay, you're gonna meet Eric, so you've to be on your best behavior. Don't play around, be serious,' and I was like, 'Okay, got it.' " Grimes's plan quickly went awry. "There was good on the set and I was carrying a big plate of strawberries," she chuckles. "I wasn't being careful and, of course, I ran right into Eric. That's right, the strawberries went all over his pants and on his shoes. I hadn’t even met the man yet and I looked up at him in fear, thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve done it now.’ There was a moment when he looked down at me with this serious expres- sion on his face and then he broke out in the biggest smile and started giggling. To me, that’s the perfect example of Eric as a person and I’ve always loved working with him. He’s such a funny guy. Oftentimes on the set, he can’t contain his laughter. In rehearsals, he’ll do these little characters and when it’s time to shoot the scene, he’ll remember how funny it was and he’ll start laughing. He’s a big goofball.”
When B&B aired its last week of original episodes, Flo discovered that Sally and Penny were in cahoots and lying about Sally's terminal illness, and Penny struck Flo with a candlestick. However, playing unconscious isn't as easy as one might think. "It was so difficult," chuckles Katrina Bowden (Flo). "They kept cutting to me with close-ups on my face and I'm supposed to be out, but when you play dead or passed out, all you want to do is move your nose or twitch or move your eyes. It’s really hard to be completely out and completely still, so those were tough scenes. And I had to be in this weird, twisted position, and of course, I couldn’t blink. When I was on the ground, there was so much dust on the floor because we were in a corner [on the stage] and all I kept thinking was, 'Don't sneeze! Don't sneeze!' " Additionally, when the women dragged Flo out of the room, "I actually kept getting caught on stuff as they were dragging me!" Bowden laughs. "All of those scenes took a while to shoot just because it was a whole different thing than we were used to doing.... It was pretty funny."
Suzanne Rogers’s initial reaction to Maggie’s suicide attempt on DAYS “freaked me out a bit,” says the actress. "Jeffrey Epstein had just hanged himself in prison in New York, and I thought, 'Oh, God! I hope they don't do that to me.' Then I saw it in the script and went, 'Oh, no,' because being a religious person, you're not supposed to do that. So I was doubly whacked with that. That whole day my hands were like ice." Once Rogers got past her personal concerns, she wanted to make sure her work was authentic. "I thought, 'How do I make this look believable, that Maggie was at such a state in her mind and in her life that she would do such a thing?' " recounts Rogers. "I told the camera guys, 'I want you to tell me if it doesn't look real. You've got to make sure that it doesn't look phony.' " All was going smoothly until Paul Telfer had to race into the scene as Xander. "There was a sliding glass door he had to open," relays Rogers. "For some reason, he thought it was a full open door. He pulled it right off the runners and it went flying." Adds Teller, "Sometimes I forget our sets aren't real prisons or mansions or whatever. As soon as they called action, I ran, swung the door aside, swept up Suzanne, and started acting my heart out. I heard all this clanging and smashing behind me, but didn't stop until somebody yelled cut. Then I heard people laughing and finally wheezing over the PA system. I was like, 'What's going on?' I looked over and saw I'd torn down the set wall. I said, 'Sorry, guys. I didn't realize my own strength."
Brook Kerr (Portia) is loving the scenes she's been sharing with her new GH sparring partner, Maura West (Ava). “She’s pretty epic!” Kerr grins. “She is so strong. When I first heard about all the things her character has done in the past, I was like, ‘Oh ... okay!’ But she has this wonderful way of playing the character where we’re on her side, you know? There are reasons why my character does not want her character around [Portia’s daugh- ter], which I understand for my character, but she just has this way of making Ava human, and that’s such a beautiful quality to have as an actor. Even though Ava has done awful things, the way she goes about things makes me want to forgive her and I have to keep reminding myself, ‘No, no, Portia doesn’t feel that way.’ I love work- ing with her because she makes me feel for her. It’s a real talent to be able to play someone so sinister and still make you like her.”