A shared love of crafting — particularly when it involves yarn — has deepened the friendship between GH’s Kirsten Storms (Maxie) and Emme Rylan (Lulu), and Storms says that Rylan’s artistic confidence in her has given her more confidence in herself. She explains, “Last summer, I said to her that I wanted to learn how to crochet and Emme was like, ‘Oh, my God, I just downloaded these crochet patterns. We’re sharing a brain again! Come over, let’s figure this out.’ So I go over to her house and she puts this pattern down in front of me and it’s for a purse. When you start a craft, you start with, like, a potholder or something square. I was like, ‘Are you nuts? There’s no way I can do this!’ And she forced me, over the next four hours, standing over my shoulder, to crochet this bag. I hated her every moment of the process and was swearing at her the entire time. But then I finished it and I felt so good about myself for completing something that was a challenge. I never would have done that if she hadn’t pushed me to, and now I know how to crochet and I feel confident in myself because I started out by making a handbag. She gives me that motivation to learn something new and start at a level that she believes I’m capable of. I wouldn’t have most of that confidence without her. We both love making things with our hands, and she just makes me feel like anything I see that I want to make, I can.”
Greg Rikaart (Kevin, Y&R) is thrilled that co-star Elizabeth Hendrickson (Chloe) welcomed daughter Josephine on March 27. “You know, we gave her [my son] Monte’s crib, which meant a lot to me,” he explains. “There’s so much love in that crib that it felt, energy-wise, really special.” Rikaart enjoyed working with Hendrickson during those months of gestation. “It was great. She was such a happy and healthy pregnant woman,” he reports. “She really loved being pregnant so that made it fun to bear witness to. It was really special for me to be a part of that. I remember how exciting it was before Monte was here, so it was nice to watch Liz go through that. And she was well taken care of by her husband, Rob. She would come to work every day with so many snacks that he would pack for her.” Enough to share? “Oh, no!” Rikaart exclaims. “You never want to take food away from a pregnant woman.”
After a few months on the job, Brandon Barash hasn’t come to regret the gravelly voice he uses as Jake the mechanic on DAYS. “No. I love it,” insists the actor. “There was an audition that I had for another show about a year prior to my return to DAYS. It was for this Pittsburgh cop, and they were pretty adamant that they wanted a Pittsburgh dialect for the part. So, you know, you have 24 hours to do these kind of things. I went online and researched a Pittsburgh dialect. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m not going to do an exact Pittsburgh accent, but I will do a lot of the Pittsburgh-ese and have a lot of the inflections.’ Also, there are certain ways you kind of hold your words in your mouth. I kind of just modeled it after some basic Pittsburgh-ese. When it came time to play the character of Jake, I did pretty much what I did for that audition.” Barash insists he never tried to model Jake’s speech pattern after any TV or film performances he’d seen in the past. “It was not a specific actor that I went after, although the more I play Jake, there are times I feel he’s got a little bit of Fenster, played by Benicio Del Toro in The Usual Suspects, in him,” he notes.
B&B’s Don Diamont (Bill) came late to the party as a GAME OF THRONES fan, but made a family video in which he played Jon Snow that he posted on Instagram. “We had a great time doing it,” chuckles Diamont. “I did a binge-watch and I became obsessed. My kids tried to get me to watch it for so long. My TV kids, Scott [Clifton, Liam] and Darin [Brooks, Wyatt], tried to get me to watch it for so long, but [wife] Cindy [Ambuehl, ex-Amy/Kim, B&B] and I just never did. But then with the COVID-19 situation we said, ‘All right, let’s try and sit and watch it,’ and needless to say, I was hooked. I was staying up until 2 o’clock in the morning. The coat I’m wearing in the video is just like the one from the show. I actually got that at Politix in the Beverly Center years ago. I’ve had that coat a long time and it was just perfect.” Diamont has high praise for his co-stars, as well. “Cindy’s got the chops because that was her previous career,” he says. “I thought [son] Luca was outstanding, repeatedly saying, ‘I’m just tying my shoe.’ His girlfriend was really cute, and [son] Davis look- ing at me and turning away and scratching his head is hysterical. They all did a great job and as for my wife, there is nothing she can’t do so I’m never surprised by her talents.”