Galen Gering (Rafe, DAYS) is thrilled to be paired with Tamara Braun (Ava) and Arianne Zucker (Nicole) in scenes. “They’re so great,” he praises. “So fun. Professional. Always prepared, always ready to mix it up and try something different and surprise you and be in the moment. I just feel really lucky to be working with the two of them, and it’s fun. I pinch myself that it’s like, ‘Wow, I get to go to work and work with these gals? It’s great.’ Not only am I happy to be at work, and what an incredible job they’ve done with this pandemic, keeping people safe, but also being able to work with these gals is as good as it gets.” He also appreciates getting to work with Alison Sweeney (Sami) and Bryan R. Dattilo (Lucas) again. “Just the way those two play off of each other is great, and the three of us have so much fun. They’re a blast. Talk about being in the moment and coming up with hilarious stuff — those two are great. I have such fond memories of coming to the show [in 2008] and working with Ali. We worked together so much and she’s just always good, so to be able to revisit some of that has been great because she’s the best.”
Y&R’s Elizabeth Hendrickson notes that Chloe’s love life could have gone in a different direction after her debut in 2008. “This was after Chloe moved in with Lily and Devon and was being the roommate from hell,” she explains. “That was so much fun because I got to work a lot with Bryton [James, Devon] and Christel [Khalil, Lily]. I remember having these drunk scenes of flirting with Devon and Cane. Then one day, Bryton and I were like, ‘What if our characters could become a couple?’ So, we’d try to put the idea in the writers’ heads by eyeing each other in scenes and playing this underlying flirtation, but it never went anywhere.” Hendrickson was hoping to share more scenes with James. “I always wanted to work with Bryton because he’s such an incredible actor and I’m constantly impressed by him,” she says. “He’s the consummate professional; the kid shows up everyday without a script in his hand and knows his lines backward and forward. I’m always telling him how much I love his acting, and I’m still trying to work with him for all of these 10-plus years.”
Though Emma Samms was unable to travel to the U.S. to reprise the role of Holly on GH last year due to her own bout with Covid as well as pandemic-related travel restrictions, she was able to record a scene, shot at home in her guest room, depicting her character being held against her will but very much alive. She recalls, “Simon [McCoy, her partner] helped me set up the camera and because he’s not in show business — he’s in the serious world of news, he’s a news anchor — he is not used to drama. He waited outside the room and I did my thing, [acting] very upset, and I’m very used to that, switching those emotions on and off, and then I opened the door and the look on his face — he was traumatized! He looked horrified from hearing me scream. He said, ‘I almost went back in the room!’ It was very, very amusing to me. I said, ‘Well, that’s a good sign, that means I did okay with it!’ ” Samms was impressed with the finished results when she saw the way the footage was used on GH. “I thought they did the big reveal so brilliantly, with all the monitors and the music, and it really was a surprise, because they hadn’t teased it. It was superbly done! You put that in any feature film and you’d be proud, I think.”
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In his nearly eight years at B&B, Darin Brooks’s Wyatt has popped the question to Hope, Ivy, Steffy and Sally — but none of those romantic moments were quite as memorable as his recent proposal to Flo. While Brooks was happy with how it turned out on screen, everything was not as it appeared. “I asked a mannequin to marry me,” quips the actor of filming restrictions due to Covid safety measures. “She was so excited. In fact, she was speechless [laughs]. That’s a bad joke right there, but it is a shame that we couldn’t do things as we’ve done in the past. It was always nice when we got to do a big destination wedding or proposal, and who knows when we’ll even be able to get back to that. But, Bill’s office can be as romantic as anywhere else, right? It was cute, and we had a good time with it, but let’s hope that with things opening again that we can get back to some kind of normalcy soon.”