Scene And Heard

HAPPY TRAILS Thorsten Kaye (Ridge, B&B) thoroughly enjoyed his overseas travel to Monaco with co-star Katherine Kelly Lang (Brooke) to attend the 58th annual Monte Carlo Television Festival. “We had a wonderful time,” Kaye raves. “She’s just lovely inside and out — and you must put this in print: She is a great travel partner. For somebody who is as iconic as she is, she could demand a lot and she really just asks for the bare minimum. It’s very nice to be part of that. She knows how to pack for any occasion. She knows how to get there, get in, get out and go. Sometimes, I’ve worked with actors who make a big production out of things, and all that does is make the day longer; it doesn’t make it any better. I’d go anywhere with Kelly!” The actor says he appreciated the vibe abroad. “I forgot how nice it is in Europe and how things slow down to a relatively normal pace,” he points out. “It’s nice. Americans would say, ‘Well, you don’t get anything done.’ Well, you know what? I’m okay with that!”

WELCOME WAGON Patricia Bethune (Mary Pat) is grateful to her GH co-stars Laura Wright (Carly) and Steve Burton (Jason) for helping her adjust to her new workplace. “Laura was very welcoming and loving and generous to me — and, by the way, I’ve been watching her for years on television and she looks just the same as she did when I started watching her! Just gorgeous and a total pro. Steve was also so kind. On my first day, he came to say hello to me in the makeup chair, and because we have to be at odds a lot, it was nice to have a nice, warm conversation before we got on set and had to be not friendly! He has a stillness to him that is so active and intense and he is incredibly present when I’m in scenes with him. You kind of get lost in the monologue in his eyes. He’s so full as a character. It was wonderful to work with him. As I was leaving that first day, which was such a whirlwind because we shot so much material, I walked past Steve and I was like, ‘Bye! Thanks for being so nice!’ And he said, ‘You don’t even know what happened, do you?’ I said, ‘Exactly!’ But by day three, I felt very comfortable.”

CASTING CALL Robert Scott Wilson (Ben, DAYS) was thankful for his introduction to Salem in 2014. “That was one of the only offers I’ve ever gotten,” he recalls. “I was testing for a different project, this show on Fox with Tina Fey. It was in late December of 2013. I had a call from my agent saying they had canceled the test because of the holiday and they would be doing it after the holiday. I had already changed my flight and I was all upset, so I hung up the phone and like 25 minutes later — it was so wild — he called and mentioned that [DAYS’s Co-Executive Producer] Greg Meng and the producers wanted to bring me in here for an audition for Ben and would I be willing to change my flight again. At this point, I was worn out and pretty pissed off about the other project and I was like, ‘No, I need to go home. I need to reset my whole system. See if they’ll let me self-tape so they can see me.’ They let me self-tape, so I went home. Fast-forward 48 hours, it’s Christmas break and I’m back home in Boston and I got a call from my agent once again. It was amazing news that one of my producers that was on ALL MY CHILDREN in New York worked here at DAYS and knew my work, and offered me the role of Ben. And the rest is history. I’m telling you, I didn’t know what I was getting into with this character, and it went into a completely different direction. I don’t think they knew what they wanted, either. It’s been so rewarding. It was such a blessing.”

SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED After 34 years together on Y&R, Doug Davidson (Paul) has many fond memories of his longtime co-star, Jeanne Cooper (ex-Katherine), who died in 2013. One includes the time when the actor and his wife, Cindy, were at the hospital for the birth of their first child, Calyssa. “We had a 38-hour labor and I come out of the delivery room and there’s Jeanne,” he marvels. “I mean I had no idea how she knew. It was like, ‘There she is!’ ” Their close bond, however, was obvious. “Here’s the thing: You can look at pictures of the two of us together, and in each one of those pictures there’s an energy and a connection — even with the casual ones,” he smiles. “I forget what birthday it was, maybe her 80th. In her birthday [photo] book that they made after, you can see that she had that relationship with so many people. Eric [Braeden, Victor] was the other obvious one. There’s a picture of the three of us together and you can feel it from the photograph. She signed it to me and recently we were packing stuff up and I came across that book again and read the inscription. I just broke down, it was so sweet and kind and loving.”