GRAND PLANS
Scott Reeves (ex-Steve, GH et al) says he and wife Melissa Reeves (Jennifer, DAYS) are ready for the next chapter in their lives. “It’s kind of a new season for us and for all of our peers at our stage of the game,” he notes. “It’s so much fun to see what other people’s kids are doing and what they’ve grown up to be. Some of them are married, some of them are off at college. Missy and I are excited about this new season. Our kids have kind of had their own places for a while, so we’re used to it. But just the idea of both of them being married, and now we have another son and another daughter, I guess grandkids are next! You know what? I welcome it. I wanna be that grandpa that’s able to get down and dirty with my grandkids. It’s so strange to say those words, and me being the one that’s going to be the grandfather, but I know it’s coming. They both want kids. We’re grateful for that. Emily’s gonna go start her life with Nate, Larry started his life with Olivia, and now Missy and I are stoked! We’re like, ‘Okay, we’re roasting coffee, we can go on a trip, we can kind of pretty much do whatever we want!’ We’re 18 again!”
BOSS LADY
Josh Swickard (Chase, GH) was floored to find out that Briana Nicole Henry, who was his co-worker during his days as a SoulCycle instructor, was up for a role on the show. “I walked into hair and makeup and she was sitting in the chair and I was like, ‘Dude!’ She was testing that day, and all the other girls who were up for Jordan were there, too. We were like, ‘How fun would this be?’ I was trying to throw out good vibes to her. I was watching the monitor when she was testing and I was like, ‘Oh, shoot! She’s gonna get this!’ She and I go way back, and when she dated Michael Mealor, we would go on double dates and the whole nine. And now she’s my boss on the show! Most of my scenes are with her. There are moments where, before a scene will start, like I’ll stop and think about our situation and I’m like, ‘This is so cool. How lucky are we? How fun is this?’ It’s super-fun kind of having a full-circle moment to be working with her again.”
GOOD HUMOR MAN
Michael Mealor (Kyle, Y&R) reports that he’s enjoying being part of the show’s young set. “When there are scenes with Sasha [Calle, Lola] and Camryn [Grimes, Mariah] and Hunter [King, Summer] and Cait [Fairbanks, Tessa] and Zach [Tinker, Fen], we always end up laughing,” he explains. “I think the crew gets annoyed sometimes because they try to settle us down when we’re all laughing so much. There was a bunch of coffeehouse scenes that were so much fun to shoot, just because we were all on set for hours. The more we have those scenes where we’re all together, we get to know each other a little better every time.” However, Mealor singles out one person in their group who makes him laugh too much. “Zach is the one who starts all the jokes,” Mealor points out. “He came as the new guy and he just jumped right into it, like he had been playing Fen for a while. He’s such a nice, likable person, and he’s so funny that it’s hard to keep a straight face when I’m supposed to be a jerk to him. I almost bust up in our scenes. Sometimes I have to step away and settle down. All of a sudden I get really serious out of nowhere; it’s just me trying to get back to where I need to be.”
BEYOND THE STARS
When it comes to STAR TREK vs. Star Wars, Scott Clifton (Liam, B&B) takes his sci-fi very seriously. “I’m about to give you a dissertation,” he smiles. “A real Trekkie would probably laugh at me. I’m not properly a Trekkie because I can’t even claim to have seen all the episodes of STAR TREK, but STAR TREK is an applied philosophy. They take famous thought experiments about what is the nature of consciousness and what does it mean to have a self and what is free will, and in every episode they explore one of those concepts through fiction. Star Wars is a western. It’s a totally different thing. Star Wars is about cowboys, and good guys and bad guys. It’s traditional. It’s a morality play. My son [Ford] is named after [Harrison Ford, a.k.a. Han Solo] from Star Wars, so I appreciate them both as two different entities. When people try to compare them, I think that’s a mistake, which, after hearing this out loud, now I realize maybe I’m more nerdy than I even thought [laughs].”