Scene And Heard

COVERT OPERATION Not only was Hunter King (Summer, Y&R) thrilled when now-fiancé Nico Svoboda popped the question last summer, but she also discovered that best friend Melissa Ordway (Abby) already knew about the proposal and kept it to herself. “I had just been venting to Melissa like a week before I got engaged that Nico was being so weird and I felt like he was lying to me,” chuckles King. “She said, ‘That is so weird. Anyway, do you wanna go to lunch?’ She quickly changed the subject but I didn’t really think anything of it.” On the day that Nico got on bended knee and King responded with an enthusiastic “Yes”, there was another surprise waiting for her. “He also planned an awesome engagement party for me as soon as we got home that day,” King reports. “There were about 100 people and Melissa was there. When I saw her, she was like, ‘It was so hard not to tell you!’, so she knew before I knew. That just made it so much better. The party was really a lot of fun. I mean, I feel like engagement parties are probably always fun, but having it be a surprise was just the coolest and most fun night of my life.”

FELICITY COMPLICITY With reboots all the rage, Digest asked Scott Foley (ex-Noel) about bringing back the late-’90s sudsy dorm drama FELICITY. “I don’t think there has been any serious talk,” shares the WHISKEY CAVALIER star. “We had a 20th reunion FELICITY panel at ATX in Austin last summer and it did come up. I initially said I didn’t know how it would work and I thought it would be a bad idea, but then I got onstage with all those people and the memories came flooding back. So, if the stars aligned, I’d love to revisit and get the chance to work with them again — even if it wasn’t on FELICITY.” And yes, Foley is still recognized for his seminal role. “Depending on who’s approaching, I can almost always tell what show they know me from,” he smiles. “If it’s a woman in her mid-to-late 30s/early 40s, huge FELICITY fan, although now they’re just as likely to be SCANDAL fans. Guys over 40, it’s THE UNIT, and every now and then, SCRUBS, where they can quote lines that J.D. [Zach Braff] said to my character. It’s amazing! But yes,” he quips, “Keri [Russell, ex-Felicity] should get on it, let her hair grow out and make it work.”

SIMPLY THE BEST Maura West (Ava, GH) is thrilled to have had a front-row seat to Genie Francis’s (Laura) talent during the Ryan/Kevin storyline. “Genie is, for so many of us — for viewers and fans of this genre — the personification of the genre itself,” West declares. “She’s one of those true icons, and there aren’t that many! She is completely present in every scene, she’s concerned that every scene is good — I mean, she is everything you would want in a scene partner when someone of her status probably doesn’t even really need to care so much anymore, if you know what I mean. But she does. She cares very much. Every single moment is thought through and even if it’s a scene where she isn’t necessarily the one with all the lines in it, she’s still right there.” West felt especially lucky to have had Francis to work opposite in the climactic arc where Laura and Jason catch up to Ava and Ryan on the bridge. “The scenes on the bridge, I am so incredibly grateful to her for just being so open and present during all of that stuff, because it was really important and it was really hard for me. It was really hard, and she made it a hell of a lot easier, I tell ya that!”

PARALLEL LIVES Despite Laura Kai Chen (Melinda) playing the Salem DA for years and Paul Telfer portraying the nefarious Xander, she’s never gotten to prosecute the fiendish criminal. In fact, the pair have never even shared a scene together on the soap. “But we have crossed paths in the hallowed halls of DAYS OF OUR LIVES and, of course, we have something in common. Paul’s married to Carmen Cusack. So we both have Broadway baby spouses,” notes Chen, who’s wed to Manu Narayan. Spouses aside, Chen and Telfer have another similarity: their travel schedules. The pair are constantly jetting back and forth across the country between work on the West Coast and their significant others on the East Coast. “The  other day I saw Paul in the hallway and was like, ‘How are you?’ He said, ‘I’m good. I’m catching the first flight back to New York tomorrow morning,’ ” recounts Chen. “I was like, ‘You and I are living the same life.’ It’s such an odd coincidence that he and I are both on DAYS, and our spouses are both on Broadway. I haven’t met Carmen, but she is wonderfully talented.”