During her recent pregnancy with daughter Dakota Rose, Emme Rylan (Lulu, GH) didn’t have to work very hard to summon tears in emotional scenes — in fact, she had to work harder to suppress them! “I cried during dry-blocking!” she groans. “I was so hormonal. In the scenes where Valentin had to say good-bye to Charlotte when he was arrested, we were blocking, just reading off our scripts, we weren’t invested, whatever — and James [Patrick Stuart, Valentin] gets down to Scarlett’s [Fernandez, Charlotte] eye level, looks her in the eyes, tells her good-bye, and I literally start crying. Finola [Hughes, Anna] was like, ‘You know it’s just dry-blocking, right?’ ‘Uh-huh, yep.’ I was like, ‘I’m not going to make it through this, just so you know. That isn’t going to happen.’ And then when we actually shot it, I was standing outside of the [cabin set] because Dante, Charlotte and Lulu exit the building, and Anna’s still in there with him and this sound of grief comes out of him. I stood out there still crying, not on camera, not acting anymore, just sobbing. Dom [Zamprogna, Dante] was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ But he knows I can’t control it. I was like, ‘You’re stuck with it, dude!’ ”
B&B’s returning fan fave Kimberlin Brown (Sheila) is over the moon to be sharing scenes with Ian Buchanan (James) again. “Oh, my gosh. I love working with Ian,” Brown enthuses. “I keep teasing him, saying, ‘When are you going to be wearing your kilt?’ Because if you remember, when Sheila and James were married, that’s what he was wearing. I just enjoy him so much. His choices are brilliant and he’s so incredibly talented. It’s like old home week with John [McCook, Eric] and myself and now Ian. It’s so special because when you think of soap operas today and the younger crowd that’s on most of the shows, I’m blessed that B&B chose to take a chance in bringing us back. There aren’t a lot of producers out there who’d be brave enough to bring back past cast and give it a shot. I’m so glad and so grateful that Brad [Bell, executive producer/head writer] was willing to do that because we are just having a ball. If you look at Twitter and social media feeds, the fans are excited, too, so I’m glad it was a gamble that has paid off.”
Jason Thompson (Billy, Y&R) reports that wife Paloma is “doing really well” as she nears the end of her pregnancy with their second child. However, the actor admits that he and the missus went through an unexpected phase when they learned that another baby was on the way. “One of the things that we talked about was a sense of loss,” Thompson explains. “We were mourning the three of us. [Our son] Bowie is pretty young and we were still enjoying watching him grow and developing. In the beginning, we were like, ‘Wow, I’m not prepared to move on from this stage already.’ But now we’re pretty stoked about it. My wife is really good at having babies and it’s amazing to watch and be part of. It’s a lot in two years to be asked of her.” Does that mean the couple would like to continue expanding their family? “I’d like a whole hockey team ready to go by October in five years,” chuckles Thompson. “Actually, I think we’ll just chill out after this one comes and see what happens.”
Before Lucas Adams (Tripp) shot the scenes where his character held a scalpel to Kayla’s (Mary Beth Evans) throat on DAYS, he had some concerns, beginning with his weapon. “The scalpel turned out to be dull, thank God, because I was nervous that I might poke Mary Beth with it,” says Adams, who adds that several things were happening in the scenes that he shared with Evans, Stephen Nichols (Steve) and James Lastovic (ex-Joey). “I wanted to make sure that I knew all my lines and was on point with everybody,” he notes. “I was also yelling and crying, and I had to jump over other people’s lines because the show wanted it to look organic.” At the end of the day, Adams recounts, “I was drained, but it was also awesome having that experience with the three of them. It was a cool moment. There were a couple of things I would have liked to change in my performance, but that’s just me being me. I was very happy with it.”