Scott Clifton (Liam) reflects on standout storylines from his B&B run

WHO’S THE DADDY? 2010 Coming in to B&B, did Bradley Bell [executive producer/head writer] fill you in on your character’s lineage? “I had auditioned without even knowing the name of the character I would be playing. I auditioned under an alias called Adam, which is ironic because later I would be playing an amnesiac who thought his name was Adam. It was a phony script, just made up for the audition, and it was with Jacqui Wood [Steffy]. Once I got the job, I came in on a day I wasn’t yet working but it was like my orientation, where they told me where everything was. They escorted me into Brad’s office and once the door was closed, Brad said, ‘So, do you want to know who you are?’ and I said, ‘Yes, please tell me,’ and then he said, ‘Okay, but do you want to know who you really are?’ And I said yes, and he said, ‘You’re a young man who is coming to town who just lost his mother and on her deathbed, she told you to find your father. You deduce from a number of newspaper clippings and pieces of evidence that your mother was a Forrester Creations model and that your father must be Ridge Forrester — and that’s not going to be true. Then, you’re going to think that maybe your father is Thorne Forrester and that’s not going to be true, and it’s going to turn out that your father is Bill Spencer, and you’re going to have a tumultuous relationship, and I said, ‘Oh, my God. This is so cool!’ So, I knew before my first day that I was going to be Don Diamont’s [Bill] progeny.” And you still took the job. “[Laughs] And I still took the job! Can you believe it? What was cool was I loved Don immediately. Once I got on set, he was this larger-than-life character, and while intimidating in a way for somebody new, he was hilarious. He would make himself laugh, he’d make the crew laugh, and he seemed to be receptive to what I was doing. He gave me some cool advice in the beginning, not like acting tips but just bits of wisdom like, ‘Hey, maybe you shouldn’t play this now because I guarantee you it’s going to take away from when you get to play this later,’ and I’d go, ‘Oh, yeah, cool.’ So, it was great.” How did you like the introduction of your character to the canvas? “What I really loved about the introduction for my character was the first couple of times you saw me, there was absolutely no indication that I was going to be more than just a day player. I started out as this lowly IT guy and then the character developed from there. I loved that Brad never shoved me down the audience’s throat. I had very subtlely made my way onto the canvas, and I really appreciated that.”

“ADAM” AND “EVE”, 2016 You’ve remarked before that this story was very special to you. “The number one favorite storyline for me is, and I imagine will always be, the Adam and Eve storyline in the cabin with Quinn. I’ve always had a soap opera bucket list of wacky, crazy, soap opera shenanigans that people get to do, and one of them was always to play a character who lost their memory. I was so excited because that’s one of the most challenging things to do as an actor — to pretend not to know things that you know. It took a lot of discipline and I really had to put myself in a headspace to just not give away the game. It was very collaborative. There were lots of conversations about how Liam was going to act, and if you stripped away his memories, who’s left? What is actually at Liam’s core without his experiences, and how would he treat someone like Quinn without his memories of who she is? I mean, she was his mortal enemy, so it was just so fun. I felt like, ‘Wow, I’m a real actor.’ ” How was it working with Rena Sofer (Quinn) as the relationship between the rivals changed? “The part I didn’t anticipate, but I enjoyed even more in practice, was that it was a radically different four months for me, because I was in one tiny little set for four months straight and I only worked with one other cast member, Rena. Every single day, it was me and Rena, and I grew to love Rena, even though she and I are totally opposites; the way that we prepare, the way that we learn our lines, the way that we approach scenes. We may as well be from different planets in terms of our approach and yet it worked. It just clicked and it felt so right. I not only enjoyed shooting that stuff but I enjoyed seeing it on TV, too.”

WAR OF THE SPENCERS: LIAM VS. BILL, 2017-18 Bill’s quest for Spectra nearly cost Liam his life, and it cost Bill his company when Liam retaliated. “When Liam took over the company from Bill, that’s interesting because my memories of it are not fun and exciting and joyful. My memories of shooting that are actually quite uncomfortable. Liam and Bill are oil and water, and they always give each other a hard time and yes, they get into fights and then they make up. But here, I really had to hate him. It was actually difficult for me to look Don, who I love like he’s my real dad — I love him — so, to look him in the eye and hate him, it was very uncomfortable. Bill is older and wiser and usually the one who comes out in the right but in this case, Bill had to lose, and truly lose. He had to lose to his own son, so everything was backward about that storyline and how we had to play it. It was tricky.” Describe playing that vicious fight scene between the two of you. “The apex of that whole thing was him hitting me, and that scene was a big deal. A lot of thought went into it, and I negotiated with Don about that hit. I joke about it now but he wanted to punch me and I’d go flying over the desk and I’m like, ‘Don, we can’t do it that way. You’re not a ninja. But it has to look like it hurts.’ So, I came up with this idea of him hitting me and I just look at him for a second and then drop to my knees. I pitched that, and that was what we ended up going with, and I thought that had the most emotional impact. There’s a split second of me looking into his eyes and realizing that my own father just hit me before dropping like a rock. I think that moment played nicely in the end, and I’m very proud of that.”

THE BABY BETH SAGA, 2019 Did you have any idea going into that story how powerful it would be for the audience? “The shock of that for us actors was going into it, we did think, ‘This is going to last a couple of weeks.’ Brad had said something vague to me about how his father [B&B Co-Creator William J. Bell] had a rule about a certain amount of time that was the right amount of time to play out a story like this, whether it was a case of mistaken identity or you think somebody’s dead and they’re not. I was a bit skeptical but Brad was so assured. What’s crazy is that so many things had to work perfectly for this to go right. I mean, the casting of Annika [Noelle, Hope] was critical. Brad placed a bet on Annika and he went all in. He didn’t know for a fact that Annika was going to give the performance of a lifetime that she did, and a lesser actress would have made the whole thing go kaput. We would have had to abandon ship if you didn’t have an actress who was going to pull it off, and not just pull it off but pull it off with flying colors. None of it would have worked, and Annika was brand-new! She spent, like, the first nine months of her tenure on the show just being miserable every day. There were days that we would feel just exasperated but we’d get notes from up above saying, ‘Have faith. Trust us,’ and sure enough, the story ended in this amazing, cinematic, epic climax and when it aired, the ratings were record-breaking. It blew us away. All of that blood, sweat and tears paid off.”