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Exclusive: Stephen Nichols Talks About Joining Y&R
by Michael Logan December 18, 2009 06:48 AM EST
As previously reported here, actor William Russ has been bounced from the role of mega-bucks mogul Tucker McCall on The Young and the Restless and replaced by former Days of Our Lives star Stephen Nichols. We caught up with Nichols for an exclusive chat at the end of his first tape day (December 17). He hits the air January 27.
So you’re just sitting around the house one day and all of a sudden the phone rings and your life changes?
That’s exactly what happened, and it’s happened to me a lot in my career. I tend to be a very lucky person. My wife reminds me of that all the time, and this is yet another stroke of good luck, especially because the call came from Y&R. Every actor who works on soaps flips channels in his dressing room and every time I landed on Y&R I’d find the acting to be fantastic. I wasn’t laughing at anything. Nothing seemed hokey and stupid. The production values were great. The writing was better than most. And now, on my first day here, I picked up my scripts and could not believe it. There wasn’t one sentence or phrase that was hinky, nothing I felt had to be fixed, and that’s really refreshing. There’s total organization at Y&R. The characters are solid, and the stories are character-driven from what I can tell. And all the actors are exemplary. There isn’t a weak link in the whole bunch and I’ve never done a show where that’s been the case.
How much warning did you have about this?
Just about a week. Originally I was supposed to start taping January 4, but they suddenly called and said, “Can you start December 17?” I said, “Uh…no. The fourth was a good day because it gave me time to get my body back to where I wanted it, to get really cut again.” With all my leisure time, I didn’t work out as much and I’d gained an extra five pounds. But, even with a week’s notice, I got rid of it.
Did they just hand you the role in an S.O.S phone call? Or did you need to come in and do the meet n’ greet?
It was all done in couple of phone calls. I had met with these guys previously—maybe four or five months ago—but that was pretty much just a general meeting, not about a specific role.
Tell us about Tucker—the one that you’ll be playing. Will we see a big difference between you and Russ?
I’m not going to watch the other guy and see what he did, and nobody at Y&R asked me to do that, but I will tell you this: William Russ is a prince. When I went to my dressing room for the first time I found a note he’d left for me on top of the television, telling me to have a great time in the role and hoping that everything goes well for me.
That’s unheard of!
He’s a real mensch, so I want to give a shout-out to him
Do you know him?
We’ve never met. I only know his work and know he’s a very good actor. Replacing someone is a really strange thing. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. But anyone who has been in the business any length of time knows this is a reality and that you just have to roll with it.
So no guilt when something like this happens? After all, your good fortune is his bad fortune.
No, not at all. I just chalk it up to it being my turn. This is my job now. There’s no guilt about it at all—and if there had been any guilt, getting that little note from William would have taken it all away. It just made everything very sweet and as it should be.
Let’s get back to Tucker.
I had some great scenes today with Jess Walton [Jill] and Jeanne Cooper [Kay] and Daniel Goddard [Cane]. Tucker is coming in to take away everybody’s toys. I really like this guy. He did not come from money but rather he’s a self-made success, a regular guy who can tend bar and shoot pool and talk shit with anybody. He’s very unassuming in many ways.
And the show will continue to pursue Tucker’s romance with Jill? Do you two have chemistry?
Oh, yeah. I just worked a little with Jess today and it was very easy and open. She has sexual energy and so do I. All we have to do is play it up. It’s going to work out fine.
Your fans are doing handstands over this.
[Laughs] Good! Because they’ve all been screaming at me. “We don’t have any contact with you anymore! Why don’t you blog like Mary Beth Evans?” Hey, I don’t have time to blog!
You and Mary Beth were dropped from Days at the end of last year, right along with Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn. What really went on there, and how do you feel in retrospect?
It was unfortunate. But I have to say that from the moment I came back to that show I could see it was in disarray. It just seemed to be really schizophrenic. Nobody had a real vision or thru-line as to what was happening with the stories and the characters. The show was all over the place. So I knew from the get-go that we might not last. Mary Beth and I had a talk about that right at the beginning. We were like, “We better not get too comfortable here. This could end at any moment.” That’s how crazy things were. Plus, with the economy and the budget being cut, it didn’t look good. Ed Scott came into the picture [as executive producer] and morale went up and all the actors were happy, but then there was another [executive producer] change. It was all about politics and personalities and dollars and cents. They fired four expensive people and that’s the reality. I did not take it personally one bit.
And, since then, many more daytime superstars have found their gigs in jeopardy.
You just have to accept it and be grateful when you do have a job—and I’m very grateful to be at Y&R.
(Click the above TV Guide logo to visit the original interview page)
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