|
Lauren Koslow will return to The Young and the Restless on Monday, June 29, marking 40 years since her last appearance on the soap.
Koslow got her daytime start in Genoa City, playing Lindsey Wells from 1984-1986. This time around, she is stepping in as Jill Abbott after Jill’s longtime portrayer, Jess Walton, was unable to travel from her home in Oregon to Los Angeles due to a scheduling conflict.
For Koslow, who has played Kate Roberts on Days of Our Lives for the past 30 years, the opportunity unexpectedly came through a call from Y&R‘s head writer, Josh Griffith, who previously wrote for her in Salem. “They were asking if I could step in and help out,” recalls Koslow. “It was crazy because I heard on a Friday and it was for the next week, but I was thrilled.”
Once the teams at both shows coordinated schedules so she could pull double duty, Koslow quickly turned her attention to brushing up on Jill’s recent history. “It’s so funny because I do know Jill because I blackmailed Jill as Lindsey, but that was Brenda Dickson’s Jill,” she points out. “I’ve seen Y&R with Jess on it, but it’s been a while, so I wanted to get up to date because there’s a lot of history. So, I was going to the fan sites, so I could really read what’s been going on because the audience knows best.”
Balancing both roles proved challenging at first for a variety of reasons. “I had forgotten how word-intensive Y&R is,” Koslow admits. “And that’s why I got very concerned about it. They’re really, really good scripts and they just threw me into what is going on in Jill’s life right now. But I was running lines all weekend, and then that first week, I was working at Days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I worked at Y&R on Thursday and Friday. I was so excited to do it, but I knew it was going to be a lot. And, of course, to step in for the wonderful Jess Walton and the iconic character really started to hit me. But the saving grace was that Jill and Kate have a lot in common.”
Koslow says returning to the CBS studio brought a welcome wave of nostalgia. “It was like a trip back in time,” she shares. “Just turning in the gate, I was flooded with memories. It was emotional for sure. I walked to the dressing room, which was one of the dressing rooms I had used when I was there, and they had the placard with Y&R, and it said ‘Jill,’ but also it said, ‘Welcome back, Lindsay Wells,’ which was amazing. It was my first gig fresh out of college, so it brought back all of that. So much is the same. There have been changes, obviously, but the makeup room was exactly the same as I was back there in the ’80s. I mean, it was crazy. That’s where I met Nicky [Schillace, makeup artist], my husband, so it was really like going home.”
From the moment she arrived, Koslow felt embraced by the production. “The entire cast and crew are so gracious, and everyone’s so supportive,” she praises. “I think everyone knew it was a big thing to do, to have to step in there and honor Jess and her performance and all that and to do the best that I could.”
Helping ease the transition were her first scene partners, Billy Flynn (Cane Ashby), who previously played Chad DiMera on Days and worked closely with Koslow, and Jason Thompson (Billy Abbott). “It was really great because Billy and I used to always play as if Chad is secretly Kate’s son, so it’s very similar with Cane and Jill from what I was seeing,” she observes. “It appears that she does favor him to a degree. But I think because Billy and I had played that relationship so many times, there was a shorthand there, so that was easier.”
Working with Thompson required a bit of an adjustment. “The only problem I did have is I kept calling Cane ‘Billy,’ but of course, Jason’s Billy,” she muses. “Jill and Billy have a very complex relationship. I got some great notes from the executive producer, and Jason told me to call him over the weekend if I had questions, but that was the trickier one. But Jason is such an emotionally available actor that it was really a rich experience to do things with him.”
She was happy to see a few familiar faces from Salem at the studio. “I was crossing out of a set and ran into Stacy [Haiduk, Patty Williams; Kristen DiMera/Susan Banks, Days] on the second day and then I saw Lucas [Adams, Noah Newman; ex-Tripp Dalton, Days] walking onto set, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s happening here?’ ” she muses.
All in all, the opportunity to return to Y&R carried special significance for Koslow. “When Josh first asked me, I told him, ‘This would be so amazing because for me, it would be totally full-circle,’” she recalls. “My first job has a special place in my heart. It started my whole relationship with the Bells [the family that created Y&R and The Bold and the Beautiful]. It’s something that I didn’t think would probably ever happen, but it was so positive. It brought back so many wonderful memories.”
It also reinforced her confidence as an actress. “It meant a lot to me that they trusted me to walk into a heavy storyline in terms of its emotional content, last minute, and memorize all this dialogue and do it,” she explains. “It’s the best validation of your work and your career. Normally, I’m self-effacing with all these things, but you know, it felt really, really good, and this kind of recognition means more to me than any other kind. I realized that it’s the best kind of recognition because it really is for your work. It felt really good.”
That it happened in the same year she marked three decades on Days made the experience even more meaningful. “I’m grateful,” she says. “It’s been a phenomenal character that I’ve loved playing. I’ve had such great writing and worked with so many wonderful actors and actresses. I just feel very lucky. It’s been such a positive experience. And stepping into these shoes and getting to play Jill was really rewarding for me.”
https://www.tvinsider.com/1272519/young-and-the-restless-jill-abbott-lauren-koslow-details/
|
Lauren Koslow Details Last-Minute Step-In as ‘Y&R’s Jill Abbott...
1