The Young and the Restless has plenty of thrills and chills headed fans' way as Halloween draws near. The blackmail murder mystery involving all of the show's leading ladies will continue to give spooks at every turn, and the love triangle brewing between Sharon, Nick, and Rey is certain to give both Shick and Shey fans tricks and treats galore.
With so much exciting material on the horizon, Soap Central reached out to Sharon Case to get the inside scoop on how the weeks ahead will play out for her character, Sharon Newman. Much to our delight, she dished out details faster than expert candy givers dish out treats on All Hallow's Eve.
Read on for Case's thoughts on Nick (Joshua Morrow) and Sharon's doomed marriage and future, working with all of Y&R's leading ladies in the J.T. disappearance storyline, her on-screen chemistry with Jordi Vilasuso's Rey, which actor would come back to haunt the Y&R set, and much, much more.
Soap Central: I know it's a little belated, but I did want to wish you a happy 24th anniversary at Y&R.
Sharon Case: Oh, thank you so much! Yeah, a few months ago, I had a big anniversary. Thanks for remembering.
Soap Central: Did you do anything special to celebrate?
Case: I went out to dinner with my girlfriend Tamara [Clatterbuck, ex-Alice Johnson], who also used to be on The Young and the Restless, and we just had a fun celebratory dinner, just a "Happy Anniversary" thing. It wasn't a big deal, but we acknowledged it.
Soap Central: Does it feel like it's been 24 years?
Case: You know, it does seem like a long time. It is hard to contemplate 24 years. But the thing is, I love working here more and more every year, so it goes fast for that reason. It's a long time to be here, but if I all of a sudden weren't here anymore, I would feel somehow that I still didn't get enough, like it wasn't long enough.
Soap Central: Your anniversary came at a really good time, because for the last few weeks -- months, really -- all eyes have been on Sharon. Your stories have been on fire. Do you enjoy being the center of attention like that?
Case: Well, yeah! I prefer to have more storyline than not -- any actor would say that -- and the stories have been great. I've been really challenged lately and not just that, but I really like the way the show is written now, the way our dialogue is and the way some of our relationships are -- the ones that Sharon has. They're very intricate, they're very real and complex; they're not soapy and cliché. So there is a lot more for me to think about, not just in memorizing my dialogue, but in what I mean by what I'm saying. There's a lot more in her inner monologue that has to go along with everything that Sharon says, and [it's like that for] all the other characters, as well, because we're just doing more complex characters, I think.
Soap Central: When the writing is done that way, it helps make the stories not as predictable. For example, a lot of people thought that Nick and Sharon's wedding wasn't going to happen -- so some fans then thought perhaps the show would surprise everyone and it would happen, but then it didn't happen, which became surprising in and of itself.
Case: Yeah, because you didn't know, the way it was written. First, we're getting married. Then, Sharon gets this news, so they're not getting married. Then, she shows up at the church, and they are getting married. And then they don't! So, you never knew what was going to happen.
Soap Central: How do you feel about the wedding not happening?
Case: I'm a Shick fan, so I was hoping that they would get married. They haven't been married for a long time, and it was their second attempt to be remarried. I think that Nikki and Victor are sort of like Nick and Sharon. Nikki and Victor were divorced for a long, long time. But they did eventually remarry, so I sort of thought that Sharon and Nick would follow along on the same path. But they still might! Down the line, they still might. So, on the one hand, yeah, I was disappointed, because I'm a Shick fan. But on the other hand, this makes so much more storyline for us to tell, that they didn't get married and what they're doing instead. And who knows, maybe what happened between them will blow over sooner than you think, and they will end up getting married. It gives us more storyline, so I'm not really disappointed. But I'm a romantic, so sure, I want to see every wedding go down.
Soap Central: What do you think is the limit in terms of "trying things again" with an ex?
Case: I don't know what the limits are -- I've never tested them personally. I have never gotten back with an ex! [Laughs] But a lot of people do, and I don't know if there is any limit. That's the way love is.
Soap Central: That's true: when you really love someone, it's crazy what you'll put up with!
Case: Right. You just can't judge it; it's love!
Soap Central: When Mariah (Camryn Grimes) told Sharon the truth before the wedding, from the moment Mariah started speaking, there was this look of recognition in Sharon's face, like she knew it was true. And I just wanted to say it was a really nice performance. Very subtle and powerful.
Case: Oh, thank you! They were really complex scenes. They were long, there was a lot of dialogue, but again, there were a lot of beats that I needed to take to have more inner monologue than outward dialogue as Sharon was processing everything that was happening. Our writing now is written with a lot of that in it, and I love that, that there is so much said in what you're thinking versus what you're saying.
Soap Central: If you were in Mariah's position, do you think you would tell your mother, sister, friend, whoever, that their partner was cheating on them?
Case: Wow. You know what, if I were in Mariah's position, Mariah explained that she found out about this, but she also found out that it happened one time. She also truly believed it wasn't going to be ongoing and happen again. If I believed that, I probably wouldn't say anything. But if a part of me believed that this was going to go on and on, then I would say something. One mistake, I don't know. It's hard to say that you should be the person to tell someone about one mistake someone made. But a personality disorder, you do have to say something. [Laughs] And what I mean by that is you have an ongoing issue of doing something bad or wrong.
Soap Central: Your on-screen chemistry with Camryn Grimes is just off the charts. Every time you two are on-screen together, it's talked about on social media. Do you guys feel your chemistry, or are you aware of it when you're working together?
Case: You know what, we almost don't realize it because it's so natural. I've been seeing the fan comments also online recently about she and I working together, and it's made me stop and think, "You know, that's true! I do some of my best work when I'm with Camryn." We do these complex scenes, and we never even stress. We just walk out there and do it. We barely have to have a conversation about the scenes, our relationship, anything. We rarely need to discuss those things; it just comes out so naturally. They say, "five, four, three, two, one," and we're both in it and we somehow just do this huge performance without any real prep to it, because it's just so natural between the two of us. Maybe because we've been working together as mother and daughter for so long, and she grew up around us. There's just something there that is effortless. But, yes, it has come to be true, a lot of my best work is done with Camryn, and one of my best relationships is with Mariah. I love that, and it's amazing to stop and realize that.
Soap Central: Sharon so far seems rather cool and calm and collected about this whole Nick betrayal thing. She really could have...
Case: Gone down a rabbit hole! [Laughs] I think that when Sharon made herself well with therapy and getting over her emotional and chemical imbalance problems that she had, one of the things that she decided to do was to stop going down rabbit holes when things go bad in life and just pull it together. So, I like how Sharon has been dealing with the aftermath of finding out that Nick cheated and her whole life turned upside down and the wedding is off. That is certainly a reason to have a panic attack, even for a very healthy person. So, I love that. No more rabbit holes. Well, maybe an occasional one!
Soap Central: Because she does have a history with mental health issues, do you play with that as an actress? The possibility that at any moment, she could lose it again?
Case: I don't really play with that, no. I think we've done that, so I try to keep it out of my performances as the writers are keeping it out of the scripts. We've just really exhausted that storyline. It was really great, and I loved doing it, but we now want to tell the story of somebody who survived that, who overcame that. So, we're trying to stick with that throughline.
Soap Central: Okay, well, that throws me for a loop. I was thinking that with her husband-to-be cheating on her and the whole murder cover-up she's involved in, Sharon was definitely going to go off the rails again.
Case: Right, but instead, she's handling it really strong. She's dealing with, right, her marriage is over, she didn't have her wedding, there's the cheating, her life is upside down, and she's also dealing with being involved with J.T.'s disappearance and murder, and yes, that's a lot all at once. And she has as new job, as well. I love that she's doing all that and is just so chill.
Soap Central: Her therapy has worked.
Case: Yep, therapy works!
Soap Central: This is the perfect time of year for a murder storyline, being that Halloween is upon us. Are you a fan of the holiday?
Case: Oh, for sure! I have loved it all my life. For several years, I threw Halloween parties and had all my friends over. It was a big deal! I have all these decorations that I loved collecting each year, and it would be fun because I would get some new, grand decoration and set it up in the front yard, and when my friends came over for the party, we would all be enchanted by this thing or frightened, whatever the case may be. [Laughs] That was part of what we do, and we'd have a big dinner. And everyone would take turns handing out candy at the door, because we get a lot of kids in my neighborhood. There's no way one person could stand there and do it all night; you have to do it in shifts with different people. And that's part of the reason why I would have the party! But now, I've found that it's impossible to do that when Halloween is on a weekday, because everybody is at work, and a lot of my friends have kids. So, when I had a party, they would trick-or-treat with their kids in my neighborhood and then come back and have the party with us, and we would do that. But now, no one can get out of work and get their kids ready and together and get over to the house in time before the trick-or-treating is over! So, it doesn't work on weekdays. Now it's on a Wednesday, so what [I did last year] was to go to the Santa Monica Boulevard parade and have a fun dinner, sit and drink wine and watch people parading by. You see a lot of great costumes, and it's a really nice crowd. The first time I did it was last year, even though I've lived in L.A. all my life, and this is a famous parade. I always expected it to be a lot more rowdy, but it was really mellow, there were really cool people, and it was just a really nice, mellow environment of cool people -- adults in costumes! S,o I'm going this year with a group of friends to the same dinner, right on the boulevard, and I'm going to be Serena [from The Handmaid's Tale], and Lauren Woodland [Brittany Hodges] is going to be the handmaid, she's going to be Offred. I'm sure there will be a lot of those, I'm expecting. But we're going to have fun with those costumes!
Soap Central: In the spirit of Halloween, I want to ask if anything creepy ever happened on set at Y&R? Like unexplained flickering lights or an actor from the past haunting the set?
Case: I don't think so! [Laughs] I can't think of anything like that, but one time I flew back from New York, and for whatever reason, my flight was late, and I got in super early in the morning. I had to be at work at 6:00, and I landed at like 3:00, so I thought, "Well, I'm not going to go home. By the time I go home, I'm going to what, sleep for one hour and then go to work?" So, I just went straight to the studio and thought, "Well, I'll nap on my sofa for an hour and wake up at 6:00 and get to work." Well, it was creepy being there in the middle of the night! I mean, there are people here at that time, in the early morning hours, and I didn't realize it. Crew are working, and I would hear weird noises here and there, and it really was creepy and weird being here in the middle of the night. That's the only thing I can think of, and after that time, I decided I would never do that again, because I was creeped out!
Soap Central: Okay, so maybe nobody is haunting the set yet. That means the job is still open! Out of all your castmates, who do you think is the most likely to come back and haunt the set after they're gone?
Case: Eric Braden, of course! Victor would, right? He would continue haunting from beyond! We'd see Victor everywhere.
I dare you trespass on Victor's ranch!!! pic.twitter.com/gPU2vTzs5s
- Eric Braeden (@EBraeden) October 26, 2017
Soap Central: Kind of like how Genoa City residents are seeing J.T. everywhere! Or at least the mention of him is everywhere. The women didn't mean to kill him, of course. But they are covering it up. So, do you think they deserve to be punished for what happened? Should prison be something in their future?
Case: Wel,l prison comes to mind when you consider they did cover up a crime and buried a body -- that probably comes with some prison time. However, I'm not sure, but the law might be that if somebody is an intruder in your house and you strike them in self-defense in your house, that there is no prison time. It might be a different kind of murder charge, like manslaughter or self-defense charge. So probably for what happened itself, no. But the covering it up, that's when they maybe started getting into some prison time! [Laughs] But obviously, you aren't thinking straight when you just killed someone and someone is lying there dead at your feet; nothing is firing correctly in your brain!
Soap Central: One of the greatest things about this story is that it's a rare occasion when you get to see many of the show's major leading women working together in the same story. What has that been like for you?
Case: It's been so great. You're absolutely right: there's rarely ever a storyline where you have a group of women in the storyline leading it. If it's about women, they're not working together, and usually, throughout the year, when I have a storyline, it's with a male actor. And it's either a love story or a work story, but it's always male/female. So, this was great. And all the women around here have said for decades, "We need to have a group of girls in a storyline that are friends." When Sex and the City was popular, we thought we should have groups of women like this. No one ever did it. So, for that reason, I think it's great, and I love it. Also, Sharon, I've been playing Sharon forever, and it's the first time Sharon has really gotten out of her house and done anything. When they gave Sharon the coffeehouse, it was great because she had a place to go and all different kinds of people in town that she could now meet and talk to, versus staying in her house all the time. And now, in addition to that, I'm working with all these other females on the show. I mean, really, it's our four other female leads on the show, with five of us in this storyline. And Camryn is a part of it, too. She was in the beginning and then was not, and she sort of is in and out of it. But she's just as much a part of it as all of us, too. So, it's really this five-some, and I love it! For years, all I did was the same thing; I stayed at home, I raised the babies, I was in love, I had a breakup, I was in love, I had a breakup, etc. Sharon was this Mother Earth, and then she had her crazy storyline. And that was all very good; it was terrific. But this change is so fun for me. I really get to do a lot of different things as an actress and take Sharon Newman as a character in different directions, just by shifting her life this way. It's been really great.
Soap Central: There was this really interesting scene in which Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) essentially told Sharon that the reason she has disliked her all these years is because they're actually a lot alike. Do you agree with her? Do you think Sharon and Nikki are similar?
Case: Yeah! Oh, yeah, I definitely do agree with that. It's interesting how that's true. I was glad they wrote that scene. It was a really nice, long scene. It was lovely to see Nikki and Sharon have a moment of truth between them. It doesn't mean they're now going to be friends forever [laughs], but it's nice, and I think it's really honest, in a long-term relationship like that, there are moments where the two do sit down and are honest with each other about their feelings. I do think they're a lot alike. They both married a Newman, and the Newmans are kind of the same -- Newman men are Newman men, and they do what they do! -- and we've put up with it and have been in love with them, we've both had their children, we're both really devoted to our families, the Newman family, our immediate family, and we're both devoted mothers. Nikki did eventually start working, too. I don't remember what she was doing, but she worked on and off, and now Sharon is doing that, too. So, their lives are quite similar, and I think they're quite similar. So, that was a very cleverly written scene, very keen. I love that the writers were so spot on in looking at the relationship between Nikki and Sharon and thinking to write that scene and the dialogue between them.
Soap Central: So, switching gears a little bit, I have to ask you about the chemistry between Sharon and Jordi Vilasuso's Rey. It seems there was an instant spark between the two characters. Did you notice your chemistry during your first scenes and think, "Whoa, we might have something special here?"
Case: Well, no. It didn't just accidentally happen! "Oh, look, we just tripped over some chemistry. Let's do something with it." [Laughs] No, the writers wrote the storyline well in advance, and we spent time casting for Rey. It was mapped out what was going to take place in the storyline and between the two of them. When Jordi started working here, he and I both knew roughly what the story was going to be. As actors, we don't read that far in advance, but we have some kind of broad stroke ideas of what direction the characters are headed in, so that gives the actors something to work with. So, when Jordi and I are doing our scenes together, we rehearse and we [work on] them in detail and figure out what we're going to do with each scene. We put detail work in it, what we mean by each line, what emotion is there, why we feel this way; we do all the work that actors do and create this new relationship. A lot of work goes into creating a brand-new relationship. Whenever I have a new costar, you have to put work into it rather than just hope for the best and think, "Maybe there's chemistry or there's not." When you're watching the show, it may look like there's just some accidental chemistry. And if that's how it looks, then I did my job well, and so did Jordi! [Laughs] But I'm glad that's working. He and I think that it's going really well. We like everything that we've created, we want to keep doing it, and throughout the scenes for weeks now, we have found that we do love working with each other, and we look forward to more and more of these scenes. You never know when you get a new coworker how it's going to go with them, if you're going to work well together or not, and we do like spending time together and working out our scenes. So, that was a happy accident. But then again, not really, because everybody here gets along and likes working with everybody.
Soap Central: Which is lucky, because it's not always that way!
Case: Yeah, it is lucky, because that's not necessarily true in every work place that you go to. It is lucky.
Soap Central: So, Nick and Sharon have the smooshed name Shick. What do you think the smoosh name will be for Sharon and Rey?
Case: The fans came up with it already! Isn't it Shey? It's done: we get a smoosh name for new couples within seconds! The fans don't waste any time! [Laughs] I saw some debate about it at first, a few people talking to each other on Twitter and throwing out names, but Shey seemed like the natural fit... So now I have Shick, Shey, Shillon, and Shadam!
Soap Central: Say that five times fast! So, before I let you go, is there anything else you'd like to add?
Case: Just that I'm really excited to see what's coming up in the next scripts. It's all very exciting material!
What do you think about our interview with Sharon Case? How do you feel about Nick and Sharon's Happily Never After? Are you a fan of Sharon and Rey? How much are you enjoying seeing Sharon, Phyllis, Nikki, and Victoria in the same murder storyline? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
