Interviews with ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ stars Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Steffy) and Kim Matula (Hope) from the red carpet at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.
For the last year on CBS’ The Bold & The Beautiful has focused primarily on the love triangle featuring the oft-indecisive Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton) caught between good girl Hope Logan (Kim Matula) and her love-obsessed vixenish step-sister Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood). The shift is focus has paid off with improved ratings and major media attention around the world. We spoke to Matula and Woods at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards where Woods was nominated for her first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress.
Woods learned of her Emmy nomination while on a location shoot in Italy. “I found out when I was in Italy about to shoot a scene where I was jumping into the Adriatic Sea, which was freezing, and I didn’t want to film it and was trying to get into it. Then I got the phone call that I was nominated and I got to jump into the sea feeling quite fine.”
Of all the 100 plus countries (with about 35 million viewers) in which The Bold and the Beautiful airs, Italy is the shows number one market worldwide. The cast ventured to the city of Polignano A Mare, Italy to film episodes currently airing this month. “Italy is awesome. It was such a surreal experience for me” tells Matula, adding “The fan base we have in Italy is so huge. I have never experienced anything like that. I felt like a Beatle.”
Jacqueline MacInnes Woods tells us that going to Italy with B&B was “a whirlwind.” She describes, “It depends on where you go; you get different kinds of fans and different reactions. In Milan they see you and are very sweet, then you go to Lake Como or Rome and they want a double or triple kiss on the cheek and its very touchy and passionate.” How does she feel about that? “It’s cool,” she said with a smile.
Matula says fans are drawn to Hope/Liam/Steffy storyline because of the various perspectives of the characters the show portrays. “A lot of people want Hope and Liam together because they are like Americas sweethearts. A lot of people want Steffy and Liam together because it’s the bad girl who gets the guy. There are just so many different sides and that’s what makes our show so great.”
We asked Matula if she was more like Hope or Steffy. “I think I’m a happy medium. I am not full on bad girl but I am certainly not as pure as Hope,” she said laughing.
Hope took a turn down a dark path for a while a few months ago, when she became addicted to pills. Matula said she found the story really challenging. “I had never taken Xanax before. I watched testimonials on YouTube about how [people who had taken it] felt and what it did to them. I took from those stories, from those people, and I tried to embody what they described. It was really more aggressive.”
Woods gave us a little sneak of what’s to come for Steffy. “She is on a downward spiral,” previewed the actress. “It has been a very emotional rollercoaster and she’s at her wits end now,” she said before teasing, “there is going to be a crash.”
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