In a new interview with Soap Opera Digest, The Young and the Restless actress Michelle Stafford, who is best known for her role as Phyllis Summers on the hit CBS soap, opened up about one of the biggest challenges in playing her character.
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She said, “It’s finding that human aspect of her and showing that so that people go, ‘Oh, I could see myself in this,’ or, ‘I relate to Phyllis.’ I mean, you’d be shocked at how many people relate to Phyllis!”
“And I think that those are my diehards. They really understand Phyllis because they understand sometimes things are unfair toward Phyllis and sometimes Phyllis is her own worst enemy.”
Michelle also admitted that sometimes it’s difficult not to bring your character home after a long day on the set. She even said that breaking away from being Phyllis Summers has been quite challenging in the past.
The actress put it this way, “That’s what we do, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s who we are. We’re crazy [laughs]! We’re not like the average bear, you know? We take on somebody else’s life and we feel their pain.”
“But in a soap opera, you can’t do that because there’s no break. It’s year-round. It’s not like you’re doing a movie for three months or a show where you get a huge hiatus. So you really have to learn now not to bring it home.”
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Michelle added that thankfully, she’s got her kids to rely on when it comes to snapping out of it. She said, “My kids [Natalia, 14, and Jameson, who turns 9 next week] pull me out of it. Every day.”
The actress also talked about when she had to take a break from being Phyllis. That was when she took a temporary leave from The Young and the Restless.
She said, “I think that during that time, I took the character home. Now, I don’t take it home at all, but during that time and the years preceding, I took the character home; that’s how I know how to work, to live the character.”
“And there was one point in time, like a year or a six-month period, where Nick broke up with Phyllis, like, five different times because I had heard that our writer at the time loved it, thought that it was so dramatic. And Phyllis was really feeling like a piece of s— at the time.”
That said, fans will simply have to tune in to The Young and the Restless each and every day to find out what will happen next.
The Young and the Restless airs weekdays on the CBS network. Check your local listings for times.
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