Interview by Gwen Reyes. Originally published in TV Week by FYI Television.
Boredom is not in Melody Thomas Scott’s (Nikki Newman) vocabulary. The THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS actress celebrated 37 years with the CBS daytime series this year and believes this is the role of her lifetime. Despite health battles and turnover in the writing department, Scott continues to love her job and discover the best of Nikki’s attributes, even when many people in Genoa City wish to never cross paths with her.
“Being here so long has given me the opportunity that you can’t get anywhere else,” says Scott. “I’ve played Nikki for 37 years, but Nikki has been so many different people within that character. She’s been a stripper, she was in a cult, you know. She’s killed people and she’s been killed; every possible scenario [you can imagine]. She’s married twelve times – four of them to the same man. So there is always something different going on with her and, so, that keeps it very exciting. I’m never bored because there is always something happening.”
Although Scott loves her character, there are days she wishes the writers would challenge her a bit more by taking Nikki in even more ridiculous directions, like going absolutely bananas on screen.
“I have always wanted her to go stark-raving mad. Like, in a rubber room,” jokes Scott. “Wouldn’t that be fun? She’s done just about everything else, so that would be really good. Or – and I’ve been saying this for years – I would want to see the Newmans somehow lose all their money. Lose everything: the ranch, the cars, everything. I just think it would be fascinating and I think the whole world would want to watch them try to live like complete poor people. Or, even like normal people.”
It’s impossible to know if the writers would ever make Scott’s wish come true, but there is one co-star who does not want to see bad times befell the prosperous Newman family.
“That’s what’s interesting: how would she handle that?” notes Scott. “I tell Eric Braeden (Victor Newman) this all the time and he hates my ideas. I think he kind of thinks that means he’s dying. He’s very against this idea, but as a writer that’s what I would write because I think that would be fascinating. I think it’s fun to watch somebody who’s so privileged, with all the money in the world, all of a sudden lost it all.”
