‘The Bold and the Beautiful’s’ Lisa Yamada on Luna’s Wild Turn, Emmy Nod and Her ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ Dream (EXCLUSIVE)
She reveals how she went from playing sweet Luna to soap’s wildest troublemaker
As everyone on The Bold and the Beautiful tries to determine what to do with loony Luna, Lisa Yamada sits down with Woman’s World to reflect on taking her character from quintessential good girl to “unhinged” killer—which helped her earn a 2025 Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Emerging Talent and now has Luna playing paternity games with Will Spencer.
Grateful to be in the running alongside costar Christian Weissmann and Days of Our Lives’ AnnaLynne McCord and Ashley Puzemis at next Friday’s 52nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, Yamada credits icons Kimberlin Brown and Don Diamont (who play troublemakers Sheila Carter and Bill Spencer) for helping her tap into Luna’s dark side.
Plus, with Electra standing by her man, the young actress set to appear in Prime Video’s upcoming Legally Blonde prequel series Elle next summer shares her Bonnie and Clyde dream for The Bold & the Beautiful’s Luna and Will.
Lisa Yamada asked for Luna to go bad—but not that bad!
Way back at a 2023 Christmas party, Lisa Yamada told The Bold & the Beautiful showrunner Bradley Bell she was tired of playing sweet little Luna and was ready to be a bad girl—and boy did he deliver!
“I meant a badass—like Jacqueline MacInnes Wood’s Steffy,” she explains with a laugh. “I guess he took that and ran with it, but I had no clue at the time. When Tom and Hollis were killed off the show, we all had conspiracy theories and there were so many names to consider—but Luna was definitely not one of them!”
After Yamada received a 2024 script that revealed Luna was, in fact, behind it all, her character’s unraveling saw her cage Steffy and go to jail—and all that drama helped the actress earn a 2025 Daytime Emmy nomination for Emerging Talent.
“I’m nominated alongside some very talented people, so I’m honored to be recognized,” she says. “I’m excited and so grateful that Brad gave me the opportunity to play evil. I also feel like this is one big prank!”
How Don Diamont helped Lisa Yamada find Luna’s dark side
Yamada confesses that she wasn’t sure she could bring the villainy when things first shifted for her character. Luckily, she was quickly paired with Don Diamont’s Bill Spencer.
“Don and I bonded when the whole paternity storyline was going on and he’s truly become a paternal figure for me, on the show and off,” she says. “He’s my mentor, because I was kind of worried about the whole evil storyline.
“I used to just come into work, say sweet dialogue, and call it a day,” she reminds. “Now, I’m always sobbing and screaming and swinging a gun around! Don saw my potential before even I did, and he championed me.”
Kimberlin Brown’s surprising advice for playing evil
We’ve since learned that Luna’s father is actually her “cousin” Finn… which makes Kimberlin Brown’s iconic villain, Sheila Carter, her grandmother… which makes it all make more sense!
“Kimberlin told me from the jump that being a bad girl is the most fun,” Yamada recalls. “You get to be a part of the most intricate storylines.
“Kimberlin also couldn’t be farther from Sheila,” she adds. “She is the sweetest woman ever and has taken over her role as my grandma. She’s given me the space to tap into my evil side and given me some pointers, here and there.”
Yamada’s Luna loves being ‘entangled in everyone else’s web’
Following in Sheila’s footsteps, Luna recently returned from the dead with a vengeance. While she hasn’t killed anyone (yet?), she did assault a drunken Will by pretending to be Electra—and with everyone on canvas tittering over the news that Luna’s alive and pregnant with his baby, locals are descending on Bill’s house all week.
“They are obsessed with me,” Yamada cracks. “The ongoing joke is that Bill lives in this multi-million-dollar estate that’s gated and has security, but people just walk in whenever they please.”
Joking aside, she’s thrilled to see the Spencers, Forresters, Logans and Finnegans circling her character.
“I’m so grateful that I’m so entangled in everyone else’s web,” she says. “It’s always in the back of my mind that an Asian character is getting to play such a central part of a storyline. It’s also always refreshing when I have a scene with someone outside of my usual web, because it’s nice to play crazy in front of other people.
“I didn’t mind playing the virginal girl that was kind of there to support her boyfriend,” she notes. “It was a lighter workload… but this has been so fulfilling, creatively. I am getting to act out these storylines that 90% of actors don’t ever get to perform. Sometimes it’s a little exhausting, but I’m lucky to be exhausted doing what I love to do.”
Yamada says Luna could use ‘a psych evaluation from Dr. Taylor Hayes’
With Will’s assault the last straw, most locals and viewers are painting Luna as a monster, and Yamada can’t exactly argue with them.
“If this were real life, we should lock her up and throw away the key,” she maintains. “She did commit some heinous crimes. She’s unhinged and delusional. It would be nice for her to get a psych evaluation from Dr. Taylor Hayes!”
That said, this is not the real world.
“If it weren’t for Luna, all of y’all would be in Happy Land, and we can’t have that on the show,” Yamada says with a laugh. “Clearly, I’m not condoning anything she’s done, but for the sake of me getting to continue playing her, I would love to be on house arrest and find a way out of the ankle monitor.”
Yamada’s ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ dreams for Luna and Will
Not only does Yamada want freedom for Luna, but she’d like her character to get her way and find love… with Will!
“I’ve been playing crazy for a while now, so I do miss the sweet love story of it,” she admits. “I would love to explore more on the Luna and Will front. Will seems so uninterested, but I feel like whatever Luna wants, she’ll make happen—and I would love a Bonnie and Clyde moment!”
Will, of course, is stuck on Electra.
“I love being at odds with Electra, because it means Laneya Grace and I get to have more scenes together,” Yamada grins, noting that she and her onscreen competition often hang out with Crew Morrow, Christian Weissmann and Harrison Cone—who play Will, Remy and Deke.
“We’re all the bestest friends,” she says. “We’re having a lot of fun. We always make jokes about how Laneya is Luna pre-evil storyline, and she is killing it. And Christian’s been one of my good friends from before the show, so it’s fun to play evil with him.”
And if all that evil upsets The Bold and the Beautiful fans, Yamada knows she’s doing her job.
“The consensus is that people love to hate Luna,” she says. “I’ll take that as a compliment, and I’m down to keep raising hell for a long time!”
Lisa Yamada’s red carpet rules for the Daytime Emmys
In the meantime, Yamada is looking forward to showing yet another side of herself when the indie Wish You All the Best premieres on November 7 and the Emerging Talent nominee is also busy picking out her Daytime Emmy dress for next week.
Her rules for the red carpet?
“I won’t be in a silk slip dress—that’s so unflattering on me,” Yamada tells Woman’s World. “I love a structured bodice or corset top. I also don’t like to wear black or white on a carpet, because I feel like everyone does. I like to pop out a little more. My last rule: Make sure my posture is good and my toes are done!”
The 52nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards won’t be televised this year, but you can see how The Bold and the Beautiful’s Yamada fairs against Weissmann, AnnaLynne McCord and Ashley Puzemis on Friday, October 17, via watch.theemmys.tv or through The Emmys app.
With the Daytime Emmys celebration starting at 7:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 p.m. in Los Angeles, there are also still tickets on sale through Ticketmaster!
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