Rebecca Budig on Playing Taylor, Ridge’s Love Triangle and Her New ‘Soapy’ Podcast (EXCLUSIVE)
The ‘AMC’ and ‘GH’ alum gets candid about stepping into Taylor’s ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ shoes
As Taylor prepares to marry Ridge again on The Bold and the Beautiful and portrayer Rebecca Budig’s new Soapy podcast premieres today, the soap opera beauty takes a break from playing tetherball with her daughter and chasing the dogs to catch up with Woman’s World about how her summer is heating up, onscreen and off.
Beloved for playing All My Children’s Greenlee and General Hospital’s Hayden, Budig gets candid about her initial hesitancy to join The Bold and the Beautiful and step into the decades-old Taylor/Ridge/Brooke love triangle with Thorsten Kaye and Katherine Kelly Lang—and dishes on how it’s going, now.
We also have everything you need to know about CBS’s new podcast Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart—which premieres today and features July interviews with The Young and the Restless’ Eric Braeden and Lauralee Bell, Days of our Lives’ Deidre Hall, and Beyond the Gates’ Sheila Ducksworth.
Rebecca Budig talks Greg Rikaart and their new ‘Soapy’ podcast – ‘I laughed so hard!’
In her 30 years as a soap opera drama queen, Rebecca Budig has never gotten to work with Daytime Emmy-winner Greg Rikaart—who plays Days of Our Lives’ Leo and The Young & the Restless’ Kevin—but the co-hosts of the new podcast, Soapy, go way back.
“He was my neighbor, unfortunately, and we hung out all the time,” explains Budig, who loves trading barbs with her pal on social media. “He was even in my COVID pod! But he has a boy and I have a girl and they don’t go to the same schools, so it becomes harder to hang out.”
Well, it was harder… until they teamed up for the soap-lover’s podcast that premieres today, with Eric Braeden Soapy’s first guests.
“We are interviewing actors, people who write for the shows, and just a mixed bag of people from nighttime and daytime,” Budig teases. “We talk about soaps, but we talk about just everything. It’s interesting for us to interview people in the business and talk about their journeys, because we’re in it as well.
“And Greg just makes me laugh,” she adds. “We were shooting the other day and I laughed so hard that I literally was crying. I couldn’t stop. Such fun!”
With new episodes set to drop weekly on CBS’ YouTube channel and wherever you get your podcasts through September 30, check out the trailer:
Rebecca Budig says assuming Hunter Tylo’s ‘B&B’ role was ‘like stepping into Susan Lucci’s shoes!’
Meanwhile, over at the day job she started last August, Budig is getting into it as The Bold and the Beautiful’s Taylor—a role previously played by Hunter Tylo and Krista Allen.
“It’s been amazing,” raves Budig. “I wasn’t expecting it and honestly, I didn’t know about the age, because Hunter is a little older. It’s also very hard to fill shoes and Krista is an amazing actress, but with Hunter playing the role for as long as she did, it’s like stepping into Susan Lucci’s shoes or something!”
Now that she’s had some time in Taylor’s heels, however, she’s ready to meet the viewers at her first The Bold and the Beautiful fan event—which is being held in Burbank, CA., on Saturday, August 16, along with a The Young and the Restless event.
“I’m excited to meet the fans of the show in real time, face to face,” she says. “I’ve tried to stay away from the comments until now, so it’ll be interesting! Hopefully they’ll be welcoming and kind.”
‘B&B’ star Rebecca Budig is ready for Taylor and Brooke to rumble – ‘I love a good cat fight!’
While there were some initial nerves, Budig has fallen for her character.
“When you’re an older woman, generally, you’re not sexy anymore, but Brad Bell really writes for his women, and I really appreciate that,” the 52-year-old says of her showrunner. “I like Taylor’s strength, and I love that she’s a great mom. It’s fun to play somebody that really cares about their kids. She’s complicated, smart, obviously, and very together… but being a great therapist doesn’t mean you can apply that to your own life.
“I mean, is it healthy that she still has a thing for a guy that can’t make up his mind?” she poses with a laugh. “I don’t know, but I’ve been trying to play it with a little bit of strength, like she in on it. She understands why Ridge is attracted to Brooke and what he gets out of that, but at the end of the day, she feels he needs and deserves to be with someone like her.”
Having played schemers like All My Children’s Greenlee and General Hospital’s Hayden, Budig really only has one complaint.
“Brooke strikes a chord with Taylor, but we haven’t had any catfights, at all,” she huffs. “I know that Taylor has them and I love a good cat fight. I used to have a lot of them!”
‘B&B’ star Rebecca Budig compares Ridge’s divided heart to ‘The Bachelor’
A throwdown could be in the cards… eventually. After all, while Taylor believes she’s headed for the altar for one final set of ‘I dos,’ neither Eric Forrester nor Budig believes Ridge is really over Brooke.
“It’s like The Bachelor,” says the actress who was married to Bachelor Bob Guiney from 2004-2010. “He falls in love with two different women, and you are like, ‘How can you fall in love with two different women?’ From his perspective, those two women bring out really different parts of him.
“But that’s now what it’s like for Taylor,” she adds. “Ridge brings out the best part of her. She has a deep friendship with him and a very strong sense of trust. She believes he’s her soulmate, her person, and I think she just can’t shake that.”
Having Jack Wagner’s Nick come back to woo Brooke has only made things more interesting.
“It’s been a lesson in history!” Budig says. “Every time Taylor crosses with someone new, it is. It was also really fun to work with Jack, I love working with Katherine Kelly Lang (who plays Brooke), and Thorsten Kaye (who plays Ridge) is just incredible. I feel a real affection for him, so I’ll be sad if we break up!”
Soap star Rebecca Budig shares her secret to surviving summer road trips with the kid
With Taylor’s summer heating up on The Bold and the Beautiful and her podcast with Rikaart premiering today, Budig caught up with Woman’s World the morning after her annual family road trip to Minnesota.
“We spend the summer here, on a lake, and it’s just so amazing,” she explains. “But we drove our dogs here from California. It’s a lot. We do it every year, and Charlotte loves it. She’s almost 11, and she’s a road warrior.”
In the age of technology, Budig notes that she and husband Michael Benson have created a system to make sure they don’t rely on screentime alone to keep their daughter entertained on the road.
“We let her do half an hour of video games and then an hour of watching TV or movie, and then she has to take an hour break,” Budig outlines. “She does things like write down all the license plates and tally how many we see from each state. We listen to music. We just try to have a good attitude and not let things get tense.
“We spend a lot of time together,” she adds. “We have dinner as a family every night, which is important to me. Right now, I’m just mommin’ it—and enjoying working in between all of that. Life is good!
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