‘Y&R’ Star Susan Walters on Winning Her First Daytime Emmy in Her 60s—‘It Feels Great!’ (EXCLUSIVE)
‘Y&R’ beauty talks Diane’s drama, crazy love with Jack & Phyllis and hubby Linden Ashby
On the heels of her Daytime Emmy win for Supporting Actress, soap opera beauty Susan Walters talks to Woman’s World about playing Diane on The Young and the Restless, tussling with costar Michelle Stafford’s Phyllis back in the wild 2000s and today, and finding her onscreen happily ever after (for now?) with Peter Bergman’s Jack.
Plus, Walters shares what it’s like to have a permanent red-carpet date in sometimes The Young and the Restless costar and always husband Linden Ashby and reveals what she got wrong about acting when she was in her 30s.
Susan Walters says ‘Hello, Emmy’ and reflects on her first win
With her earliest acting credits Loving and Hotel in the ‘80s, Susan Walters’ healthy list of primetime shows has included Seinfeld, Melrose Place, The Vampire Diaries, Good Trouble, and most recently, The Rookie. She also got to play Priscilla Presley in the Elvis and Me miniseries long before taking on the role The Young and the Restless’ Diane—which she first assumed around the turn of the century and then returned to in 2022.
As a lifelong working actress, Walters found herself in the Winner’s Circle for the first time this month.
“Hello, Emmy,” she grins, before admitting her Daytime Emmy was worth the wait. “It feels great, and it was great to have an opportunity to thank the people I work with—Peter Bergman, Michael Mealor (who play Jack and Kyle) and our directors, who are so amazing. I was a little flustered, but it was fun to have that acknowledgment and to be able to acknowledge my husband’s help.”
Walters’ forever red-carpet date Ashby surfs while she primps
Over the decades, Walters has been on plenty of red carpets with her husband of almost 40 years, Linden Ashby—who was actually nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 2024 for playing Creepy Cameron on her soap.
“Last year, I really enjoyed being on the carpet for him—being his date and also a member of the show,” she says. “It’s really nice to be able to walk with a buddy. The first year we had the Daytime Emmys in December, after COVID, he was directing a movie, so I was kind of by myself, and I was kind of, ‘Wah!’”
This year, of course, her man is standing by her side—although he tells us he was out surfing the waves until the last possible moment!
“He flew into the parking garage probably 10 minutes before we walked out the door,” Walters confirms with a laugh. “I had fun getting ready with our daughters, who are our dates tonight. That’s really nice.”
Remembering the ‘fun and crazy!’ Diane/Jack/Phyllis love triangle of the 2000s
While Walters is happily married, she came onto The Young and the Restless as a schemer who’d do anything for love—and her first run coincided with the love triangle with Jack and Phyllis that Peter Bergman recently told us was a highlight of his own career.
“She ran me over with the car, and I burned down the house,” Walters reminds. “That was fun—and crazy!
“I was thinking about that the other day,” she continues. “It was a big secret who burned it down, so they never told me that I was the one. So I was out riding my bike, and Linden found me and said, ‘You’re supposed to be at work.’ I was supposed to be burning down the pool house… but nobody ever told me!”
On Diane’s 2022 resurrection—‘It’s kind of naïve, but I wasn’t nervous’
Diane went on to cause lots of trouble before dying, with much of that happening when General Hospital diva Maura West stepped in to play the role. Then, in a soapy twist, Walters was called back to the role and Diane returned in 2022, having faked her death.
“It’s kind of naïve, but I wasn’t nervous about Diane coming back,” she says. “I joked around because I wasn’t the actress who played Diane when she got killed, so for me, she just went off to Toronto in 2003.
“Also, as actors, we learn to make it work,” she adds. “And my favorite thing is to put the pieces of the puzzle together to do that.”
Could Diane go dark again? Yes… but ‘It wouldn’t be as petty’
Since returning, Diane has managed to somehow become an upstanding citizen married to Jack, of all people.
“A lot of times, when your soap couple gets happy, then you’re done,” she admits. “But Jack and Diane are good together, and he needed that in his life.
“She still has her own personality and her own mistakes and her own sass, but I, Susan, love having the job of being supportive of Peter’s character—because look who I get to work with,” grins the Supporting Actress winner.
Now, Diane schemes with her man instead of over him. And with Phyllis playing dirty, there should be some fresh face-offs coming! That said, Walters can’t count out the potential for Diane to revert to her pool-house burning and death-faking ways.
“It wouldn’t be as petty,” she clarifies. “Now Diane has felt that family connection. She has a husband who loves her and a connection with her son, and I think she would go to the nth degree to save that. I absolutely do.
“So it wouldn’t be as young anymore,” she continues. “There would be age layered in there, which is more interesting.”
Walters on why she’s still acting in her 60s—‘It’s fun and it’s sport’
Walters, who has let her grey hair come in and is a gorgeous grandma at 62, is enjoying all that comes with maturity—including her first Daytime Emmy win for playing Diane on The Young and the Restless.
“When I was in my 30s and would go to an audition and see someone my age now sitting in the chair, I would think, ‘There’s no way in hell I’m still going to be doing this when I’m that age,’” Walters confesses to Woman’s World.
“Now I realize they’re doing it—we’re doing it!—because it’s fun and it’s sport,” she concludes. “I don’t identify myself only as an actor. I have this whole other life, and then I also get to do this. So the 60-year-old sitting in the chair actually had one over on us!”
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