Gays of our Lives (May 26, 2009)

AE: What are you looking forward to the most now that you're acting again?
TB: If my suspicions of where this character is going to go are accurate, I'm so excited to have such a timely, significant role.

AE: I can tell just by looking around the Internet that people are very excited about you being back. They're all talking about it — trying to figure out if you're Phillip, if you're somebody else — but have you gotten any response since the reveal happened on Friday?
TB: I think I've gotten the same emails that you've seen on message boards. People that write to me are flabbergasted and surprised. Not only is the story suspenseful, but when you take a character that's been gone for twenty years [pause] I can't say anymore.

Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor), Y&R co-executive producer Maria Arena Bell and Jess Walton (Jill Abbott)

AE: A lot of the people you worked with are still on the show, so what's it like being reunited with Jeanne Cooper (Katherine Chancellor), Jess Walton (Jill Abbott), Tricia Cast (Nina Webster) and some of your former costars?
TB: It's been surreal. For anybody to go back to a job you had twenty years ago and be able to invent new relationships with people as a grownup, it's just such a wonderful gift, such a wonderful opportunity. I appreciate them so much more because I've watched them as people over the years. They're not just costars. They all have wonderful facets, stories of devotion, such beautiful, caring people. Seriously. It's such an honor to be with these people again, and of course, get paid for it. [laughs]

AE: Has the actual process of the job itself, the taping, changed at all since you did it the first time?
TB: Yeah. It's a little more rushed, a little quicker. It's a four-day week instead of a five-day week. They get out earlier.

AE: Did you watch any of your old stuff from back when you were first on? What did you think of yourself as an actor?
TB: My first year was really bad, I thought. I was so self-conscious. When we got to the heavier stuff I was all right. It's certainly gone through my head these past twenty years, that I was never the best that I can be. Now, I really want to be the best that I can be, and I hope I have that strength and confidence.

AE: You've been pretty open about the fact that you've had cosmetic surgery. As somebody who is very attractive, why did you feel the need to do that?
TB: I did it because I didn't like the way I looked. I still don't. I'm one of those guys who goes home and my aunts say, "Oh, you've lost weight!" No, I haven't! I've been this skinny my whole life. I look better on TV. That's why. I never liked the way I looked. I will say, yeah, I do photograph well, but I don't think I look that great in person.

AE: Your show has a gay character in it right now, Rafe. I don't know if you've met the character or know anything about it.
TB: No, but I saw him on TV and I think he's very cute. [laughs]

Yani Gellman plays gay attorney Rafe Torres