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Connect Four: Stafford's (second from l.) anniversary episode features Phyllis and her family, (from l.) Summer (Allison Lanier), Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and Lucy (Lily Brooks O'Briant).
October 18, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of Michelle Stafford's first episode as Phyllis on Young and Restless , and has become tradition on the show, most recently with Sharon Case (Sharon) and Joshua Morrow (Nick), she will be the subject of an episode centered around her character to mark the occasion.
Becoming Phyllis
Stafford marvels at the longevity of the character, who was originally conceived by the show's legendary co-creator and then-head writer, William J. Bell, to be a short-term antagonist in the Danny/Cricket relationship. "I didn't know at the time" that Phyllis would go the distance, she notes. "At the time, I just really wanted to create an interesting character. And when you do that with a writer, create with a writer, I see it like an unspoken relationship that you have with them."
While Stafford and Bell's silent pact to make Phyllis as colorful as possible was underway, the actress recalls with a laugh that one co-star in particular had a lot to say about Phyllis's continued presence on the canvas. "I remember Carolyn Conwell, who played Paul's mom, she would say to me almost every day, every time she worked, 'Oh, my God, when are they gonna kill you? You're so bad!' " And while Conwell was right that Phyllis was pretty much all bad girl all the time in her early days, her edges did soften over time. "Bill Bell switched it up and made her sympathetic — and made her empathetic, which is even more important."
It is not lost on the actress what a remarkable life lesson her success as Phyllis contains, as she was going through serious career struggles leading up to booking the gig that would forever change her professional trajectory. Explains the three-time Daytime Emmy winner, "Listen, I had a very, very challenging time working for years prior to getting this job. I wasn't booking anything for like a year, maybe, and I was getting to the point where I was just like, 'Wow, this isn't gonna happen.' And I kept on [auditioning], and I think that's very important, that people realize that things can be bad and they change, you know? You hang in there and anything can change at any time. Anything can happen at any time. And this one day, this one audition, changed the rest of my life."
Stafford's first run in Genoa City lasted until 1997; she returned from 2000-13 and, after playing Nina Reeves on General Hospital from 2014-19, she came back to Y&R in 2019. She says that taking time away from the show was beneficial because "it's a hard character to play. I'm not gonna lie. It's not like a love story all the time where the men love you, you know? The men actually hate her! They're always yelling at her telling her she's crap. It's not a walk in the park to play this role and I know I am playing a role, so it doesn't affect me, but the actual playing of it is hard. It's hard to do that character that's yelling and fighting, usually fighting for something in which people don't believe, and not the one that people are benevolent toward. And she's not necessarily benevolent toward others."
The biggest challenge, she says, is "finding that human aspect of her and showing that so that people go, 'Oh, I could see myself in this,' or, 'I relate to Phyllis.' I mean, you'd be shocked at how many people relate to Phyllis! And I think that those are my diehards. They really understand Phyllis because they understand sometimes things are unfair toward Phyllis and sometimes Phyllis is her own worst enemy."
She found particular value in her more recent break from Y&R. "The second time, it was a heavy time in my life and I think I was beyond tired," she reflects. "I think that during that time, I took the character home. Now, I don't take it home at all, but during that time and the years preceding, I took the character home; that's how I know how to work, to live the character. And there was one point in time, like a year or a six-month period, where Nick broke up with Phyllis, like, five different times because I had heard that our writer at the time loved it, thought that it was so dramatic. And Phyllis was really feeling like a piece of s--- at the time. And I was going through a very difficult time in my life where I, personally, was feeling like a piece of s---. I was playing it during the day, all day, and then I'd come home and memorize the lines for the next day, and there was no break. And I realize that worse things could happen — 'Oh, woe is me, I'm a soap opera star' — and I'm not saying it was so horrible. It wasn't horrible, but it did get to me, you know?
"I think that as actor, we genuinely live the character," Stafford continues. "That's what we do, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's who we are. We're crazy [ laughs ]! We're not like the average bear, you know? We take on somebody else's life and we feel their pain. But in a soap opera, you can't do that because there's no break. It's year-round. It's not like you're doing a movie for three months or a show where you get a huge hiatus. So you really have to learn now not to bring it home."
These days, she has found a different, healthier way of managing her off-camera and on-screen lives. "My kids [Natalia, 14, and Jameson, who turns 9 next week] pull me out of it," she smiles. "Every day."
Mom's The Word
Like Stafford, Phyllis is mom to a son and a daughter — and that son, Daniel, is in quite the predicament at the moment: He's under suspicion for the death of his romantic partner, Heather. Ever the fierce mama bear, "I think [protecting Daniel] is more important to her than her immediate life, quite honestly," Stafford offers. "If a car is coming for your kids, you put yourself in front of the car! It's very much like that."
This is the jumping-off point for the flashback-rich special episode airing Friday. The actress enthuses, "I thought it was really cool that they wanted to do [a Phyllis-centric episode] and I was really excited. The [flashback] clips that they chose, I just love them so much."
She hints that viewers will want to be sure to watch all the way through to the last moments of the show. "It ends very, very well," she says."I loved it. I thought it was very powerful."
JPI
We've Come A Long Way, Baby: Here's Stafford as Phyllis in 1994 opposite Michael Damian as Danny.
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