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Exclusive Interview: The Bold and the Beautiful’s Sean Kanan

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful
sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

A reformed Deacon Sharpe is back in Los Angeles and ready to reconnect with his daughter, Hope (Annika Noelle) but those closest to Hope continue to stand in his way!

The TV Watercooler had a chance to interview The Bold and the Beautiful’s Sean Kanan to discuss his most recent return to the soap and took a look back at some of his character’s most scandalous moments. We also explore his new friendship with Sheila (Kimberlin Brown), wishful storylines involving the search for his parents and receiving forgiveness from Bridget, as well as the one that got away – Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang)!

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

Welcome back to The Bold and the Beautiful! You’ve been back for a little over a month now, how did this return come about?

I got a call from Brad Bell, and it was completely out of the blue. I have been working on a lot of other things this year. It’s been an incredible year for me and if you would have told me at the beginning of this year – and given the fact that we’re in a pandemic – that I would have been so busy, I would have never believed it! And to have Brad call me and invite me to come back was just icing on the cake.

Deacon was away for four years and served his time for shooting Quinn. That would be some reunion. Have you filmed with Rena Sofer yet?

Ah, I have not filmed anything with Rena yet. But I imagine that Deacon has some scores that he wants to settle, and I think he feels fairly justified!

That’s good, gives us something to look forward to!

For getting covered in seaweed alone, I think he has a pretty, pretty good reason to want to get even!

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

Deacon’s been through a lot, which we’ll get to. But what I think has made this return compelling, at least for me, is that Hope (Annika Noelle) and Deacon have this bond now. She wrote to him while he was in prison. This relationship really does help solidify a place back on the canvas for Deacon, doesn’t it?

I hope it does. You know, I’d love to be able to stick around for a while. I think there’s tons of possible story for Deacon. Certainly, you know, reuniting and reconnecting with Hope is one of the most important ones. I think that his time must have been well spent in prison and that he did some soul searching and some honest, internal work. I think we’re seeing a guy that’s, at least for now, in a lot of ways different than he was previously.

Yeah, there’s no conniving at the moment.

Not so far. I think Deacon’s really trying to do the best he can. Deacon has made a lot of mistakes which has caused a lot of people to slam doors in his face, which relegates him to a place that necessitates him to try to come in through the back door sometimes. Those are the things that wind up causing drama in his life. Unfortunately, sometimes he doesn’t have any other options.

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

Right? And Brooke’s been a huge part of that. She’s finally allowed him to stay. Ridge (Thorsten Kaye) was outraged, which was great. I believe you’ve said it before that Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) was the one that got away. Is that going to be explored going forward?

Yeah, I believe it is. I think she’s absolutely the one that got away. I would imagine, for him, being alone and celibate in a prison cell for four years, you’d have at least a little time to think about what could have been.

If anyone can come between Brooke and Ridge, it would be Taylor. And she’s on her way back. Krista Allen’s in the role now. I guess that’s a good sign for the Brooke and Deacon “shippers.”

We’ll see! [Laughs]

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

Deacon’s also got this friendship with Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) now. Two of B&B’s greatest villains never crossed paths until this year.

It’s funny, I’ve never seen Deacon as a villain. I really haven’t. He has certainly done some very reprehensible things, but I’ve always felt, or at least I’ve always tried to play the character as he does have this internal code of honour that might be confusing to other people. He definitely has certain loyalties and certain things that he believes in. I think that Deacon has a very healthy awareness of how dangerous Sheila can be, but he’s been privy to seeing her soft side. He sees her vulnerability when she talks about wanting to reconnect with Finn (Tanner Novlan) and Hayes.

I think that we’re seeing a Deacon that is more of an evolved guy now than he was in the past. I think part of being evolved is increasing and tapping into your capacity for compassion.

Sheila and Deacon are both in pretty similar positions. Deacon has utterly no resources and Sheila has graciously taken him under her wing, albeit with an agenda. I think when somebody takes care of you, you can’t help but start to feel some kind of affection for them, right?

Or Stockholm Syndrome. She has kidnapped people in the past.

[Laughs] Maybe, yeah… I think the most fascinating thing is that here’s a guy who has been in prison for four years and he’s in a hotel room with a beautiful woman and nothing is happening!

That’s true. Maybe he has really changed? As for his resources, wouldn’t he have inherited from Macy (Bobbie Eakes)? I think they were married the last time she died.

Did he inherit money from Macy? I never thought about that!

Deacon has had some pretty memorable scenes over the last 20 years. The first one that comes to mind is when he left the phone off the hook, which led Eric (John McCook), Brooke and Rick (then Justin Torkildsen) to overhear them make love. Another comms mishap was when Bridget overheard Brooke and Deacon discuss their baby on the baby monitor, which of course led to Bridget confronting Deacon on Independence Day – burning his clothes and telling him that kissing him was like kissing an ashtray and this would be her independence from him! And then the chandelier fell on Macy. Over at The Young and the Restless, Deacon had the infamous dumpster sex with Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) and even got married to Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott). What were some of your favourite moments?

There have certainly been some spectacular memorable moments! You know, some of the ones that come to my mind are when Deacon dressed up like Elvis and sang to Amber (Adrienne Frantz). I thought that was really fun.

The early scenes with Brooke, when they were finally acting on all this pent-up sexual energy and passion, I thought those were really great.

I really liked a particular scene with Stephanie (Susan Flannery), which was really interesting. It culminated in Stephanie and Deacon hugging. I’ve said this before, but you know, one of the sorts of subtext actor things that I always played was that Stephanie was secretly Deacon’s mother. It allowed me to look at her in a very different way and approach my scenes with her in a different way, and I think that it gave us a strange, odd, bond. That was sometimes just a mirror, you know, a hint of an undercurrent, rather than by just being this brash young guy getting into it with the matriarch of the Forresters, you know that there was something more there.

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

There would be so much to mine from Deacon’s backstory.

Oh, my God, you know, I’ll tell you, that has been my dream to play a storyline where Deacon finds out who his parents were. I mean, we’ve heard that Deacon’s mother was like a stripper or something in Vegas. We saw Deacon’s horrendous stepfather, Darrell, but we do not know who Deacon’s father is. I think that the part of becoming a fully formed human being is knowing where you come from, otherwise, I think you probably have a little piece of you internally missing. You learn to compensate for it and try to grow and evolve, but it’s always a dull ache, I would imagine. I don’t have that in my life, I’m very fortunate, but I think it would be fascinating to find out where he comes from because it would allow him to connect some dots as to why he’s done some of the things he’s done.

That’s interesting. You’ve been in the daytime soap industry for decades and you’ve even got relationships with your fellow soap stars with your personal projects, is there any wishful casting as to who you would cast to play Deacon’s parents?

Wow, that’s a really great question… I really have to think about that. You would think that I would have thought about it, wouldn’t you? Yeah, I think I’m so enamored with the idea of just having the story that I haven’t really cast it. I mean, I suppose in some level in true soap opera form, it could potentially be a character that’s already on the canvas, but I wouldn’t think that that would be interesting.

Maybe it wouldn’t necessarily need to be someone from the world of daytime? It would be interesting if we found some actors that don’t traditionally work in daytime that would be willing to come in and play what I could only imagine would be a phenomenal storyline.

Well, last time I suggested that Sheila could turn out to be Finn’s mother that that come true. Hopefully, the right people are reading this interview too! I’m not taking full credit, but I did put it out there!

All right!

We’ve discussed your character’s history with Brooke but there’s also Bridget. Do you think there’s more that could be explored there if Ashley Jones came back or even if the show was able to bring back Jennifer Finnigan? The ability to showcase those flashbacks would be incredible.

Absolutely! I loved working with Jennifer Finnigan. She’s a phenomenal actress and I think it would be really interesting if Deacon apologized. Like sincerely apologized for what he did and for possibly be able to get some absolution and forgiveness. He’s no longer this brash young guy. He’s now a much more mature man.

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

He’s also a grandfather now.

Yeah, alright enough about that. [Laughs]

Deacon’s a grandfather. He very much wants to connect with his granddaughter, Beth.

Right, let’s not forget about little Douglas too.

Yes, Douglas too.

There’s also his history with Amber and Little Deacon or Little Eric. Whatever he’s going by these days.

That would be incredible! I mean, what man doesn’t want to know his son? I think that would also be an incredible storyline to see Little D come back onto the canvas. Yeah.

Let’s hope it happens! It’s great to see you back on B&B. It was sad to see you leave General Hospital. Fans were upset to see AJ get killed off yet again. There was another dead Quartermaine and on the show’s anniversary episode no less. It was pretty final as they had AJ walk up those stairs with Emily.

Thank you very much. Listen, this is home to me. It’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in television. I’ve never not once come back and not loved being or not been thoroughly appreciative for the time that I get to spend here. That hasn’t always been the case with other things in my career.

sean kanan interview bold and the beautiful

That’s great! I did want to ask about Studio City, your series about the behind-the-scenes of a soap opera. I know that your fans in the U.S. can watch it on Prime Video, but are there any plans in the works for it to air internationally? We’re not getting it on Prime here in Canada.

We are actually beginning to film Studio City and it’s going to be bigger and better. I can’t wait to do it. I’ve been writing and working on it during the downtime that I get from The Bold and the Beautiful. We are most likely going to wind up selling the show after this next series of episodes that we produce and that will hopefully take it worldwide because there are so many out there who want to see it. An opportunity to sell a show internationally can diminish if you release it on a platform like Prime Video worldwide, so we’ve been sort of strategic about [its release]. But there’s nothing more I want than to introduce to the rest of the world to Sam Stevens and the cast of Studio City.

The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CTV2 and CBS. Canadians can also stream B&B on CTV.ca, the CTV app, and on Crave.    

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