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Is the Sixth Time the Charm? The Young and the Restless' Jason Thompson Talks Emmys
The Young and the Restless' Jason Thompson (Billy Abbott; ex-Patrick Drake, General Hospital) has his fingers crossed for the June 26th Daytime Emmys. He received his sixth nomination this year - without a win to date - and is looking to lock down a little gold statue with his excellent work.
He talked about the standalone episode from which he took some of his reel with Michael Fairman TV, sharing:
It was a little bit of both. It was actually done over two days just because of scheduling with everyone coming in and out. It was great. I really enjoyed it. It was something different that I had ever done before, and it was somewhat all encompassing in where you kind of found Billy and him going through the whole range and coming out of it. Anytime you get to work with all of the people that I did in one day is fantastic.
So, it was super fun, I think what was really enjoyable about it was that it was different. I think Sally McDonald directed a lot of it. We were talking back and forth about different background music and different sound structures and everything with the sound guys too. It was fun to collaborate in a bigger, more elaborate way than a usual episode.
Playing the Abbott heir is a constant challenge - in a good way. He added:
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I feel like Billy is constantly evolving. He is always learning, so I am always learning more about him. He is always in new situations, so I am learning how he navigates those kinds of situations and those moments. I mean, is he mine? That’s not necessarily for me to decide. All I can do is what I have tried to do from the beginning, which I felt like I tried to do at GH also, which is to continue to evolve with the character which is part of what I love about daytime; because it is ongoing.
Thankfully, he's in it for the long haul. Thompson talked about his own daytime heroes:
One of the amazing things about this quarantine was being able to sit down and watch The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary. That is a powerful man right there with a psyche to go along with it, and a work ethic, and everything else. Sometimes that’s hard to be around. I’m nowhere near that, but what you can appreciate is that he finds his own little battles inside of him to power him, and those could be positive things, and those could be things that you want to overcome, and for me, you always want to try to be the best in your business.
That’s just what you want to do, and for me, I want to be along those lines. The people who I look up to are: Tony Geary (Ex-Luke, GH) Maurice Benard (Sonny, GH), Eric Braeden (Victor, Y&R) and obviously Peter Bergman (Jack, Y&R), Jane Elliot (Tracy, GH) Eileen Davidson (Ashley, Y&R), Jess Walton (Jill, Y&R). They’re always at the top of their game. So, you want to be among them. You want to be in the same boat with those people, if you will.
