Y&R star says show on ‘cusp of change’ after writers axed
Michael Muhney, the rising star of the CBS daytime soap The Young And The Restless, is coming to B.C. to ask fans how he and the show are doing.
Six weeks ago, the long-running serial drama replaced its writing team, and the results show up in new episodes that started airing this week.
“We’re on the cusp of change and growth and some maturity on the show,” Muhney said Monday from his Los Angeles home.
He’ll be at the West Coast Women’s Show to talk to an audience of fans at 1 p.m. Saturday, and he says he’s interested in hearing their reactions. Producers fired and replaced the show’s writing team over concerns that some plot lines had gotten too out of control. Muhney says this event is special, coming just as the new writing team launches its work.
“It’s great timing to ask people, well, you’ve seen a full week of the new writers, can you tell the difference? It’ll be nice to head back to CBS after the weekend, go back to my bosses and say this is what people out there are thinking.”
The 37-year-old actor, who plays scheming prodigal son Adam Newman, says the show’s heavy shooting schedule means he only manages to get out to meet fans a couple of times a year. The show films six episodes over four days every week, and off-screen Muhney is busy with a young family.
“I don’t have much spare time to catch a plane and go somewhere,” he says. “It’s something I look forward to because it’s exciting for me to interact with the fans and field their questions and comments face to face. It helps inform me, going forward, when I know what the fans are responding to and what they’re excited about.”
The Young And The Restless first aired in 1973 and has been a daytime staple ever since. Muhney joined the cast three and a half years ago, and since then his character has taken a woman’s baby from her, letting her think the baby had died. That didn’t keep Adam and Sharon (actress Sharon Case), the deceived woman, from later having an affair, and then things got even weirder when Sharon married Adam’s father Victor (actor Eric Braeden).
“It saddens me that when you summarize the storyline, the show and some of its recent past sounds like cartoonish passions,” Muhney says. “I don’t think half of those stories needed to happen. I wouldn’t have gone that far in the writing with the baby issue. The Victor and Sharon marriage was almost like an inside joke.”
The arrival of the new writers puts the weird plot turns in the past, Muhney says.
“A lot of the characters on the show are going to have to get a get-out-of-jail-free card, in terms of what happened in the last few years,” Muhney says. “For these characters to have long-term strength and respectability, the audience is going to have to look at them like 85 per cent of what happened in the last few years was a bad dream.”
As well, Muhney’s Adam is moving to the centre of the show’s stories as the writers focus on the show’s younger characters.
“As a proverbial torch is passed on, as in any kind of storytelling or dynasty . . . I think you’re going to see a more mature voice coming out of the characters’ mouths, including Adam, a kind of Adam that most people can get on the side of and cheer for,” Muhney says.
The actor says he never saw Adam as a one-sided villain. “He tends to be a little closed off, but then again, if I were treated the way he was treated by an entire town, I might just close myself off too and not be Mr. Sociable.
“Adam is not the bad guy. Adam is far too complex and far too grey to be defined. Sometimes Adam is the antagonist, sometimes he’s a misunderstood protagonist. There are too many grey areas to put him in a box.”
Meanwhile on the personal front, Muhney and his wife are expecting their third child any day now, “hopefully not the one day that I’m in Vancouver.”
Y&R star says show on ‘cusp of change’ after writers axed
Six weeks ago, the long-running serial drama replaced its writing team, and the results show up in new episodes that started airing this week.
“We’re on the cusp of change and growth and some maturity on the show,” Muhney said Monday from his Los Angeles home.
He’ll be at the West Coast Women’s Show to talk to an audience of fans at 1 p.m. Saturday, and he says he’s interested in hearing their reactions. Producers fired and replaced the show’s writing team over concerns that some plot lines had gotten too out of control. Muhney says this event is special, coming just as the new writing team launches its work.
“It’s great timing to ask people, well, you’ve seen a full week of the new writers, can you tell the difference? It’ll be nice to head back to CBS after the weekend, go back to my bosses and say this is what people out there are thinking.”
The 37-year-old actor, who plays scheming prodigal son Adam Newman, says the show’s heavy shooting schedule means he only manages to get out to meet fans a couple of times a year. The show films six episodes over four days every week, and off-screen Muhney is busy with a young family.
“I don’t have much spare time to catch a plane and go somewhere,” he says. “It’s something I look forward to because it’s exciting for me to interact with the fans and field their questions and comments face to face. It helps inform me, going forward, when I know what the fans are responding to and what they’re excited about.”
The Young And The Restless first aired in 1973 and has been a daytime staple ever since. Muhney joined the cast three and a half years ago, and since then his character has taken a woman’s baby from her, letting her think the baby had died. That didn’t keep Adam and Sharon (actress Sharon Case), the deceived woman, from later having an affair, and then things got even weirder when Sharon married Adam’s father Victor (actor Eric Braeden).
“It saddens me that when you summarize the storyline, the show and some of its recent past sounds like cartoonish passions,” Muhney says. “I don’t think half of those stories needed to happen. I wouldn’t have gone that far in the writing with the baby issue. The Victor and Sharon marriage was almost like an inside joke.”
The arrival of the new writers puts the weird plot turns in the past, Muhney says.
“A lot of the characters on the show are going to have to get a get-out-of-jail-free card, in terms of what happened in the last few years,” Muhney says. “For these characters to have long-term strength and respectability, the audience is going to have to look at them like 85 per cent of what happened in the last few years was a bad dream.”
As well, Muhney’s Adam is moving to the centre of the show’s stories as the writers focus on the show’s younger characters.
“As a proverbial torch is passed on, as in any kind of storytelling or dynasty . . . I think you’re going to see a more mature voice coming out of the characters’ mouths, including Adam, a kind of Adam that most people can get on the side of and cheer for,” Muhney says.
The actor says he never saw Adam as a one-sided villain. “He tends to be a little closed off, but then again, if I were treated the way he was treated by an entire town, I might just close myself off too and not be Mr. Sociable.
“Adam is not the bad guy. Adam is far too complex and far too grey to be defined. Sometimes Adam is the antagonist, sometimes he’s a misunderstood protagonist. There are too many grey areas to put him in a box.”
Meanwhile on the personal front, Muhney and his wife are expecting their third child any day now, “hopefully not the one day that I’m in Vancouver.”
Y&R star says show on ‘cusp of change’ after writers axed