For years, one iconic soap opera star has been the face of his TV show. But he almost quit much earlier into the show's run.
Videos by Wide Open Country
Eric Braeden has starred as Victor Newman on the soap opera, The Young and the Restless, since the '80s. He's been apart of the soap opera for so long that it is hard to imagine what it might have looked like without him.
But according to Braeden, he almost left after a year on the show, as he told Still Here Hollywood.
"They had gotten to a point where I wanted to leave the show after about a year," he also said. "I couldn't stand the medium, to be frank with you. It is daunting. It's the hardest medium there is. I've done them all. It is relentless, ruthless."
Soap Opera Star Almost Quit
The fast nature of the soap opera was taking its toll. As an actor, he was cramming pages and pages of scripts into his head every day with little room for considering his performance. "So it doesn't leave much room for 'How do you think I should play this?' " he said. "...It gives you no time. You just constantly cram."
However, he decided to stay on the show after the creator worked with him to give his character new shades. Braeden was tired of playing one dimensional villians after appearing on Gunsmoke, The Six Million Dollar Man and Wonder Woman.
"I said, 'Bill, I can't do this anymore. I've played bad guys for too many years. Too dehumanizing. It's boring,'" Braeden said. "I was bored with that s---." Fortunately for audiences, Braeden figured out his character. It helped when he was paired with Melody Thomas Scott on the show. That offered him the chance to add new shades to the character.
"I was a mysterious person, very wealthy, but she didn't know anything about my background. I was always very cagey about it," he also said. "And one Christmas Eve, I told her where I came from: an orphanage. And once I did that scene, I said, 'No, I'm staying,' because it opened up huge possibilities that you could go in psychologically," Braeden said.
The rest was soap opera history. He stayed on the show for close to 50 years, creating one of the most iconic characters in the process.
