After 35 years as Eric Forrester and five Daytime Emmy nominations, The Bold and the Beautiful's John McCook finally took home the gold for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in 2022. Now, the veteran soap actor has been nominated for a sixth time in a year in which his character faced his most dramatic life-and-death situation yet.
McCook chose that storyline to highlight on his Emmy reel, describing the tale as "a wonderful, rich, full storyline that was, really different for me to play. It had to do with, with, you know, mortality and, and, a mature character, having to deal with that."
So, how did the actor choose what scenes from that story to submit?
"First of all, you needed to tell the story," McCook told Soap Central of how he chose which scenes to submit to the television academy. "You know, a lot of people that are looking at these reels are not fans of the show, so they don't know us, and they don't know our relationships the way fans do. Sometimes there'll be like little subtleties in the scenes that, that the fans of the show would enjoy and really love and that other people would go over their head or they wouldn't even, you know, notice it."
Eric's journey from returning to his Forrester Creations office to discovering that his family knew he was dying, as well as what they did to make his supposed final days exactly as he dreamed was both fascinating and emotional. McCook took Emmy voters along for the ride.
"So, I showed a piece with Eric and Ridge loving each other in the office when Eric was very happy to be behind his desk again and Ridge trying not to let his father know that he was aware his father was dying and then, and then them supporting one another in a very loving way so that we can see in the next scenes," McCook continued.
The actor finished telling his Emmy reel story with Eric telling Donna he feared death, followed by the character's grand soiree realization that Ridge had allowed him to believe he had won their design contest.
"The next scene was when Eric was asking Donna at home...He was going to hide that from everyone and then she was helping him and then he admitted to her how frightened he was to die," McCook explained. "The last scene is the one in the party when Eric is speaking to everybody, and then he comes to Ridge and realizes that Ridge and everyone has been hiding from him that they know the truth and that Ridge lied to him about the fashion challenge."
McCook was at lunch with old Hollywood friend Jerry Lacy when he learned that story earned him another Emmy nod. That news got Soap Central's Dan J Kroll thinking of another lunch -- the one in which the best actress Emmy winner from the previous year hosts a luncheon for the current nominees in the category. Has McCook ever thought of the actors doing the same thing and starting a new Emmy tradition?
"I think that's probably a pretty good idea," McCook enthused. "Where we are at Television City in Hollywood, we used to have a really nice restaurant next door. You could go through the gate over there and be in the bar in about 30 seconds, you get from the set to the bar, and that would be nice, but that's gone now, so it's not as convenient as it should be. But, you know, [fellow nominee] Eric [Braeden, Y&R] is right there and the three of us, and then it's about Eric Martsolf. So, you know, I don't know where he lives. I don't know him. In fact, I was just composing an email to him this morning to congratulate him and say hi. So, maybe we'll work something out. I think a pool hall is not a good idea because I'm not sure I wanna put a pool cue in Eric Braeden's hands, but otherwise, I think raising a pint with my buddies would be really fun."
Finally, McCook is grateful to the B&B audience for their support through the years. Even after playing Eric for so long, he still gets a kick out of meeting fans.
"You know, that's what's exciting about being on television. You forget that there are millions of people all over the world watching your show, and I meet people. When we go overseas, it's always exciting to have people react to us when we're walking down the street," McCook said. "It's always fun here in L.A., too, to have a man or a woman come up to us who has a very strong accent from somewhere else. Yesterday, a woman from Iran came up to me with her baby on her arm, and she was very beautiful and pretty and enthusiastic, and she told me that she loved me on the show...And I love having encounters with people who know me from the show, out and about. It's really fun."
Did you think McCook had some great material to submit this year? What should be Eric's next chapter after defying death? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
