Lesli Kay is beloved by soap fans for her portrayals of Molly Conlon McKinnon on As the World Turns and Felicia Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful. We recently had the opportunity to catch up with her and it was amazing! Keep reading to find out what she’s been up to since leaving The Bold and the Beautiful.
She shared with us that acting wasn’t originally in her plans. Her dad was an orthopedic surgeon and her plan was to follow in his footsteps and go pre-med. “I always wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, total science-medicine head.” Ironically it was her father who encouraged her to pursue acting after seeing her onstage as Patty Simcox in Grease.
“I went to Colorado State, an agricultural school, to follow a boy and ended up in their theater department, which was amazing!” She ended up in New York where she did a lot of smaller parts on many TV shows before landing the role of Molly on As the World Turns, a role that landed her the first of 2 Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2001. Her second Emmy in the same category came 6 years later for her portrayal of Felicia on The Bold and the Beautiful.
When she went back to finish out As the World Turns and her contract status changed with The Bold and the Beautiful she made a decision that changed her life, “2009 and
10. After I went back to finish As the World Turns and then came back to Brad
Bell, who had put me on recurring while I did that, I went
back to school and now I operate and I act. People think I quit and I remind them, I don’t quit anything. I just add things.”
She went on to share, “I’m
right and left-brained so if I’m not doing both, I’m not happy. It’s like a gift
because I work per diem in the medical field, I don’t take a full-time job.”
Lesli was able to combine both her love of science and art in one area of her medical job. “I’m the first assist in plastic surgery, mostly, and I get to do the most. It’s not as cut and dry. If you’re doing a total knee, you’re doing a total knee and you do it pretty much the same
way, every time, but with a tummy tuck or breast aug, you do these surgeries and it’s always an artistic way to figure out how
to close it and make it look good. Especially if people have tattoos. It’s really fun for me to try to put them back together, make the tattoos
look good.”
Lesli opened up and shared with us about the greatest joys in her life, her sons, Jackson and Alec, “I have
to say one thing that in all seriousness, going off the
show, getting divorced, going back to school, doing all of that at the same time,
really taught my boys something great. I have two very independent non-spoiled
children who really care about others. They’re
super good guys.”
This summer she appeared in the Lifetime miniseries Keeping Up With The Joneses, as Captain Frankie O’Neill, a role that was originally supposed to be played by a male but was changed for Kay.
Lesli has an extensive acting resume under her belt but there is one role she has never gotten to play and would love to, a doctor! “I still have never gotten to play a doctor yet and I so should! Best part of daytime is you don’t have to have a specialty. Doctor Bob (Bob Hughes played by Don Hastings) used to
say that on As The World Turns. I asked ‘Are you a heart doctor?’ He said, ‘I am today.’”
Hopefully, we will see Lesli fulfill that dream of playing a doctor on the small screen soon! It was such a joy to talk to her and we hope you enjoyed what she shared with us!
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