Peter Bergman, best known for playing Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless and winning multiple Daytime Emmy Awards for the role, is the latest guest on the Soapy podcast.
During the episode, hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart, Bergman opens up about his All My Children days, the lasting impact that show still has on him, his move to the CBS daytime drama, relocating to Los Angeles for the role, and so much more.
Reflecting on his early days at Y&R, Bergman admits it was not easy stepping into the role.
“It wasn’t made easy for me,” he says. “The people I worked with were really very fond, I think, of Terry Lester, the fellow who played the role before. And that’s as lonely as I’ve ever been working. It was six months of I don’t know if I’m going to break in here. I don’t know if this is going to happen.”
Finding his footing may have started when he won his first Emmy for the role, followed by another the next year. Today, he can definitely call the place home.
Early Tension With Eric Braeden
Bergman also recalls that he and Eric Braeden, who plays Victor Newman, experienced some tension in the beginning.
“There was tension there,” he explains. “In fairness to Eric, Jack Abbott wasn’t kind of naturally who I was. Today he is. Jack was a real cat. He was a womanizing, manipulating cat of a guy. He was not very kind. And so for me it required that I kind of steel myself in a way that I could bring some cocky to the set. So I brought a lot of cocky to the set. And I’m sure Eric probably looked over and thought, ‘Who is this Mr. Cocky here?’”
He continued, “Eric and I always worked very differently. So early on, there was some real conflict there. That definitely made the transition harder, and I worked pretty exclusively with Eric and Melody for my first two years there, besides the Abbott family part of it. It was an experience. We’re great friends today. We get along very well today.”
Peter Bergman also discusses his first role outside of daytime in over 20 years in the Vince Gilligan series Pluribus. He describes the unique technical challenge of acting toward a camera for a television screen rather than another actor.
Bergman also spoke about that powerful standalone episode he did with Melody Thomas Scott, the one centered on Nikki’s struggle with alcoholism. It remains one of the most memorable performances of his run.
Watch the full interview below!
Photo Credit: CBS Broadcasting Inc.
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