Monday, September 24, 2012

Josh Griffith: 'We've Put Away The Ax For A While' at THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

Josh's Griffith's work as new head writer of THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS begins airing next week. In a new interview with TV Guide Magazine he talks about picking up stories where they left off instead of a major reworking of the existing scripts. He also said replacing Lindsay Bushman with Hunter Hayley King as Summer and letting Jennifer Landon go as Heather were the final cast changes. "I think that's it right now. We've put away the ax for a while," Griffith said. He didn't define how long "for a while" meant. Christel Khalil is staying as Lily.

Below are some other interesting tidbits from the interview:

TV Guide Magazine: Did Sony have specific requests as to who got fired?
Griffith: No. They asked Jill and me where we wanted to go with the show. We told them which characters we felt would give us the most heat and which ones wouldn't, and they were fine with our choices. We were inclined to make even more cast cuts but both Sony and CBS wanted to be careful. They felt too much head-lobbing would not bode well for the way the fans see our tenure.

TV Guide Magazine: That brings us to Marcy Rylan. Sure, Maria Bell grew up the character of Abby overnight and launched that crap "Naked Heiress" story, but surely there was value in keeping Rylan, no? She's a real firecracker and she's playing both an Abbott and a Newman!
Griffith: You know what? We did wrestle with that one a lot. It was probably the most difficult choice we had to make, but when we looked at who we needed to tell stories, and looked at a certain bottom-line number we had to get to financially, Marcy had to go. The character wasn't integral.

TV Guide Magazine: How bad is this for the Mustache?
Griffith: There is much at stake for him. He and the Newman family will lose a lot and have to find their way back to reclaiming it. It's going to be a very powerful, very emotional story that — at the risk of sounding pretentious — will be very Shakespearean. Victor finds himself in the position of a King Lear, where he has to put his children to the test to prove he has taught them well. This is all part of the damage Sharon has done, which is physical, professional and emotional.

TV Guide Magazine: Word is, Billy Miller made the decision to leave the show back while Maria was still in charge.
Griffith: I'm not sure that's 100 percent.

TV Guide Magazine: Then this is not just a visit for Jess Walton? This could lead to something longterm?
Griffith: I don't know yet, but I do know Jess is very excited about coming back for this. I would love for it to blossom into an ongoing thing. She's fantastic.

Are you excited about the upcoming plays for Y&R?

3 comments:

  1. Was hoping Tucker would be next to go.

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  2. Sounds like dismissals are being done according to contract cycle dates, so future exits could be up to 26-weeks out.

    And if they actually begin to add ''the Latino element'' (as stated), then there will undoubtedly have to be more cuts, even if they're of the "one-for-one" kind.

    Could this mean we might be seeing some of Rafe's family ;-)

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