NEED TO KNOW
Jack Wagner opens up to PEOPLE about his return to The Bold and the Beautiful 13 years after his initial run on the series
Wagner says being back on set with his castmates was like a “class reunion”
Wagner teases how his character Nick will try to reconnect with Katherine Kelly Lang’s Brooke as she navigates her relationship with Thorsten Kaye’s Ridge
For Jack Wagner, coming back to The Bold and the Beautiful was like diving headfirst into a pond he knows very well.
“I would probably describe it as a class reunion,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively of returning to the soap opera this summer. Wagner played Nick Marone on the series from 2003 to 2012. Outside of a brief appearance on the show in 2022, this summer, he makes his big return to the CBS soap.
“Soaps, how they roll now, move pretty quick. So I sort of jumped on this moving train. And you’ve got this window of time to reconnect and check in, and then you kind of get right to work,” he says.
Mauro Sostini, Bell-Phillip Productions
Jack Wagner on the set of ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ in Italy
Wagner, 65, says it was “great” to again work with Katherine Kelly Lang, who plays Brooke, and teases that his character will “surprise” her as “her heart’s breaking” because of Thorsten Kaye’s Ridge.
“Coming back to a show like this, the goal for me is to make an impact,” he explains. The “key” to Nick right now, he says, is that he’s “immovable” and “afraid of nothing.” Nick runs Marone Industries now and is an “internationally known” shipping tycoon.
He has “one goal,” Wagner says: “To get Brooke to wake up to the insanity that she’s been in for so long.” For Nick, Ridge is a “fly on my shoulder.” Ridge and Brooke’s dynamic might be complicated, but it’s “totally uncomplicated” for Nick.
CBS via Getty
Katherine Kelly Lang (left) and Jack Wagner on ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ during his original run
Wagner notes that soap operas move at a grueling pace — on The Bold and the Beautiful, he might film 29 pages of dialogue in one day — but he’s used to jumping into shows that are already running. He did that when he joined General Hospital in 1984 as Frisco Jones, which he calls “my first big break,” and he did it again when he joined Melrose Place in season 3 as Dr. Peter Burns.
“I’ve always been pretty confident in terms of myself as a performer,” he says. “When you’re in that place, the only thing that can really intimidate you is if you’re not prepared. And I was always very prepared.” Still, he admits it can be “a little nerve-wracking” in early days.
As for how his return came about, Wagner says it all began when he ran into executive producer Bradley Bell at a golf course. He told Bell, 60, that he was heading to Italy this summer, where the show has a massive fan base and has filmed many times.
“He says, ‘Hey, what do you think of a summer story arc?’ ” Wagner remembers. “ ‘I think we want to do a remote shoot in Naples and at Capri. And we can wind this all up with Nick and the shipping company and Brooke.’ ” Wagner said yes.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Wagner says the first time he did a press tour in Europe for the series, which has a loyal international audience, he was amazed by the fans’ passion. “It’s like you’re the Rolling Stones in Italy,” he says, adding it reminded him of the “frenzy around General Hospital” in the 1980s.
Though right now Nick is only set to appear this summer, Wagner teases there is a “possible future here for Nick with Brooke.” He adds he’s “blessed” to work on The Bold and the Beautiful and Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart at the same time.
Wagner makes his The Bold and the Beautiful on June 16.
Read the original article on People
