Photo Credit: G Toucas/Kathy Hutchins

Viewers of The Bold and the Beautiful knew there was quite the contentious relationship going on between Quinn Fuller (Rena Sofer) and Dollar Bill Spencer (Don Diamont).  After all, she gave birth to his son, and never told him about it, especially since he told her to go get an abortion all those years ago.  Flash forward, Quinn and son Wyatt show up in Los Angeles many years later.  Bill learns he has another son.  Quinn seems to be a little off-her-rocker, or is she really?  But that’s nothing to the story beat shocker that occurred recently when B&B went a bit 50 Shades of Grey on their daytime television audience!

It seems that Quinn and Bill like to get their freak on!  Yup, a little S&M seems to be the order of the day when these two hit the sheets, the floor, or wherever!  After Brooke decided to marry Ridge, a scorned Bill went on bender and who shows up ready to play … Quinn!  Clearly with any passionate disdain for another person, there could be a sexual spark give the right situation, right?  But when their scenes aired recently, it certainly was the talk of the soap world and those on the set of The Bold and the Beautiful!

On-Air On-Soaps sat down with Don Diamont and Rena Sofer to get them their thoughts on playing kinky, what happened when they saw this dangerous liaison in the script, and where they think Quinn and Bill’s “relationship” can go from here! Are they just two peas in a pod who like to journey to the dark side, when alone in a room together?

In this candid chat, Don and Rena give the details of their on-screen romp with self-effacing humor and insight that we found most refreshing … and wildly entertaining.  We think you will too!

MICHAEL:

What was your reaction when they informed both of you that Quinn and Bill are going to have some kinky sexcapades?  What did you think when you saw it back on the air?

DON:

Courtesy/B&B

Depending on how far they were going to take it I thought it was great, but initially it was written differently.  I thought there was more bloodshed in the original.  So that got toned a bit.  I thought that was good.

QUINN:

As it was … it was like watching porn! (Laughs)  I remember when it aired.   I was watching it alone in my living room and I watched it under a pillow! (Laughs)  I could not believe it.  I could not believe I am alone with like a hundred pillows on top of me going, “Oh, my God!”

DON:

It was little Cinemax-ish, not that I watch that stuff!  (Laughs)  But I don’t think daytime has ever done anything quite like this before.

QUINN:

No. We are the first!

DON:

Courtesy/CBS

It’s totally fits in with the history of Bill and his wheel house.  I thought it was absolutely appropriate.  Listen, I think Bill and Brooke could get pretty freaky too!

QUINN:

No way!  No!

DON:

Rena is very territorial about her S&M! (Laughs)

RENA:

(Laughs)  No, because if Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) were anything like that you would have seen it before.

MICHAEL:

Rena, what was your initial reaction that they were making Quinn, of all the characters, go there with Bill?  It certainly seems plausible given what we have gotten to know about Quinn that she is somewhat “twisted”.  (Laughs)

RENA:

Courtesy/CBS

I was like, “Hell yeah!”   I couldn’t wait for many reasons.  Oh wait, I couldn’t wait to touch Donald!  All I think to myself is, ‘My life would yet to be complete if I could be in a hot physical confrontation with Donald!’ (Laughs)  Anyway, for me, my excitement about the story is, I know this hasn’t been done on this show and I know this is new.I want to offer something different to The Bold and the Beautiful which isn’t another character who is pining and crying over this guy and that guy.  I like who Quinn is and the relationship that she has with Bill, and the fact she doesn’t want to marry him.  She doesn’t want to have a relationship with him, but she wants something from him and she is not afraid to go and get it, without being this teary, crying woman.  And so when I read that I thought, ‘This is a very interesting way to go if we can make this work and if he can be in love with Brooke.  This doesn’t touch or change that.  This is this other side that is being fulfilled for both Quinn and Bill that is not a story viewers are used to seeing.

MICHAEL:

It seemed to us that since in an episode that aired back in November, when Quinn cuts Bill in the neck with his little dagger necklace, that the stage was set for this to happen later on down the line.  That was a bit freaky too!  Do you think they planted the seed then?

DON:

Maybe that planted the seed, I don’t know.  She is, after all, the “Quinn of Darkness”. (Laughs)

Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

RENA:

When I originally came on the show we didn’t know where Quinn was going.  What happened is: they started writing all of these crying moments for me and at the beginning, when I started to lose my son, it worked.  Then I started to cry about everything!  I went to the powers-that-be and said, “I don’t do that.  I may not be like other actresses on this show that connect to that type of performance, and who are great at that.  I don’t want to be in competition with that.”  So, I just started to play opposite the lines.  I just took it to a different place and they started writing in that sensibility.  And because they didn’t have a clear story for Quinn in the beginning, I wanted to be clear of who this woman was. Quinn has given everything up for her son and she has never gotten out of that.  She still does everything for her son …everything for his name … and everything for his happiness.  The first time she really steps out of that to do something for herself is with Bill … and that was why it was so exciting for me.  This was the first scene I have done that wasn’t surrounding Wyatt and Hope and Liam.  But it was more like for Quinn, “This is what I want.”

DON:

She has totally been fixated on Bill since she was 17 years-old, but she had to focus on Wyatt instead.

RENA:

Of course!  He’s right!  Quinn was a child when this happened to her.  When Bill happened to her, she was like 17 years-old.  And for me, let’s not forget he was the same age.  So it’s not like Bill was a pedophile.  She has never matured from him in her mind.

DON:

Courtesy/CBS

It certainly makes it lot more interesting.  In my mind, I play that Quinn has been obsessed with Bill since her pregnancy and the break up.  I have to play in my back-story that she was sort of stalker-ish, and he knew she was a bit of freak and over the line from the very beginning.

RENA:

I say, that once Bill opened Quinn’s eyes up to it, she was down for it.

DON:

Bill is clearly a freak, and when we first established him, he was the playboy of playboys!

MICHAEL:

And that he was in actuality going to turn out to be the “Christian Grey” of daytime TV?  (Laughs)

DON:

No, no he wasn’t…

RENA:

Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

I was Christian Grey! (Laughs)

DON:

I think that is something they share in common.  I think that Bill is aware that she is a wild-card from way back, and that she has an obsession, and she has directed it at Wyatt (Darin Brooks) all these years, instead of Bill.  Now she is showing up here.  Now there maybe is more she wants from Bill than she will admit, and even to herself!

MICHAEL:

Isn’t there a moment for Bill, that after he went there with Quinn and had sex with her, that in the aftermath there was a moment of, “Oh, God.  What did I just do?” 

DON:

Oh sure, of course he has been thinking that!

MICHAEL:

So now that Ridge (Thorsten Kaye) didn’t marry Brooke.  Does Bill truly want Brooke back?

DON:

He wants Brooke, and this was a romp to get over Brooke, so he thinks!

MICHAEL:

So why then has Quinn has been acting weird for months … prior to this little S&M binge?

RENA:

Courtesy/CBS

Him!  (Laughs)  We don’t know Quinn’s back-story, or why she appeared on the scene on The Bold and the Beautiful, and what she had to do to survive and succeed in this business.  We don’t know how she made her money and how she bought the jewels for her jewelry, and who she got involved with.  I am hoping we get to tell that at some point in the future so people will understand including myself, why she made the choices that she made.  But until then the story is simple: she fell in love with Bill, he dumped her, she was left with another child, this child was apart of him and she told him, and he gave her money and dropped her off to have an abortion, and told her to get rid of it!  So she projected her obsessions, her love, her neediness, and her growing up on this perfect son, Wyatt.  And by the way, do you not know people in your life who think their children can do no wrong, and are the most perfect things, and yet they are kind of a freak? (Laughs) I am not saying being proud of your child, but I am proud of my children, but I often have this conversation.  My little one said to me, “Mommy, if I ever want to go on American Idol, would you support me in doing it?”  And I said, “If I thought you were an amazing singer, I could encourage you.  If I thought you weren’t, I would encourage you not do to something like that, or train until you could.”  I don’t believe my own personal children, (although I have quite a brilliant child) that they are perfect no matter what. Quinn is a different story.  Quinn thinks Wyatt can do absolutely no wrong, and she would do anything to protect him.

MICHAEL:

Don, did you let your wife watch these sex scenes with you and Rena?  How do you handle something like this with your spouse?  (Laughs)

DON:

Photo Credit: Kathy Hutchins

I will suggest that she not watch, because just the imaginary …. who wants to see that? After I suggest it, then it’s up to her if she chooses to check it out.

RENA:

I had to watch it under a pillow! (Laughs)

DON:

This is what my wife likes to say to my children, “Hey guys! Let’s watch daddy today. Let’s see daddy’s job!”  It’s so funny.  Then, she will freeze the frame it on the TV.

MICHAEL:

Don, what would you say about working with Rena?

DON:

She brings it, and that is the best thing I could say about any actor.  But that is the biggest compliment you can pay any actor.  You’ve got to be ready and you got to be prepared. Rena is prepared weeks in advance.  I think that is a great thing.  Her choices are clear and strong, and she has a great sense of humor.  For me, if you don’t have a sense of humor that’s a problem and that’s important.  We have a lot of fun.

MICHAEL:

Your turn!  What has it been like working with Don?

RENA:

Photo Credit: Getty Images

First of all, I like his little dagger. (Laughs)  When I first got the job at B&B, I told Donald’s cousin, who I am good friends with.  She said, “You are going to love working with Donald.  He is the nicest man you will ever meet.” And honestly for me, I hate working with people that aren’t prepared. I hate working with people who don’t take what they do seriously, or complain about it constantly.  I love the fact that he is also prepared and can do it quicker than me.  I need to prepare days ahead. He can pull it together much faster than I can.  I think it’s because you have been doing this much longer than me! (Laughs)  If I didn’t have Donald’s support, I wouldn’t be able to create this character and if he wasn’t up for the play.  As an actor, you want to play.  You want to be prepared and when you come to set, you want to be able to see what happens.  He always gives back what I am giving him and vice-versa.  That’s what fun about this and it remains to be to this day.

MICHAEL:

Rena, you made such an indelible impression playing such a unique character on daytime soaps, when you portrayed Lois Cerullo on General Hospital.  And now Quinn is turning out to be very unique in her own right.  Are these the types of characters you gravitate towards?

RENA:

I like playing original characters.  I don’t like playing the same character.  I think soap operas tend to have the villain, or have the heroine, or the ingénue, and as actress you need to get out of the box.  So for me and the great thing about (B&B executive producer and head writer) Brad Bell is that he wrote this character and said, “I don’t know what we are going to do with her yet.” And he let me do what I wanted to do, and he watched what I was doing, and he is now moving her towards that and now I am having a blast.   I do like playing somebody you haven’t seen before like Lois Cerullo on General Hospital.  She was an original.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/CBS

What on earth was going on with the crew when both of you were filming the sex scenes?  What were they doing? (Laughs) Did they all gather around to gawk?

RENA:

I will just say this; and by the way, I didn’t know we had that many crew people on our show until we were shooting that! (Laughs)  Afterwards, they move on to the next scene and we are kind of laughing about it and they go, “Wait, wait, and wait.  We have to do the voice over of when Liam walks up and he hears Quinn and Bill going at it.”  They basically wanted to sit us in a room with all these people around us going moaning and groaning and going, “OH, YES!”, and we couldn’t do it.  We were laughing to hard. And B&B producer Ed Scott went, “C’mon, we need to get through the day!” (Laughs)

DON:

So later, I went into ADR doing the audio tracks going, “AHHHH” and moaning and groaning!  (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

Rena, how is Darin Brooks to work with as your on-screen son?

RENA:

Photo Credit: HutchinsPhoto.com

Well, let’s just face facts, that Darin could never be my son.  Other than that, I am having a great time with him, but I am not old enough to be his actual mother.  But I love working with Darin.  He is up for rehearsing and he is up for playing.  Even though I play his mother, the two of them grew up together, so they talk to each other in scenes as friends, and that is what I am really enjoying.  It’s very realistic, you know.  Quinn raised him as she was raising herself, so there is this great camaraderie.

MICHAEL:

Don, where do you want this all to go for Bill?  What do you hope happens next to him?

DON:

Where I want it to go is to keep it interesting with twists and turns and everything like Bill has been through in the last five years.  It has been a great character to play, and he has so many colors.  Brad Bell is the best boss.  He is collaborative, he gives you freedom, and he does work off what you create.  I never know what is coming, or what is around the next corner, which makes it so much fun to play.

MICHAEL:

Rena, what do you hope for Quinn moving forward?  What would you like to see happen to her?

RENA:

What I would like to see happen for Quinn is that I would like to see Bill show up at Quinn’s house one day.  He has a fight with Brooke.  Then he shows up at Quinn’s.  She will make him work for it, but she will definitely take him.  I would love to see that for the fans, so they can see something different.  I think it would be fun to see a different relationship emerge from this experience. But, I would like to see it not be one-sided.  I would like to see her as a freak of nature, and definitely her thinking, “This is not where I want to be, but I do have a couple of hours, and so, why the hell not?”

Courtesy/B&B

MICHAEL:

Some viewers have been concerned that B&B would end up painting Quinn as a psycho, so there becomes nowhere to go with her after they make that full major character turn!  Final thoughts?

RENA:

I don’t think Quinn is crazy. Everyone wants to call her “crazy” and I indulge in what they want to do.  But in my mind when I am playing Quinn, there is nothing psychotic in what she is doing.  She knows exactly what she is doing, and why she is doing it!