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Who has been consistently captivating soap opera audiences with her mesmerizing performances of Patty Williams and Emily Peterson, and let’s not forget, when Patty was pretending to be a woman named Mary Jane Benson?  Who kept us on the edge of our seats through most of 2009, and into 2010, not knowing whether we were going to scream in horror, or cry for her sad existence?   Who got snubbed for an Outstanding Supporting Actress nomination for the 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards?  And finally, who is really the cat’s meow?  Well, the answer is quite simply, actress Stacy Haiduk from The Young and the Restless.

Now, with Patty locked up and regressed to a little girl, and Emily falling apart at the seams trying to get her own life back, and Adam’s “murder” still not close to being solved, Stacy Haiduk is still turning out riveting performances.  On-Air On-Soaps caught up with Stacy to talk about: Kitties, Emmy reels, competition, the heartbreak of playing Patty, working with her co-stars, Doug Davidson (Paul) and Peter Bergman (Jack), and how her actor husband, Bradford Tatum, was a calming and steady force during some of Stacy’s most traumatic on-set days.

And in the end, find out who does Stacy think is truly the better psychologist, Emily or the deranged Patty?  Her answer may surprise you.  It’s always great to speak with the emotionally raw and edgy Ms. Haiduk, and I hope you will enjoy her even more after reading her revealing comments below.

MICHAEL:

Ok, Stacy let’s get right to this.  Your Emmy snub is probably one of the most talked about in the history of the Daytime Emmy nominations.  Everyone was certain that you were a lock for your performance as Emily/Patty/Mary Jane this past year, and unfortunately it did not happen.  How are you feeling at this moment?  It has to be extremely, extremely disappointing for you.

STACY:

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It was shocking, and I was really disappointed.  I was excited about it because I really wanted to be a part of this group this year.  And you have to also know it is what it is.  I always have to say that I still won in my own mind because of the people I got to work with, and it’s continuing, and that is a success right now.  I know that is not the disappointing part of how I am feeling, but I try not to go into that part of it.  It’s hard.  You sit there and go, “Was my tape not good enough?  Or, what happened?”

MICHAEL:

What reel did you decide to submit for Emmy contention?

STACY:

I submitted the remote with Eric Braeden as Victor, and Peter Bergman as Jack, and I had the gun   Patty was getting upset with Jack for not seeing her as his wife and loving her, and feeling how could he do that?  I thought it had enough emotional levels to show where I could go as an actress.  It sucks that you can’t have two shows to show your work.  One show is not easy to do to choose from.  You have the build up in one, and the finale in the other, which is why I like the idea of two tapes.  However, I thought this is enough to get me in.  I am working with two leading actors, and I thought it would be a good enough tape to show people.  You just kind of go, “OK.  Or, maybe the wig scared them!”  You know, the blonde wig! (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

This whole Emmy judging process is as much of a game as about the performance itself.  Do you think it hurt you that perhaps the blue ribbon panel could not follow the story, as it is taken out of context?  They do not know what happened before or after those scenes.

STACY:

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Right.  No, they don’t see the arc, and don’t see what is going on.  A lot of times you have your friends who have been working to be nominees for so long, and they finally get in, and it’s like, you know what?  They deserve it.  Maybe next year, it will work for me.

MICHAEL:

I think you have received more emails, letters, and have certainly become talked about more than anyone ever online, about someone not getting a nod.  Somehow, the Emmy snub got you more publicity than someone who was nominated for Lead Actress!

STACY:

The publicity has been more than if I got a nomination.  It’s crazy, isn’t it?  You know what I love?  It’s when I went on facebook and just read so many people’s thoughts, and how they love the character, and you can’t beat that.  I have to go back to why I do this and the process of it all.  Yes, it would have been fun to get all dressed up, and hope you can win one of the most beautiful awards.  It’s one of my favorites, actually.  But, I have had a really good time and it continues again.  The fans see that, and that is really what this is about.

MICHAEL:

If you were to have been nominated, would Mr. Kitty have accompanied you to Vegas?  Last year, you wore him as a shoulder bag to the red carpet.

STACY:

Yes.  I would have come with Mr. Kitty, and we could put him on wheels.  It would have been awesome.

MICHAEL:

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But, let’s talk about these recent amazing scenes that aired.  Did you like how they resolved the end of the Patty/Emily final switcheroo?

STACY:

I finally ended up watching it.  Usually, I don’t because I am very critical of myself.  I finally watched it because somebody said to me, “Have you seen your scenes?”  And I said, “No, I haven’t,” and so I did.  And I was sad!  I was sad the last time Patty went to an insane asylum. I like Patty, even though she is crazy and whacked-out. The wig was scary. (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

Patty regressed back into her little childhood self.

STACY:

Didn’t it just break your heart?  Me, too.  It did also when Mr. Kitty died.  You have to understand, when they told me Mr. Kitty, in my script, gets chewed up by Zapato, I went like, “You’ve got to be joking with me?”  I mean, I literally went through withdrawals because I had been working with that cat for so long.  I know that sounds silly.  But, I get heart to heart with my co-stars, and here it was again.  I love working with Doug Davidson. He is such a joy, and Peter, also.  And, when I got to look at him in the end, my hair looked like crap, and it was all going to one side, but there was this look.  When you are in it, you don’t see what other people are seeing.  So, when I was able to see it from the audience’s perspective, I went “Oh, my God!  That poor thing, and what she went through.”  All she wanted was that man to love her, and how desperate and sad she is at the same time.  I got weepy.

MICHAEL:

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I said to Doug Davidson recently, that if you were to take your story with him, as a brother and sister, as an isolated story, you could see that as a motion picture.  It is such a beautiful story.

STACY:

I think that is why they continued it.  It taps into so many people’s relationships with family.  I look at his eyes when we work, and there is that love… that brotherly and sisterly love…and we root for each other.  So if one makes a mistake in the line, the other one of us tries to figure out what the person is going to say.  It’s wonderful!

MICHAEL:

And now on-air, Emily is having all sorts of psychological problems!  Is this now just an adjustment issue for her?  I mean, she is so pissed off that Jack can’t tell the difference between her and Patty in bed, which I think is great!

STACY:

I know, it’s so crazy.  Thank God.  I am so glad they brought that up.  I mean, how can you not?   Even Patty says it in my Emmy tape; she says to Jack, “How could you not know I was your ex-wife?  Are you that blind?” And then here, Emily says pretty much the same thing to him, “How could you not know that was not me?   How could you do that?”  Emily now has to take some time and figure this out.  She gets screwed from every which way, from all the stuff that Patty did.  She is trying to hold it together, and she is not one to just emote, while Patty is the most emotional and runs with it.  Emily is stoic and trying to hold it together.

MICHAEL:

Do you think Emily is even a good psychiatrist?  Or, is Patty a better one? (Laughs)

STACY:

I think Patty was. “Go to your Happy Place!” (Laughs)  The woman playing opposite me, who was one of Emily’s patients says to Patty, “What do you mean? Go to my Happy Place?  As Stacy, “I went, yeah; go to your Happy Place. What else do you want to do?”  That is what a therapist would say, except, maybe, “I understand.”  (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

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Will we see Patty again, perhaps more and more?  Is the doppelganger story really over?

STACY:

Maybe.  All I can say is that I love Patty, and doppelganger may not be over. We shall see.

MICHAEL:

You must have gone home to your family completely exhausted some days, after the emotional toll it takes on an actress to play very complex dual roles that border on insanity or the edge of insanity.

STACY:

When I was going through all the stuff with Patty and Emily at the end, and the whole knife thing, that was the first time Peter and I were going to get off work early.  I am referring to the scene where Patty stabs the portrait of Emily.  She goes to town. We were jamming through the scenes, and the last part where I open the dang cutter I cut my hand!  So, I had to go get stitches.  So, Peter and I are at the doctor’s office.  Even the stage manager said, “And, you didn’t stop the scene?  You kept going with it?”  And I go, “I can’t stop.”   But now the stitches are out and healing and I am fine.  But, that was the first time I had to call my husband and say, “I just want you to know, I won’t be home by ten today.  I am going to the hospital to get stitches.”  And, he is like, “What?”  I said, “Well, they had this box cutter, and you know me with props.”  I have this thing where I go with it.  And even before they gave me the prop on set, they said to me, “Are you going to be OK with this?”  You see, I have a tendency to go overboard, like when I was stabbing the little picture with the baby scissors in the hospital scene.  That time, I ended up stabbing the baby scissors into my hands.  The prop guys were like, “Um, Stace. You’ve got to know…”   I am going to be so conscious of it, but it’s hard when your adrenaline is going.  I get done with the scenes, and then I go, “Oh, God.”

MICHAEL:

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What did your husband, actor Bradford Tatum, think of all this?  Was he a big support to you during the emotionally draining material?

STACY:

He has been a big support.  I come home, and yeah, we don’t have long, long evenings because of the emotional dynamics of these two characters, Emily and Patty, and because when I come home I have to work on my script for the next day.  I mean, I would literally call home and say, “Honey, I need cuddly.  I need you to be tender with me because I am so fragile.”  But I love going to these places, and sometimes it’s really difficult, but it’s a good challenge, and I am sure you do this, too, Michael.  You like to see how far you can push yourself.

MICHAEL:

Yes, I do push myself.  But you are super competitive, right?

STACY:

Your body and your mind want to work well, and so yeah, I am competitive.  And my husband laughs at me about it.  But, I think that’s what keeps me going, and doing what I do.

MICHAEL:

Will you be on-air as Emily for a while?   Many fans are concerned of where the Y&R writing team will go next with all of this.  Could that spell the end for Stacy Haiduk on Y&R?

STACY:

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No, you are not losing me as Emily.  I think it touches people.  It’s this beautiful balance of creating something from the writer’s point of view, the actor’s point of view, and it’s all-creative, and that is what is so amazing.  I think people feel that from the outside, too.  It’s not just watching something and going, “Yeah, that was a great performance”.  These are daily performances and I think people love to watch Emily or Patty and what she will do next.  It’s very complex.

MICHAEL:

OK, so if I was producing a Stacy Haiduk tribute reel of the best moments of your performance last year on Y&R, and I had three and half minutes to feature you, tell me what would be on that?  What would you choose?

STACY:

You have to start out with Mr. Kitty, and having that performance with a dead stuffed cat was pretty fabulous.  I really like that kind of material.  I would go in to this January with shows where Patty goes back to the switcheroo, when she puts Emily into the nut house and then looks in the mirror and dyes her hair. And still one of my other favorite scenes is the remote with Kitty Kitty.  It was with Paul and Patty.  She is turning herself in and she has to give up Kitty Kitty.  I know they are silly scenes, but they get to me sometimes.

MICHAEL:

What about the great Patty and Adam scenes?  There were so many great ones towards the end before his “murder”.  And, we still never know if Patty has something more to reveal about what went on the night Adam was “killed”.

STACY:

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Everything’s a possibility, and you just never know.  I like working with Michael Muhney (Adam).  We have a good time. Michael and I click with each other, because we were both new to the show.  I was thrilled to have scenes with him in the potting shed, and those were fun.  I even liked when I go to Adam in the hospital and Patty is pretending to be Emily and she pinches him in the hospital and says, “You know, I just want to see if you are faking it or not.” I love those scenes. I love the way Michael plays right off of me. I have a soft spot for Michael because of that.

MICHAEL:

As we end this little chat, tell me what can I relate back to the many, many fans and admirers of your work, day in and day out.  Are you really doing OK?  We all want to give you a giant hug!  So, since I am here with you now, here is a hug representing everyone’s embrace of your outstanding performance this past year.

STACY:

I am doing great.  I got through my disappointment.  I am here to support The Young and the Restless. I am thrilled that the actors I work with on a daily basis both got nominated. (Laughs).  No, really I am.  So, maybe we will see what happens next year with that, but right now when I work, I am happy.