Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Recently, On-Air On-Soaps caught up with The Young and the Restless’ Daniel Goddard (Cane) at the 38th Anniversary on set bash for the number one soap.  Only on one crutch now from his serious moped accident a few months back, Goddard spoke about the fan outcry to keep him on Y&R, Cane’s death scenes, playing a “ghost”, working with Aussie co-star, Tristan Rogers, and teases us that things are looking pretty A-OK for his future in Genoa City.

Note: This interview was conducted before the announcement of Genie Francis being signed to the show to portray Cane’s mother, and also Y&R does not permit their actors to reveal or foreshadow to much story to protect the integrity of their upcoming storylines.  So with all that said, here is our “quickie” chat with Daniel! Enjoy!

Fans are so pissed off that Cane was “killed-off”, and have not been able to get a grasp on the situation, because you are on-air as a “vision” of Lily’s, or maybe that is not the case. What did you think when you saw the outcry of the enormity and popularity of Cane and Lily?

DANIEL: I am really humbled by it. And, the petitions! There was a petition being passed around in Virginia that went door to door and 39,000 people signed that.  It is overwhelming. The humbling thing about it is to me; is that you do a job like this and not only do you love the job, but you love your fans.  I do personal appearances and I meet my fans and I am genuinely honored that they come out to say “hello” and just to see me.  It’s so fantastic to see that they give it back. To me, this was something I never, ever expected.

On the record, what would you say about the situation that was reported and rumored about, that first you were let-go, and then you were staying on Y&R?

DANIEL: I don’t know what happened.  I am just really happy to be here and work with these people. I love the cast and the crew, and I am happy as hell right now.

What did you think of Cane’s very bloody death scenes after he was shot?

DANIEL: I am a realist which his how I function.  I think that is one of the reasons also that I continually place myself in situations where I should be like; “just be quiet and just do what you are told.” But to me, you shoot someone in the heart with a bullet, there is going to be a lot of blood!

Was it hard to just lay there when people were acting circles around you as they found Cane on the steps, taking what appears to be his last breath?

DANIEL: No. You know for me, I did the research. After you get shot in the heart you have thirty seconds before you’re dead.  I thought, OK, well I did the research on how your body reacts muscularly, how much control do you have, what is your breathing like. For me when we shot the scenes, I just tried to play it as if it was real. He can’t breathe; he can’t function, and also the massive trauma and the amount of adrenaline that would pump through the body, because of the shock, you would just be in a state that would be mind-boggling. For me, it made perfect sense, and the whole thing was so surreal. Jess Walton (Jill) was wonderful.  I mean, blood on her wedding dress and on her breast, and her exterior. And Christel Khalil (Lily) is such a great actress, and what I like about how Christel played the material after it happened is there are two ways you can play it. One way would be to play hysterical, but after awhile that gets a little note.  I think what she did with it was she chose her moments of disbelief, confusion, and then on top of that the realization of that this is true. Now, I have to be there for my children, so I cannot fall apart.  I cannot allow myself to unravel, because if I do, who is going to be there for the babies.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

It was like to the audience she was playing against unraveling, which is something someone would do faced with her set of circumstances.

DANIEL: You fall apart on your own and that is what they called in acting school, “playing the opposite”. You see a drunken person walking along trying to act sober. You rarely see a drunken person walking along going, “I’m drunk”.  They are fighting it all the way. They don’t want anyone to know their drunk. So in Christel’s case, playing the opposite was a very strong thing for her, and then she has moments of letting it all out.

What did you think when the powers-that-be told you, you are going to make appearances now as a “ghost” to Lily now? Were you like, “What is going on?” Or, did you know?

DANIEL: I knew that there was something in the cauldron of promise.  The thing I like about our head writer, Maria Bell’s storytelling is she finds ways to surprise everybody.  There is a lot of storytelling where you see something happened that you expect to happen, especially, with Cane being shot and when I found out that was happening. I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible.  For it to work, it had to be kept quiet. And, I was very impressed the show’s ability to keep that quiet.

They kind of did a good job and that, meaning the fans and the press and everyone kind of really did not know what was going to happen and were kept slightly off their toes on this one. It certainly put Daniel Goddard and Cane out there in a major way to pique interest level for how this all might resolve.

DANIEL: I was honored to beyond all of that.  If you are going to kill a character, or shoot a character, to know that it’s not just done, and that there is actually a structure around it is great. And, what I think is interesting is several fans sent me the ratings for the day that Cane got shot, and we got a 4.0.  I think it had a very strong resonance.

How had it been working with Tristan Rogers (Colin)?

DANIEL: Tristan is great. It’s like working with Jeanne Cooper (Katherine) in a way, because when you work with someone really experienced it brings the work to a whole other level. Then when you get to work with Tristan who is Australian, it is funny. I live in America, and I have lived here for 14 years, but there is always this underlying of, “Oh-oh, I said the wrong thing. Oh-oh, that was taken the wrong way”, or, “Oh-oh, I did not mean to say that and offend you.”  If I was back in Australia we would laugh and have a joke, but here I sort of put my foot in my mouth. So you bring Tristan into the mix, and he gets it. (Laughs) We can get away with saying disastrous things to each other which mean nothing.  But it creates a father/son rapport, which I think had a lot of promise and was a wonderful dynamic.  I am really happy that Tristan is now on contract, and he is here.  It was a very smart decision to keep him.

Did you know all along how beloved you are in the industry and to the viewers of Y&R?

DANIEL: No, I didn’t.  You see polls on Soaps In Depth and Soap Opera Digest. Someone sent me a link that said we were 95 weeks at number one couple and actor in Soap Opera Digest as Cane and Lily. I am like, “95 weeks voted number one in Soap Opera Digest. That is amazing.”

How are you now after your moped accident from your adventures on the Soap Cruise a few months ago?  You are on only one crutch now.

DANIEL: I am one crutch now. It was pretty impressive accident. I had friends say you should contact the gas station and get the video surveillance tape.  I hit the car, I had no speed. I go off the car. I hit the windshield and I am lucky I put a helmet on.  I cracked the windshield and then I cracked the helmet, and went over the car. I was so lucky because the car was at the gas station being filled with gas, and the lady was sitting in the car or I would have just broken her in half. I hit the gas pump that goes into the car with my leg and snapped the medal gas pump and broke it half…and it left the stout in the car and snapped the handle off.  That is how hard I hit it.  I am lucky. I feel someone is looking over me.  I am telling you, I am a lucky man.