As The Bold and the Beautiful gears up to celebrate four decades on the air, another celebration is on the horizon.
Longtime soap veteran Heather Tom returned to The Buzz ahead of this year’s Daytime Emmy Awards, where she is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Daytime Drama Series and, for the first time, as part of the show’s writing team.
But as we started talking, another milestone came into focus: next year will mark 20 years since Tom first appeared as Katie Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful.
“That’s bananas,” Tom told me when I reminded her of the anniversary. “I can’t even wrap my head around that.”
Looking back at everything that has happened to this character makes 20 years seem almost impossible. Heather feels much the same way.
“It’s like the vortex,” she said. “Time goes by and you don’t even—you blink and suddenly it’s been 20 years.”
One of the things I wanted to explore with Heather was what has kept Katie interesting after all these years. Her answer came down to something daytime television can do better than almost any other genre: history.
Katie’s past hasn’t simply disappeared when one storyline ends and another begins. Her heart transplant remains part of her. Her postpartum depression remains part of her. The insecurities she carried as the Logan sister who once lived in the shadows of Brooke and Donna are still there, even though Katie has grown considerably beyond the woman she once was.
“She’s been able to find her voice and her own ambition and what she wants,” Heather explained. “She’s been this kind of inner strength.”
Heather even pointed to the scar from Katie’s heart transplant, which is still applied whenever wardrobe makes it visible. Some viewers have apparently wondered why Katie wouldn’t simply have the scar removed.
Heather doesn’t want that.
“This is part of who she is,” she said. “I don’t want to forget about it.”
Heather compared Katie’s major experiences to those moments in our own lives that permanently change how we see the world. Katie’s heart transplant, postpartum depression and relationship with Bill Spencer didn’t just happen to her. They changed her.
Katie has certainly generated some strong opinions lately, particularly because of her behavior toward Dylan and her protectiveness over Will. Heather knows some viewers believe Katie is going too far. However, she sees considerably more happening beneath the surface.
Katie has recently experienced something that Heather believes wounded her in a way even some of the biggest betrayals in her past did not: Brooke and Donna told her they were no longer sisters.
Even during the Bill and Brooke saga, as painful as it was for Katie, Heather pointed out that the Logan sisters never went that far.
“They’ve never said, ‘You’re not my sister,'” she told me.
And that led Heather to a fascinating interpretation of one of The Bold and the Beautiful’s most memorable triangles.
For all the attention placed on Bill’s relationships with Katie and Brooke, Heather believes the real love story underneath that entire storyline was actually between the two sisters.
“I felt like the real love story was actually between Katie and Brooke,” she said. “I feel like the triangle was really between Katie and Brooke and the relationship between the two sisters.”
Katie could eventually forgive Brooke because, despite everything that happened between them, losing that relationship completely would mean losing part of herself. The Logan sisters have hurt each other, fought with each other and betrayed each other, but that family bond has survived.
Heather believes hearing Brooke and Donna essentially sever that relationship has profoundly hurt Katie, and that pain is feeding some of the anger viewers are seeing onscreen.
“She’s angry, but mostly hurt,” Heather said.
Enter Will. Katie’s reaction to Dylan doesn’t exist in a vacuum, either. Heather also connects it to everything that happened between Will and Luna. She didn’t mince words about what her character’s son experienced.
“He was assaulted. I mean, let’s just be honest. He was assaulted.”
For Katie, Heather believes that experience created another layer of guilt. Katie sees protecting her son as one of her most fundamental responsibilities, and she feels she failed to do that.
“Her job was to protect him, and she didn’t,” Heather said, becoming emotional as she talked about Katie’s perspective. “Or at least she feels like she didn’t.”
Heather also sees Katie looking at Dylan and recognizing characteristics that remind her of Brooke—a woman Katie loves but who has also hurt her deeply by pursuing what she wanted regardless of the consequences.
Add together what happened to Will, Katie’s guilt over failing to protect him, and the devastating fracture with Brooke and Donna, and Heather sees a woman responding from years of accumulated pain.
Of course, you can’t spend 20 years talking about Katie Logan without talking about Bill Spencer.
Heather and Don Diamont’s history actually stretches back much further than The Bold and the Beautiful. The two knew each other during their years at The Young and the Restless, when Heather played Victoria Newman and Diamont played Brad Carlton.
Heather believes that history helped when they were eventually paired as romantic leads on B&B.
“I’ve known him since I was 15,” she said, explaining that their years of knowing one another created an implicit trust between them as actors.
That connection is something she still brings to Katie and Bill regardless of whether the characters are together.
“Bill will always be the love of Katie’s life,” Heather said. “She will always love him.”
That’s why, she explained, his ability to hurt Katie has always been so profound. Even when the show sends them toward different relationships, Heather believes there is a bond between the two characters that doesn’t disappear.
Heather’s work on The Bold and the Beautiful now extends far beyond playing Katie.
She has directed episodes of the series and joined its writing team, giving her the rare opportunity to work in front of the camera, behind it and on the page. This year, those different parts of her career intersected in an episode she wrote, directed and acted in.
Pulling that off required considerable preparation.
Because B&B’s director normally works from the booth calling camera shots, Heather couldn’t physically perform onstage and operate from the booth simultaneously. Another director therefore executed the camera moves according to Heather’s script while she used monitors onstage during rehearsal to watch the shots and make adjustments.
The scenes were emotional, and Heather wanted to make sure the actors had the space to deliver without repeatedly stopping because of technical issues.
She also made clear how grateful she is that Bell has trusted her with opportunities to expand creatively, while acknowledging that the opportunity itself isn’t enough. As she put it, luck happens when preparation and opportunity meet. Bell can provide the opportunity, but she has to provide the preparation.
There was also one subject I absolutely had to bring up: Crew Morrow. Every time I watch Heather and Crew together, part of my brain sees Joshua Morrow standing there.
When Crew first joined The Bold and the Beautiful, Heather admitted that his resemblance to his father wasn’t limited to his appearance. His voice, cadence and mannerisms could actually take her out of a scene because she has known Joshua for so many years.
“I would just hear when he’d say something, I would be like, ‘Oh my God, it’s Joshua,'” she said.
“Genetics is real, people.”
After everything Heather has accomplished, she still speaks about Emmy recognition with gratitude. This year is particularly special because she’s being recognized both for her acting and as a member of the writing team.
“I’m always grateful to be a part of the conversation,” she said.
Heather also expressed excitement about seeing Beyond the Gates receive recognition and about CBS investing in daytime with another soap joining the lineup.
But there is another Emmy tradition Heather might be almost as excited about as the ceremony itself: the Lead Actress nominees’ lunch. The tradition has existed for decades, with the previous year’s winner hosting the following year’s nominees. Heather loves it so much that she joked she just wants to keep getting nominated so she can keep going to lunch.
As Heather prepares for another Daytime Emmy night, one question remains: Will she be able to break the record of most Emmy wins? Currently, she is tied with Erika Slezak (ex-Viki, One Life to Live). Only time will tell!
The 53rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards will stream online on Friday, October 30th.
To watch the full interview with Heather Tom, click on the player above or head to Spotify.
