David is set to make his return to the Young and the Restless June 15, where he got his start 34 years ago. See what it was like for David to return to the CBS studios...
David Hasselhoff Talks "The Young and the Restless," Today & Yesterday
After over 30 years away from daytime, David Hasselhoff is set to return to "The Young and the Restless" from June 15-21! Deanna Barnert got a chance to sit down with David and chat about his upcoming appearance on Y&R, reprising his role as Dr. Snapper Foster for a few episodes.BACK WHERE IT ALL STARTED
"It was amazing coming back here. It was so surreal. I was talking to Wings Hauser (Greg), who came back. It was like we never left. Wings and I were laughing, making jokes, still being cocky crazy. Everybody was so positive. It was, without a doubt, an amazing four days."After the first day, I said, 'Oh god, I've got to go home and learn these lines! And there's no cue cards?' They said, 'We'll bring you cue cards,' but I said, 'No, I don't want cue cards, I want to see if I can do this.' It was very different from the way it used to be, but I loved it. We just got out there and screwed around - that's the technique I've always used to distract myself, so I don’t get nervous. It was like a big family."I was smiling for four days, and I haven't smiled for four days in a long time."LURED BACK TO WHERE IT ALL STARTED:"When I got on the phone with [Maria Bell, headwriter], she was so incredibly nice and enthusiastic about my coming [that] it was a no-brainer. I use it as an episode for my [upcoming A&E reality] show. I wanted to go back to my roots to A) honor Bill Bell [creator of 'Y&R' and 'The Bold and the Beautiful"') and B) see if I can still do it. I like to be terrified. It was terrifying to come back. But it wasn't hard. It was easy, because it's what I do. I did 800 shows, so somewhere in my subconscious, the show's still there."My daughter punched up YouTube. You can see the episode where I say goodbye to Chucky. I couldn't believe it. YouTube has documented everything in my life, good, bad or indifferent."THE FAMILY NURSE"My daughter, Taylor Ann, is playing one of the nurses. To work with Taylor was just mind boggling, because she's wearing the Snapper Foster scrubs! I chewed her out, because she brought in the wrong medicine and my mom is having a hard time."There was a lot of emotion flying around, but more than anything, was how much we all laughed. Jess [Jill] doesn't laugh. She pretty much stays in character, but everyone else is just hysterical."RECONNECTING WITH THE FOSTER CLAN"We're all going to get together when this airs. Julianna (McCarthy, Liz) was wonderful to see. She was so funny. Here she's in bed and she's very ill, and we were making the funniest jokes and then going into these heavy scenes. Wings and I haven't seen each other since the ['Y&R' 20th anniversary party]. He went off to do all kinds of heavy roles. He came up to me and said, 'I always remember how you could always cry on your downstage, left eye,' [and then], 'I always talk about how you were one of the best actors I ever worked with.' It was so nice to hear that, because he came on and he was super green. Then I was super jealous when he went off and became this huge movie star, and I was still stuck in the soaps!"Jess [Walton, Jill] was terrific! 'I'm blown away by you,' she said, 'because your emotion is just right here and you just get right into it.' I said, 'Jess, it's like I never left. It felt so normal and easy. I'm an emotional guy, anyway, [and] there's a family crisis, so it required a lot of emotions and frustration."THE GRANDE DAME OF "Y&R""Jeanne Cooper (Katherine) looks incredible! Unbelievable. She's 81 and she blows us all away. Jeanne saw me in 'The Producers' in Las Vegas and she called several times to give me support when I was getting some bad press. She was great, so I was excited to see her and work with her. She's so brilliant. She just turns it on, and that's how I learned my technique, from watching her."A ROUGH START ON "Y&R":"For the first two years, it was a rough time for me. I was replacing William Gray Espy and everyone loved him. I got a ton of hate mail. I remember reading one letter that said, 'Every time you act, I want to regurgitate and climb the walls.' I said, 'You better climb the walls, 'cause I'm sticking around.' I remember writing this person back, going, 'This is horrible. I'm hated.'"I turned it around, because Jeanne put me under her wing. She took me home and helped me find Snapper. She called Bill Bell and said, "Let him be emotional. Let him be different than William Gray Espy,' who is very cool. It was a big shock to everybody. With the help of her and this book that I still believe in, 'The Power of your Subconscious Mind,' I turned it around."STEPPING INTO THE KNIGHT (RIDER)"Bill [Bell] supported me and allowed me to go. He could have blocked the whole thing, because I was under contract, but he said, 'You're destined to be a star and I'm going to let you run.' I came back again, but then I walked away from 'The Young and the Restless' with 40,000 in my bank account and moved to New York, because I had to follow my dream [and do Broadway]."That's when Brandon Tartikoff saw me on an airplane and asked me to audition for 'Knight Rider'. After 'Knight Rider' came 'Baywatch' and I walked away from 'Baywatch' saying, 'I've got to do Broadway before I'm too old.' I'd wanted to be on Broadway since I was eight years old. 40 years later, when I was 48 – ack! – I finally got on Broadway with 'Jekyll and Hyde'."THE "Y&R" WORK ETHIC"It set my entire mode of professionalism - of never missing a day of work [and] always knowing my lines. The work ethic here was amazing, even though we used to go out and party a lot."I have such respect for soaps. Everyone else would laugh at them and take them off their resume, but I was always like, 'What are you laughing at?' Everybody who came on the show here, like guest stars from primetime series, would fall apart! So many people have come out of soaps. I remember seeing Alec Baldwin at the Soap Opera Digest Awards [after] I'd left and was doing 'Knight Rider'."SNAPPER IS ALWAYS WITH HIM"To this day, people still stop me and say, 'I still remember you as Snapper.' It was 34 years ago, and honest to god, when we announced I was coming back, I'm on an airplane and the stewardesses are going, "I hear you're going back to the soaps!'"I was afraid I was going to come in here and completely not be able to remember my lines, but I came in and it was like I never left. It was unbelievably fun. The emotion was flowing."JUST A SHORT VISIT - PERIOD!"One of the girls came up to me and she was kind of cute. I found out she was single. I thought, 'Hm.' She said, 'Why don’t you hang around? It's great having you back.' After the third day of the lines, I said, 'I don't think so!'"It's great coming back and they're like, 'You're here! You're here!' Then after the third or fourth day, no one gives a damn, because you're into having to learn your lines and do it."THE STORY ON THE A&E REALITY SHOW:"It's going to be 'The David Hasselhoff Show' or 'The Hoffspring' and it's coming out in August. It's about my life with my daughters and me trying to show them the ropes and get them to the door, but they have to walk through the door."They both sing and want to be a techno pop band. Now, Hayley's got a job on 'Huge', where she's starring with Nikki Blonsky on the ABC Family about kids that go to fat camp. She just hit and she's been doing this for four years. She's been battling being plus size, speaking out about it and being a role model for kids. Then Taylor went off to University of Arizona, but they came back and said, 'Dad, we want to be a band.' They'd offered me this reality show and I didn't want to do it, but I said, 'What if we do it about you guys becoming singers and I'll just do 10 episodes,' so we're doing it."MESSAGE TO FANS"Tell the fans I said, 'Thank you' and 'Stay tuned. You're going to love the shows. You are guaranteed to cry. The crying Hasselhoff has returned.'"
