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Rick Hearst (Whip Jones)
 Rick Hearst is a man of many faces -- from GL's spoiled rich kid, Alan-Michael Spaulding to Y&R bad boy Matt Clark to intellectual PR executive Whip Jones on B&B. Rick pulls off a broad range of roles to perfection. Excited to be back on daytime and particularly thrilled that he is across the hall from his Y&R buddies at CBS Studio, Rick gave us the inside scoop on landing the coveted role of B&B's dynamic Whip Jones. Rick describes Whip as "very witty, very much the thinking man -- very poised, and charming." This is certainly a radical change from the menacing and wicked Matt Clark that Y&R fans loved to hate. In his private life, Rick is a "hands on" dad, who loves an opportunity to proudly talk about his two sons. Rick passionately believes that life is "what you make of it" and that "whatever you are doing, you should be in the moment of what that is." Rick took time out from his B&B schedule to talk to SoapCity about his acting history, family, life and what we can expect from the new kid on the Forrester block!
SC Monique: On Guiding Light -- you played the character of Alan-Michael Spaulding. Do you keep in touch with anyone from GL?
Rick Hearst: Um, not many people. You run into them from time to time if you run into them at an appearance, or when I am in New York, I am going to try to look those guys up. I was actually there just prior to 9/11. I was there for my grandmother's 80th birthday. I went up into the studio one day, and I saw mostly the directors but a lot of the actors -- of course, I saw Kim Zimmer. She was great. She threw her arms around me and was like, "Hi, I saw you doing great work over there. We watch you every day!" It's nice because you establish a family wherever you go. The one person who I worked with who had not been there for many, many years that I am still very good friends with is Melina Kanakaredes who is now on Providence. My wife, Melina, her husband and now her daughter go for BBQs and do stuff together.
SC Monique: Can you tell us a little bit about your kids?
Rick: Yeah. I have two boys -- Nicholas is my oldest, who's now 10 and Cameron is 6. They're quite active little guys. Totally different personalities. Nicholas is very warm and sensitive and creative and more of the artist per se. And then you have Cameron, who bounces off the walls. He's smart as a whip. We call him the negotiator. He will be the lawyer, and he will get himself anything he wants in this life as long as he does it legally.
SC Monique: So you are pushing for law school...
Rick: Yeah, right? I'm sure he'll push me for whatever he wants. From cereal in the morning to, "Daddy can I go play with my friends down the street?"
SC Monique: How do you juggle fatherhood and your career?
Rick: You know, I have never really looked at it as a juggling act per se. It is sort of all-inclusive. Life is what you are going to make of it, for lack of a better way to put it. My wife and my children are an integral part of that. It's not like this takes priority over this. Everything is a priority. If anything, I have become a lot more organized. The time that you have with them, you try to make the absolute most of it. Basically, whatever you are doing, you should be in the moment of what that is: your job, your hobby, whether it be your friends, whether it be your children, whether it be with your wife or any of your family. It's all about that. The minute you let that stuff go, you just kind of run through life and then, what's the point?
SC Monique: How do your children handle it when people recognize you in public? Does it happen often?
 Rick: At department stores. It always happens to me around Christmas time. People are like, "Hey, hey, you're that guy from..." whichever show it may be. My youngest hasn't really said one way or the other. My oldest thinks it's the best thing in the world. He wants to do this. He doesn't want to be the actor, he wants to be the director or the producer. I said, "Go ahead, that's a good thing. You be in control of the whole situation and just give your father a job!" He already has an eye for it, and he loves it. He was at the High Definition TV party [for Y&R], and it happened to fall on his 10th birthday. So we went to Nordstrom's and got a nice set of slacks, a nice shirt, brand new shoes and everything. I brought him to the party all decked out, and he loved it. As parents, we were trying to keep an eye on him because, yeah, I know all these people but there could still be that one person -- that's the way I think, that's my neighborhood. Anyway he was rolling through the party having a good time and my wife and I were following him and he just looks back and says, "Can you guys leave me alone please? I can get my own drink, I can get my own food." So we said fine and let him go just where we could still see him. This is the best -- he was walking and all of a sudden he runs into this gentleman. He was at stomach height, and he looks up and low and behold, it's Bill Bell! He just looks at him and says, "Hi, my name is Nicholas Hearst. What's yours?" "Well hello, Nicholas, my name is William Bell." "My daddy's on Young and the Restless!" (laughs). And he was like, "Really, I write for Young and the Restless." My wife was behind him and said [to Bill Bell], "You know, Mr. Bell, this is Rick's son." They really had a nice little interchange. I would die to have a five-minute conversation with Bill Bell and my son is like, "Hey, it's no big thing." Next he'll be calling Spielberg and Ron Howard and all those guys.
SC Monique: He's a good little networker...
Rick: Yeah, very. He's just right there and nothing is purposeful for him. He's got the same thing -- the moment happens and he grabs it. I am proud of both of my kids. They are really into their lives. They are polite, they are very genuine people. And, you know, that can be lost a lot of times. It just happens.
SC Monique: It seems that what keeps you grounded and your children grounded is your attitude?
Rick: You have to realize that what you do is not who you are. I am not defined by the job that I have. It is a part of me and part of what I do and what I love to do, but it doesn't define me as a person. That comes from being raised right. I spent a good four or five years when it was just my mother and myself. My parents split up when I was very young, and it was a while before my mother remarried. I learned I have to be responsible for myself and for doing things around the house. Kids today are given a lot of leeway on a great many things. Granted you should do that because kids have to be kids. "Go out there and build that lean-to. You know, fix the roof. Daddy wants to watch the ball game." They have to have responsibilities because later on in life they are going to have to feel like they are their own individual person -- that they can take care of themselves and have their own viewpoints and stand by those. It's helping them to create what they are going to discover anyway. So, I meditate all day long. I just sit there and the incense is burning (laughs). Listen, you've really got to be thankful for every opportunity that you are given in this life. You have to be grateful. You don't just fall to the whim of whatever is happening. You try to take control of it or you try to affect a change if need be or you try something. If you don't, for me, that is something that keeps me going. No matter where I am. Whether I am doing a film, whether I am doing nighttime television, whether I am doing a play, whether I am with my kids, whether I am building something. Whatever. It is what keeps you on a path. The whole thing is a journey. Anyway, I am not going to talk any more because I have to go to the monastery in about 10 minutes. It's so late in the day. Vespers is calling. (laughs)
SC Monique: Let's talk about Y&R. What was the fan reaction to such a bad character?
Rick: Surprisingly, the reaction to that character was they just loved seeing it. They wanted somebody to hate. You have such a purist couple like Nick and Sharon -- they've been virtually untouchable. You want to root for that, but you can't if there isn't some sort of conflict, some bad seed -- that element that could destroy it all. You love to hate the bad guy. Their reaction was pretty severe. I expected to have tomatoes thrown at me, but it never happened. A lot showed respect, which made me feel good as an actor because for that brief moment, they could separate between the character and Rick, because god knows that there aren't a lot of similarities. It was fun diving into your own psyche that way, but there really wasn't a whole heck of a lot that was similar between Matt and Rick.
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