Heather Tom on Daytime’s High Stakes and How Prime Time TV is Finally Catching Up [Exclusive Interview]

If you’re a fan of daytime soap operas, then Heather Tom has most likely graced the screen of your television at some point.

With a career spanning decades on The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, and now as Katie Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful, it’s no wonder Tom’s name is synonymous with the likes of Susan Lucci, Erika Slezak, Melody Thomas Scott, and many other women who have dominated daytime. She currently has 7 wins and 19 nominations for awards, including 5 Daytime Emmy Awards.

I recently chatted with Tom about growing up in soaps, and how her long career first began.

Tom’s mother packed her up, along with her younger twin siblings, David and Nicholle, and they made their way to Seattle, Washington.

“My mom got us involved when I was really young, like, we were babies. We moved to Seattle for a while, we did a little bit more like, theater and commercials, stuff like that there,” Tom recalled. “Then we came down to Los Angeles for 3 weeks during pilot season one year, and we never went home.”

In the early ’80s, getting guest-star roles on television was the gateway to becoming a series regular. Tom’s first role as a guest-star was alongside Tony Danza on Who’s the Boss.

“That was my first job in LA. It was amazing, I had been on sets before, but never like THAT. Of course, it was a hugely popular show at the time…and it was really fun, everyone was super nice,” Tom said. “It was an amazing experience.”

Not long after her time as Danny Pintauro’s love interest on Who’s the Boss, Tom got an audition for The Young and the Restless.

“It was just another audition, and I went out on it. My grandmother had watched soaps, and so I knew about them, but I didn’t really watch them or know about them. I was 14, you know? So it was just another audition. I went in,” Tom recalled.

“I read for Bill Bell. And he said, ‘Thank you for coming in,’ which is like the kiss of death. That basically means, ‘Thank you for wasting your time.’ So I walked out and was like, ‘Oh well, onward and upward,’ and then I got the call that they were going to cast me.”

Tom played Victoria Newman on the long-running soap opera for 12 years, and during that time took home 8 nominations for Daytime Emmy Awards, and brought home two of the coveted statuettes.

I asked her where she keeps her Emmys, and she said, with a laugh, “They are in the living room far out of my three-year-old’s reach, because they are dangerous. They’re heavy, and the spikes are very sharp.”

During her time on The Young and the Restless, Tom said that she learned a great deal from her co-star, Melody Thomas Scott, who played her mother, Nikki.

“I learned HUGE amounts from her, on many, many things. I always admired her professionalism and how open she was with her emotions. That’s such an important part of what we do, because we have to be, kind of, these raw nerves all the time, given the stakes of our storylines. And everything is always so accessible to her.”

Soap opera storylines are known for their shocking twists and turns, at any moment on any given day of the week.

“Everything is life and death. That is the rule. There’s no casualness about anything that we do. It’s all life and death, even if you’re talking about going to lunch,” Tom explained.

Though many watch soaps incredulously, thinking that the big stories on screen would never happen in real life, Tom recently discovered that, occasionally, high-stakes storylines hit close to home with viewers.

“I’m in a storyline right now where my husband is sleeping with my sister and having an affair, and I was at an event a couple weeks ago…and this woman came up to me and she was like, “Can I have your picture?’…and then she took my hand, in a very serious way, and she said, ‘I’m going through what you’re going through right now. My husband keeps sleeping with my sister,'” Tom said.

I just looked at her, and I was like, ‘Wow. Oh man, well, I’m really sorry about that.’ I had no idea how to respond to it. I guess these stories are a little more universal than we thought. I guess these crazy things do happen to people.”

Having played many storylines over the years, ranging from young marriage to alcoholism, I asked Tom what storyline she is most proud of, and like the woman whose own life mimicked Tom’s on-screen, her answer was also one that hit home for her, personally, as it dealt with her alter-ego’s battle with postpartum depression.

“I think the postpartum one is probably the one I’m most proud of. I think that it addressed an issue that needs to be addressed more. And even though Katie’s postpartum was certainly very, very severe, it’s something that I’m gonna say most women go through in some way, shape, or form. You know, severe, baby blues, or whatever you want to call it. I know that I certainly did, and the vast majority of my friends did as well. We don’t talk about it often enough.”

Tom went on to say, “Even going to my gynecologist afterwards, it wasn’t mentioned. It wasn’t asked about… I feel like it needs to be addressed over and over again, because I thought, ‘I’m going to be able to tell if I’m having anything like that, I went through this huge storyline, and I’m super aware,’ and all this stuff.”

“And I really didn’t. I didn’t really know. I didn’t understand what was going on with me. I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, and it made me feel horrible as a mother,” Tom admitted.

“I finally went and talked to someone who said, ‘Oh, you have postpartum depression,’ and I was like, ‘I can’t have that!’ I think it’s just because it’s not out there. People aren’t talking about it enough. I mean, it’s out there, but I really do think that it’s still very taboo to talk about it, and to admit it.”

She had already mentioned looking up to Melody Thomas Scott,  but Tom also talked about some of the other leading ladies she’s admired over the years.

“Erika Slezak is just an icon. I was lucky enough to get to work with her on One Life to Live. I was so thrilled to do that, and again, just learned a lot about how she just took no prisoners and did her job, and really demanded that you rise to her level.”

“The same with Susan Flannery,” Tom continued. “I worked with her on Bold and the Beautiful. I always say they’ve got balls,” she laughed. “They’ve got cajones. And if you can’t keep up, they’re going to eat you alive. It’s that kind of trial by fire that I learned so much from.”

Tom also discussed how nighttime television is finally catching up to what daytime has been doing for years.

“These very strong women were really the matriarchs of the shows. You tend to think of the men as being the leader of the show, but all of those women were the leaders of their shows. I think that was unique to daytime, and somewhat groundbreaking when we think about how long it’s taken nighttime to catch up, allowing female characters to really be the leads of shows. That’s been true in daytime for decades,” Tom said.

Tom hasn’t only made appearances on television during the day. She and her husband, designer James Achor, were the stars in their own reality show on HGTV, Renovation Unscripted, which featured the pair renovating and re-designing homes.

I asked Tom about the experience, and whether or not she’d consider doing reality television again.

“It was fun…but it was a ridiculous amount of work. I mean, like, 16 hour days. It’s something to consider for the future,” Tom added. “I think I would go into it with a much different criteria. If I went into doing one again, I’d certainly make sure that the time was being well-used. Certainly now with a kid, I think it would be a lot harder to do.”

Tom may not be setting her sights on more reality television, but she is working toward a new step in her career: directing. Tom, along with her sister Nicholle, is working on two short films, embracing the adventure of working behind the camera.

“She’s writing it, and I’m going to direct. We’re in the pre-production phase of that. I’m also doing my own short film in two weeks, so I’m in pre-production for that, and we’re going to try to piggyback ours onto that one. I’m going to keep busy through the end of the year,” Tom said.

I’ve been shadowing a lot, I’ve been directing on B&B, doing side shows for B&B, and hopefully I’ll have more down the pipeline. I love acting, but it’s always fun to look forward to something new.”

Since she’s spending so much time working with her siblings, maybe it’s time for a reality show about the Tom family? “That would be good TV, but I’m not so sure it would be great for our careers!” Tom laughed.

You can catch Heather Tom as Katie Logan on The Bold and the Beautiful, airing weekdays at 12:30/11:30c on CBS.