‘B&B’ Star Scott Clifton Reacts to 2024 Daytime Emmy Nomination and Opens Up About Being a Single Dad (EXCLUSIVE)
The lead actor talks Liam’s karma and so much more!
The Bold and the Beautiful’s (B&B) Scott Clifton is not just a 2024 Daytime Emmy Lead Actor nominee – the General Hospital and One Life to Live alum has also already won Daytime Emmy Awards for Younger Actor, Supporting Actor, and Lead Actor for playing his current character, Liam Spencer.
Ahead of Friday’s awards show on CBS, the soap star who’s spent over half his life in daytime talks to Woman’s World about being nominated alongside his The Bold and the Beautiful costars Thorsten Kaye and John McCook, The Young and the Restless’ Eric Braeden, and Days of Our Lives‘ Eric Martsolf.
In addition to revealing which scenes he submitted to earn his latest nomination and what he thinks The Bold and the Beautiful’s Liam needs right now (hint: it’s not a reunion with Hope or Steffy!), Clifton opens up about adjusting to life as a single dad.
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‘B&B’ Daytime Emmy nominee Scott Clifton celebrates spending “the majority” of his life on soaps
Time has a way of getting away from us, and Scott Clifton was floored to realize he’s now been a soap star for over two decades. After getting his start with roles on Roswell, Undressed and Judging Amy, the actor broke into the Daytime teen scene in 2003 when he signed on as General Hospital’s Dillon Quartermaine.
“That’s, like… more than half my life,” Clifton marvels. “I’m 39, so literally, the majority of my life I’ve been working on a soap.”
After spending four years winning over fans as Dillon, Clifton joined One Life to Live as Schuyler in 2009 and since 2010, he’s been getting into the drama on The Bold and the Beautiful as Liam Spencer.
Now in the running for yet another Daytime Emmy, the actor insists he’s “already won” – and he’s not referring to the three gold statues he has at home.
“I’m an actor in LA who is actually employed,” he explains. “Let’s be honest. It’s 95% luck, 3% work ethic, and 2% talent. It’s just being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people, getting the right audition. There are millions of actors in LA that would give anything to be where I am. That’s not lost on me. I’m very very grateful.”
Daytime Emmy-winner Scott Clifton insists being nominated doesn’t get old
Clifton, who hasn’t been nominated since taking home the Lead Actor trophy in 2017, is also grateful to be in the running for Lead Actor, again.
“You would think the salience of the nominations would dwindle over time, but strangely, it’s kind of the opposite,” he admits. “After they gave me the Lead Actor, I really wanted to disappear. I just assumed people had gotten sick of me, by now. But the show wanted me to keep submitting, even though I wasn’t feeling it. So then I got the rejections… but I figured, ‘They gave me three, so I’m good.’ And then this happened!”
Not only is Clifton nominated, but he’s sharing the honor with costars Thorsten Kaye and John McCook, who play Ridge and Eric.
“It’s three different generations within the world of the show,” Clifton brags. “Plus, we have a three in five chance to win the show an Outstanding Actor! That blows my mind. This is so exciting!”
‘B&B’ star Scott Clifton is grateful to Annika Noelle for his 2024 Daytime Emmy reel
To land this year’s nomination, Clifton shared some of the same scenes that helped Annika Noelle earn her own Lead Actress nomination – and he didn’t even consider another storyline.
“Multiple people here at B&B said, ‘You need to submit those scenes where Hope comes back from Rome,’” he shares. “Liam does this cat-and-mouse interrogation – and he’s a jerk. He’s almost cruel and abusive. He’s obviously hurt and betrayed and angry, and all that comes out. It was a side of Liam that was almost villainous.”
While the marriage between Liam and Hope was obliterated by her betrayal, Clifton can’t say enough about his partnership with Noelle.
“I was in a raw state in my own life, and that probably helped me go there in those scenes,” he admits. “But what really helped was Annika, who was so perfect in them.
“It was really collaborative,” he continues. “We talked a lot about how we wanted those scenes to look and when we were shooting that climactic moment, where Liam’s like, ‘Say it with me… we’ll do it together,’ something just wasn’t working. So we all came together and it was Annika who was like, ‘Let’s try this.’ It worked, and yeah, I’m pretty proud of those scenes.”
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Scott Clifton opens up about being a single dad
While Liam lives in a world dominated by glamour, romance and fashion, his portrayer’s real life in the real Los Angeles is very different – especially lately.
“I’m a full-time single dad, so that’s subsumed all of my mental bandwidth,” shares Clifton, who separated from his wife, Nikki, last year. “I’m navigating this new world. It’s been hard to figure out, because I don’t have family and up until recently, I didn’t have had any childcare.”
Thankfully, with soap storylines cyclical, Clifton and his son, Ford, 8, have had a chance to find their new groove.
“There was a lull in story for me, and fortunately, that happened to coincide with when I really needed to figure out how to do this,” he says. “Now I’m working a bit more and I have a kind of system down.”
Daytime Emmy nominee Scott Clifton wants Liam to suffer… and find redemption
With Liam’s story picking back up on The Bold and the Beautiful, Clifton teases that what he’s been shooting lately is “really cool” – and no, it’s not another round of love triangle drama!
“I’m glad I’m working a lot right now, but also that Liam is not doing that thing he does – which is ping pong back and forth between the Hope and Steffy,” Clifton tells Woman’s World.
“I would like to see him be single for a while and eat his karma,” the 2024 Lead Actor nominee continues. “Because he keeps getting rewarded for bad behavior by women falling for him – or re-falling for him and forgiving him. And you don’t redeem a character that way. You redeem them by giving them what they deserve. Liam made his bed. Just lie in it for a minute. Suffer some consequences!”
Whatever comes next for Liam, Clifton is looking forward to enjoying the Daytime Emmy Awards with all his The Bold and the Beautiful co-nominees – as well as all his old pals from General Hospital and Once Life to Live.
The 51st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards airs this Friday, June 7, on CBS, 8:00-10:00 PM, ET/delayed PT, and will be available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+*.
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