The Young and the Restless Actress Kate Linder

Kate Linder from Y&R on IRMIX Radio – original interview date 11/28/2012 interview conducted by Martone, and Chad Burleson

Martone: Welcome back to Industry Revue in the Mix. I’m going to go ahead and allow Chad to do this introduction. It’s an interview that we have been waiting for weeks, Chad.

Chad: Good morning, Kate. How are you?

Kate Linder: Good morning. Great. How are you?

Chad: Good. I know it’s early where you are. Tell us a little bit about Kate, if you would, about what’s currently going on in your life. I know you have done movie Hysteria, is there anything else that you’re working on right now?

Kate Linder: Well, I’m in April (2012), I will be my 30th year on Young and the Restless and then I just did another film that called Expatriate with Aaron Eckhart and then Hysteria with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy, Ruppert Everett who put effort that will be out, I believe, in February. 

Martone: Oh wow, exciting. Is it a feature film for you?  

Kate Linder: Yes, it’s a feature film. Yeah, not a huge role, but it’s great.

Kate Linder: It was at the Toronto Film Festival that won the Spotlight Award and then it’s just been picked up by Sony Classics. They’ll be distributing it. So that’s you know, that’s still exciting.

Martone: Fabulous. I need to ask you this question about my mother is going to kill me, what she wants to know, what’s going on with Mrs. Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper)? She hasn’t been on the show in a few weeks.

Kate Linder: Well, Jeannie, she was ill, but she’s back now just the other day. So she’s doing a great she’s, and she’s fine. She’s back and was back at work. And so that’s great that Michael Learned, you know, did an amazing job. So, I remember her and I really enjoyed working with her. But, you know, we’re really glad that Jeannie’s back. So that’s great. Yeah, she’s well and happy that’s she is well.  

Martone: Well, you know, you can’t believe everything that she read on the Internet. Could you tell me, is it true that you’re a flight attendant, in addition to doing the role on The Young and the Restless?

Kate Linder: Yeah, that question. Kind of crazy, but that’s true.

Martone: Oh, I know that you get recognized all the time.

Kate Linder: I do. Just about every flight, you know. You know, but it’s fun because I get to talk to everyone and it’s great. I enjoy it.

Chad: That’s great. Well, you’ve been on the show for thirty years, coming up, you said yeah, every time because I know you do so many different scenes with different characters and they don’t always cross over into each other’s lives on the show. Has there ever been somebody that’s been on that show that you see every day, but you’ve never that you went years without actually being in a scene together?

Kate Linder: Oh, well, yeah, that I mean, there are people that I know. I mean, I’ll usually be in a scene with them somewhere, like a wedding or something like that. But, you know, there are several people that I haven’t really, been able to work with. But, I mean Genoa City is a big place. It’s huge.

Martone: Now, I know that there’s been a lot of things going on with Chloe and little Delia characters on the program. I see that you have a lot more screen time now than the normal. Do you have a lot more screen time?

Kate Linder: Well, I mean, there are a lot of people in the cast and, you know, storylines go, you know, up and down. And so there’s you will have this depending on what’s going on. The storyline. I mean, we had Mrs. Chancellor and I were kidnapped, you know, twice. We’ve had huge amounts of things, and now of course, with Delia being sick and Billy being missing and Chloe and Kevin and, all that kind of things. So, you know, it’s great. Well, with the other than that, you never know what’s going to happen with each of them or do you just might read your own script and when you get there, well, we get our scripts about a week ahead of time.

The show that you will see today, like I’m on this show today, and I believe yesterday.

We taped that over a month ago. So, we get our scripts about a week ahead of time, and that they give you cuts and changes like the night before.

Chad: And so anyway, well, Kate, I read that you were the fourth actor to get your star on the Hollywood walk of fame based solely on the merits of acting on the soap opera. And that’s along with the names of McDonald Carey, Jeanne Cooper, and Susan Lucci. When did that happen?

Kate Linder: That was I received that on April 10th and 2008. And it just was unbelievable. I have to go there periodically, to make sure it’s still there. But it was really, really something I’m sure about.

Chad: Those are huge names, too. And to be up there with those, you know, and to play this role for so long, you do such a great job, I was telling Martone, that Esther was my favorite character it’s always been a quirky character. And I like your back and forth with Jess Walton. And of course, she plays Jill. So, it’s always that’s always fun. I love your back and forth on that. I want to ask you about you. You worked with Carroll O’Connor. You did an episode of Archie Bunker’s place in 1970.

Kate Linder: Oh, yeah. That was a really long time ago. Yeah, I did.

Chad: What was that like? Because he’s a TV icon. And I have to ask, you know, what was it that you took away some things from him that experience?

Kate Linder: Well, of course, you know, you learn, from everyone you work with. And you know, he was fabulous. So, I really enjoyed watching him work. It’s great.

Martone: You know, I recently read that you became the first daytime actress to compete in a Toyota Grand Prix Long Beach celebrity race?

Kate Linder: You guys are really great! I don’t know where you get this stuff from. Yeah, that was really something, I can’t believe now that I did that. But they had a Toyota Grand Prix celebrity race. And I remember that Brenda, who is my publicist, had said, oh, you know, they want you to compete in this race. And I said, what? I said, well, isn’t that a real race? And she goes, Yeah, I said, I can’t do that well. And she said, no, they train you.

So anyway, I went, OK, so I went to a race car driving school. And it was really an unbelievable experience.

It was the 20th anniversary of the race. So, they had all the past winners there, plus a couple of us that had not been in the race before. And one of them was Sharon Lawrence, and myself. And so, I mean, this was like the playing field was unbelievable because Bruce Jenner (Caitlyn Jenner) was in it.

Martone: Were you scared? Were you nervous behind the wheel of that car?

Kate Linder: Yes, I was totally scared. I remember when we were on the track and we were it was press day and we were doing, you know, practicing and they had the Indy cars, you know, the real Indy drivers because they had this celebrity race before. They have the real, Indy race and the Grand Prix race. And they were on there and they were you know, they teach you that you’re just supposed to hold your line. Meaning if you see a car, coming behind you, you know, you’re not supposed to move. You just stay straight ahead. You know, otherwise they’ll, you know, you’ll get killed. So, I saw this car going with. Coming, and I thought, oh, my God, I just did what they said and their cars were behind me and they said, you know what – just go ahead of me. I mean, you’re going over – I don’t know how to 150 miles per hour. Oh, my God. Unbelievable.

Martone: Were you screaming when you were behind the wheel?

Kate Linder: I was screaming. I was just like, oh, God, please let me live. You know, I came up with Bruce Jenner (Caitlyn Jenner), had gone into the wall in front of me. And I came up, and I saw him and I thought, oh, my gosh. And so I thought, wait, wait, am I supposed to wait till he backs up? No, I this is a not right, so I just went past them. So I was excited because I obviously didn’t win the race, but I finished the race and I wasn’t laughing and but I didn’t have a scratch on my car.

Martone: Great. Yeah. Now I know that you are a celebrity spokesperson for the ALS Association. Yeah. Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Could you tell us a little bit about your work with them?

Kate Linder: Well, my brother in law has ALS, and it’s really a disgusting, horrific disease. I mean, they call it an orphan disease. But that’s not really true. I mean, just as many people come down with ALS as with cancer or with any other terrible disease. But the thing is, the numbers aren’t there because they don’t survive it. So, thank God, with the strides of, you know, they’re making medicine with cancer and AIDS and other terrible diseases, people are able to be living with those with ALS who do not survive. So you’re trapped in your own body and your mind works perfectly, perfectly well, but nothing else works. So, I have been doing all I can and to draw attention to this disease, and spoken of before the Senate Appropriations Committee. And, you know, we’re just trying to raise money and for research and we need to get a handle on this. The interesting thing is that there are double the incidences in the military people contracting ALS. So, the disease keeps mutating. And so, it’s impossible. But hopefully, you know, I’m not giving up because I know there is a cure out there. We just need to find it.  

Martone: So that’s fantastic. Now, what can we do to help raise money for ALS?

Kate Linder: Well, you can go on my website, www.KateLinder.com. There’s a link to the ALS Association there, and you’ll be able to contact them and see what you can do. I mean, I also, do actually. And any people that are in that Seattle area or even if this has to do with ALS – but I do I try to give back as much as I can, and I’m doing a tea, Young and the Restless tea for breast cancer. We’ve got 13 of them in Canada and Vancouver. And now the weekend of December 3, 2011, which is coming up now is my first one here in the United States, is going to be in Seattle at the Westin. And we just got incredible people coming. We’ve got Christian LeBlanc who plays Michael Baldwin, and Daniel Goddard plays came Cane Ashby and Michael Muhney plays Adam, Tracy Bregman and plays Lauren. And they will all be there. Plus, Patty Denny, who’s the head of our makeup department, and George Guzman head of hair at Y&R, they’re coming as well. They do makeovers. It’s just going to be a fabulous event, and so you can also find out about that on my website. There is a link to where to go to purchase tickets, and that’s for the Susan B. Komen breast cancer.

Martone: OK, so the website is www.KateLinder.com. OK, yeah. Now, before we let you go, we always like to have the celebrities that come on the show to give a few thoughts of encouragement to listeners that may be trying to break into acting or the entertainment business itself. What would you say to an up and coming actor about getting involved in the business? What type of advice would you give?

 Kate Linder: Well, this is what I always say, you have to want this more than anything in the whole world. If you do not want it that badly, then you need to do yourself a favor, and everyone else and do not do it. It’s really, really, really hard. But if you want it, then you just keep going for it, and you don’t give up and you don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it. And it is a business they call it’s called show business for a reason because it is a business. It’s a business of show, and you have to treat it as such. So, I mean, I still study. I still go to acting class. I’m a dancer. So, I started as a dancer singer in the business. I still go to dance class. Yeah, but tap dancer, I still have my voice lessons, and so, you know, it’s a craft and you have to keep at it. I do plays, I do films, and I do short films. You have to love it. I mean, you just keep going and the business is really hard. It’s and it’s worse now because of reality t.v. programming, which I’m not a big fan of because it’s just really hard business.

Martone: Tell us a little bit about the whole thing with all these legendary soap operas going off the air. I believe that Young and the Restless will definitely be the last ones standing. I never I hope that it never does because I grew up watching the show and, you know, it’s just been a part of my childhood, and in my life in general – it is like – you guys are family to me. What are your thoughts about leaving the year?

Kate Linder: Well, I don’t have thoughts about leaving now. We’re not leaving the air. I think that’s just ridiculous. I mean, the thing is, is that some of these other shows, it’s not that people aren’t watching them, they are watching them. It’s just that some of the networks feel that, you know, they can make more money putting a cooking show on or a fitness show. And I think it’s up to the viewer. The viewers need to stand up and say, we want our shows. We’re not going to take it and don’t you dare take away our shows, and viewers, they can effect change. Absolutely. I mean, you can’t you know, if you really want the show then you need to watch it and be part of it, and let that let the networks know that that that’s what you want, such as Young and the Restless. People need to say to  CBS.com – There is a comment line and you need to let them know how you feel. They pay attention to that. If you want to see certain characters, you know, have more work or whatever you want to say, you need to do it and participate and do something about it, Young and the Restless is the number one show for many, many reasons. Maria Bell, who is our head writer and executive producer, are other writers of what they do every week, the stories that they have and they do this day in and day out. You know, it’s about real-life situations. And I mean, Young and the Restless is an amazing, amazing show. I mean, everything and everyone behind the scenes. I mean, you know, just from the way the sets up, you know, our production qualities, the actors, writers, the directors, the cameramen, the cameramen who are on their feet all day, that, I mean, hair and makeup, you name it. I mean, it goes into, you know, hundreds of people coming together to make this show what it is. Absolutely.

Because I just feel, you know, I mean, it’s ridiculous. They do not know really how many people are watching these shows. They say they do, but you can’t convince me of that. How do they know people are streaming them? They’re watching them on their computers. I mean, there’s a million ways they’re watching these shows and they have no idea who’s watching this. And I can tell, especially it’s interesting to be flying all over the world, all over the country, all over the world, because our show is all over the world. People that come up to me and I know that are watching this show, you know, there are a lot more people than they think there are.

Chad: So anything to Kate, I want to ask you about Jabot Cosmetics, you know, that was a fictional line on the show for years this past year gone public and it’s now available. Can you tell our listeners where they can go in and purchase these products?

Kate Linder: Well, you know, also, if you go on my website at www.Katelinder.com, there is a link to the CBS website and you’ll be able to, you know, there you can also we’re going to have some of those products at this facility in Seattle. So we’re able to get them there. I mean, also, we’re going to be having Young and the Restless merchandise there, which is not available to anyone. So, I mean, that’s going to be really great Tea.