So Billy Flynn is playing a 50 year old now?

Yep. Pretty much.

14 hours ago, CassieFan said:

So Billy Flynn is playing a 50 year old now?

 

Cane was originally perceived as the same age as Thom Bierdz' Phillip
-- because Cane was pretending to be Phillip.

When DanielGoddard's Cane first came to Genoa City, it was a plotpoint that he said he was 31 and Lily was 19, and that he was too old for her.

Now BillyFlynn's Cane has been retconned to be closer in age to Lily.

 

Billy Flynn Talks the Surprise Recasting (interview)
https://www.tvinsider.com/1198207/young-and-the-restless-billy-flynn-cane-ashby-recasting-interview/ 

Flynn quickly recognized the inherent challenges of assuming the role. “Cane and Lily were already a big thing,” he notes. “So, I come in and not only do I have to have that [connection] with Christel [Khalil, Lily Winters] but I’m not Australian and I’m a bit younger. What Daniel did was amazing — he was great as Cane — and obviously, the relationship that Cane and Lily had is a testament to their work. Cane is a fascinating character.

Essentially, we’re going to rebrand it a bit, so they have a closer age range, and I don’t have a sexy accent. I can’t replicate it, so I’m going to do my thing. When people see this Cane and the relationship that I have as Cane with Lily, I think they’ll be happy.”

Edited June 23Jun 23 by janea4old

 

On 6/22/2025 at 9:48 AM, CassieFan said:

So Billy Flynn is playing a 50 year old now?

Y&R casts younger actors in older roles all the time. They did it with Phyllis (Gina Tognoni), they did it with Adam, and Tucker (Trevor St. John), etc. 

7 minutes ago, dio said:

Y&R casts younger actors in older roles all the time. They did it with Phyllis (Gina Tognoni), they did it with Adam, and Tucker (Trevor St. John), etc. 

Mark Grossman's Adam is actually the right age, proportionally.  Adam is supposed to be many many years younger than Victoria and Nick.  This was a correct resetting of the character age.

The Tucker recast with TSJ was stupid because it's canon that Tucker was literally born the same day as Jill Abbott.   TSJ is not the same age as Jess Walton.

Gina T. was younger than Phyllis should be.
Phyllis should be very slightly older than Christine/Danny.

The real problem was the casting of Jason Thompson, -- he does a *great* job but Billy is supposed to be a generation younger than Jack.

Gina T. was my favorite Phyllis, and the GinaT/JasonT pairing was fiery,
But still Phyllis should be much older than Billy,
and GinaT was obviously younger than JasonT, so it felt odd to me.

Edited June 23Jun 23 by janea4old

6 minutes ago, dio said:

Y&R casts younger actors in older roles all the time. They did it with Phyllis (Gina Tognoni), they did it with Adam, and Tucker (Trevor St. John), etc. 

Tognoni is only eight years younger than Michelle Stafford; that Phyllis recast was not bad. Plus, she worked in the role. Putting Mark Grossman into the role of Adam technically helped him de-SORAS back towards his meant-to-be age. But again, age does not exist in soap world. It's a non-construct.

1 minute ago, Liberty City said:

Tognoni is only eight years younger than Michelle Stafford; that Phyllis recast was not bad. Plus, she worked in the role. Putting Mark Grossman into the role of Adam technically helped him de-SORAS back towards his meant-to-be age. But again, age does not exist in soap world. It's a non-construct.

Ha we posted the same thing at the same time!

i feel like this is more because y'all just don't want Cane back, and I mean go off. But I think it's better that they are putting Lily w/ someone her age rather than a creepy old man. 

8 minutes ago, dio said:

i feel like this is more because y'all just don't want Cane back, and I mean go off. But I think it's better that they are putting Lily w/ someone her age rather than a creepy old man. 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I myself don't want Cane back at all, ever!
I agree that it's better to put Lily with someone her own age. 
I think they should have brought Billy Flynn in as someone other than Cane.

5 hours ago, Liberty City said:

 

Christel Khalil on Lily and the casting of Billy Flynn as Cane
https://www.tvinsider.com/1198591/young-and-the-restless-billy-flynn-christel-khalil-reaction-cane-lily/  


Quoting a few tidbits:

“I feel like the story is very compelling, and I think if fans can look at it with a new lens, they’ll really like it,” Khalil says. “I think the good thing that Josh has done is he’s completely changed the character of Cane.”

“It doesn’t feel like we’re trying to have someone step in Daniel Goddard‘s [ex-Cane] shoes,” she continues. “It’s pretty much an entirely new character, so it’s been interesting to have scenes because we have the history there, but it’s a little bit different. They’ve also added in flashbacks that Lily has of interactions that she and Cane have had in the past, five or six years [since he’s been gone]. So, it’s almost a little bit of a new relationship again, in a way.”

“Even before Lily finds out Dumas is Cane, the main concern she has is that Dumas is coming after her company,” Khalil explains. “So, when she finds out it is Cane, I think that fear is still there . . .”

What Lily is not looking for is to jump back into a relationship with him. “As of right now, no, absolutely not,” Khalil states. “She’s very disturbed by his behavior and how much he’s lied and kept secret and what he’s hidden from the kids and what he’s hidden from her, and the fact that she finds out he was working with his dad, Colin [Atkinson, Tristan Rogers], who is a very bad person. So right now, it’s very much like, ‘I want nothing to do with you. We’re never getting back together, especially after all of this. It’s never happening.’”

As this new chapter unfolds, Khalil urges fans to keep an open mind about the new “Lane” dynamic. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to be the same Cane,” she says. “It’s a completely different person, and I really hope that everybody gives Billy a chance and tries to look at the character through new eyes, because it is a new person, and honestly, it’s a new character.  He’s nothing like Daniel Goddard, and that’s kind of the point. The point was to make this character something completely different. And so hopefully people give it a chance and look at it like a new relationship rather than like an old one coming back.”

Well tbf, Lily WAS in the process of being with someone her age, namely Damian. 

 

That said, Cane coming back will only regress her. So no I don't at all want him back. 

Didn't Cane have some kind of evil lookalike? Was that part of the evil cattle ranchers story?

I almost want them to revive that just to see what the hell Flynn could even do with it.

He did.