ARTICLE: ‘Beyond the Gates’ EP Sheila Ducksworth Explains How Important It Was For Show’s Characters To Be Familiar To Audience

EXCLUSIVE: On Tuesday, July 22, the third episode of the “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart” podcast drops and features an interview with “Beyond the Gates” executive producer Sheila Ducksworth.

In an exclusive clip, Ducksworth responds to a question brought by Rebecca Budig (Taylor Hayes, “The Bold and the Beautiful”), wherein she asks how being a fan informs decisions on the direction the daytime drama takes, including its characters and how they represent today’s viewers, specifically people of color.

“All those things are really important because they’re really real, they’re true, and they were part of my world, and I wanted to not only tell something that was familiar to me, but I think familiar to a lot of people,” said Ducksworth in response. “For people which it’s not familiar, for them to get familiar with it so that they can have some understanding of just different cultures and different perspectives. That’s the beauty of this.”

“I was starting to say it’s people who might live behind the gates and not, age and gender, and all kinds of things,” continued Ducksworth. “We wanted to really kind of have a platform for all kinds of stories so that it was just, everyone felt like, or we’re hoping anyway, that people would feel like, ‘Oh, this reminds me of me or this reminds me of my aunt,’ or whatever the case may be.”

“In a really, really broad sense, and that’s what I mean when I say just the universality of these themes that we’re actually mining for the show. We want people to actually look at this and see themselves. So, I feel like because so many different kinds of people, I think, comment on the show and comment to me personally, who are from all walks of life. I feel like we’ve really done a great job with that. That makes me feel really good.”

Watch our exclusive look at Sheila Ducksworth on “Soapy” below.

In a separate clip released ahead of tomorrow’s full episode, Ducksworth expands on her statements, saying, “We’ve had some pretty big juicy stories, and that’s the great thing, too, about the show, is that we’ve wanted it to feel really accessible to everybody.” She added, “There’s some specificity, obviously, to the show. But what we’re really dealing in and dwelling in is universality. We’re dealing with people who live inside the gates as well as people who live outside the gates. We have our matriarch and our patriarch, with Tamara Tunie [Anita Dupree] and with Clifton Davis [Vernon Dupree], and we are so fortunate.”

“We were so specific about what we wanted and we’re fortunate enough to find the people that we found to populate this world, no small task to Kim Coleman, who is our casting director, and obviously, a lot of participation ultimately from CBS and CBS Studios, Claudia Lyon [EVP, Talent and Casting] and Dana Pine [VP, Casting] and everybody there,” Ducksworth continued. “It’s been a real kind of like everybody, you know, kind of roll up their sleeves and wrap their arms around, what is this cast going to look like and what’s the feel of it going to be. But we are very fortunate to get Tamara Tunie as well as Clifton Davis. I mean, just legends. And they lead this family like nobody else could as the matriarch and the patriarch.”

Hosted by Rebecca Budig (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) and Greg Rikaart (“Days of our Lives”), “Soapy” is a new audio and video podcast that dives deep into the legacy, fandom, and enduring appeal of soap operas. Available on Audacy or wherever podcasts are found, full video episodes are released every Tuesday through September 30 on the CBS brand YouTube channel.

The podcast premiered on Tuesday, July 8, with an episode featuring guest Eric Braeden (Victor Newman, “The Young and the Restless”). The second episode, released on July 15, features an interview with Deidre Hall (Marlena Evans, “Days of our Lives”).

The fourth episode airs on Tuesday, July 29, and will feature an interview with Lauralee Bell (Christine Blair, “The Young and the Restless”).

“We decided, since we knew each other so well, that we should interview all the people that we know, and people that we don’t know, in this genre,” said Budig in the first-ever episode of “Soapy,” explaining why she and Rikaart decided to do the podcast. Chiming in, Rikaart noted, the podcast was also a way to “celebrate our genre, coming from a place of love and reverence, and respect, for the incredibly challenging, hard and fun work that we get to do in daytime soaps.”

Additional episodes will include interviews with Maurice Benard (Sonny Corinthos, “General Hospital”), Tracey Bregman (Lauren Fenmore, “The Young and the Restless”), Marc Cherry (Creator, “Desperate Housewives”), Scott Clifton (Liam Spencer, “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Eva LaRue (Natalia Ramirez, “General Hospital”), Christian LeBlanc (Michael Baldwin, “The Young and the Restless”), Cameron Mathison (Drew Cain, “General Hospital”), Karla Mosley (Dani Dupree, “Beyond the Gates”), Lawrence Saint-Victor (Carter Walton, “The Bold and the Beautiful”), Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki Newman, “The Young and the Restless”), Heather Tom (Katie Logan, “The Bold and the Beautiful”) and Tamara Tunie.

Produced by the Paramount Multiplatform Production Group, “Soapy Hosted by Rebecca Budig and Greg Rikaart” is executive produced by Mike Benson. Andrew Pemberton-Fowler serves as producer.

Note: The post ‘Beyond the Gates’ EP Sheila Ducksworth Explains How Important It Was For Show’s Characters To Be Familiar To Audience appeared first on the Soap Opera Network website.

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