Scott Clifton and Annika Noelle Open up About B&B’s Emotional Baby Swap Story (EXCLUSIVE)

Noelle: “I had a long talk with some of the vets — Katherine [Kelly Lang, Brooke], John [McCook, Eric], Heather [Tom, Katie] — because this all is still new to me, having to sustain a storyline like this for so long. They had some really great advice, and I’m just grateful they were as understanding and supportive as they were. It was an acting marathon, and I couldn’t have done it without everyone.”

Noelle: “I was so happy that they allowed Hope to be really angry and to actually show that side of her. She had the right to be angry. It was like a volcano, and the moment with Katrina [Bowden, Flo] was so wonderful and so organic. I’m over the moon that they allowed her to have that moment, to get to be angry about this horrible atrocity that happened to her and her family.”

Noelle: “Anyone who knows me knows that I would have given Thomas a swift kick! So it was difficult to film these scenes [where Thomas is trying to seduce Hope], because it’s very far from who I am as a person. It was uncomfortable just reading those scenes on the page, but I will say, I have known many people in situations where they don’t necessarily see the red flags, so I got to explore that dynamic and bring it to life.”

Noelle: “Because they had a drone flying around us to catch all the different angles, we did a lot of takes. I remember looking at Scott and saying, ‘My face hurts! I can’t cry anymore!’”

Clifton: “But there was no audio, so by the 12th take, I was just saying really stupid things that wasn’t our actual dialogue but with the same facial expressions. At a certain point, Annika was like, ‘Scott, I know you’re losing it, but I kind of actually need you to do the real dialogue.’”

Clifton: “Matthew [Atkinson, Thomas] is a lot of fun on set. He’s very aware of the character he’s playing, so we joke about it all the time.”

Noelle: “I really made it a point to spend time with the babies who played Beth whenever I had downtime, so they were familiar with me and I could learn their individual likes and dislikes. For example, one likes to have you blow puffs of air on her nose, and the other one likes when you touch her legs. But really, working with the babies was just a wake-up call that I need to work on my bicep curls a little more, because my arm strength eventually gave out holding them!”

Noelle: “For anyone that’s worried [about how harshly Thomas has treated Douglas], when Henry [Joseph Samiri, Douglas] sees Matt, he sprints and jumps into his arms. He knows that it’s all make-believe. They’re really cute together on the set.”

Clifton: “I think that’s super important to point out, because it’s uncomfortable for the audience to watch a child get spoken to so aggressively or abusively. But Matthew and Henry really love each other, and Matthew has been kind and paternal toward Henry from the beginning. So it’s all good!”

Clifton: “I don’t think Liam ever needs to — or will — find out that Thomas drugged his drink that night. What matters is that the audience knew. It was a little nerve-wracking [to play Liam impaired by drugs], but everyone was really nice about it when it aired, so I think it all worked out.”

Noelle: “I have to credit Scott, Matt and Jacqui [MacInnes Wood, Steffy] for helping me keep my sanity during this storyline. They were so unbelievably supportive, because they saw how much I was working and how many emotional scenes I had to do. On days when I was stressed out or an anxious mess, they were so great about making me laugh and taking me out of it.”

Clifton: “Michael Minnis, one of our writers, had been telling us for weeks, if not months, before [the culmination] that they really wanted this to end with an ‘Out of the mouths of babes’ sort of scene. They wanted it to be the children that kind of saved the day with the truth. Of course, Henry was great. He knew all his lines and was really present in the scene. It was all written pretty realistically, and it wasn’t a stretch to imagine how Liam would react to what Douglas was saying.”

Clifton: B&B outperformed its rivals the week of the big reveal. So “the ratings were validating because we’d spent so many months having people come up to us saying, ‘Is there going to be a light at the end of the tunnel?’ We’d always say, ‘I’m in the dark as much as you are, but have faith. Tune in, it will be worth it!’ When those ratings came out, it was like, ‘Oh, good! They believed us!’ It was rewarding for us to know that people really did care and wanted to see how it was going to end.”

Noelle: “I was just grateful because everybody on the show put so much hard work into it, and it was a pretty draining storyline, and a lot of emotional work for a lot of people. So I’m glad the fans stuck with us and were there for the big payoff!”