B&B’s Jennifer Gareis on Her First Emmy Nomination (EXCLUSIVE)
After 27 years in the daytime industry, Jennifer Gareis has finally received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination this year in the Supporting Actress category for her work as Donna on The Bold & The Beautiful! “Sorry, I’m still trying to get used to ‘Emmy nominee,’ she admitted to Soaps In Depth when we chatted with her about the accolade. “I love the way that sounds.”
The moment when she learned that she had received an Emmy nomination is one that Gareis will never forget and can barely put into words. “Just pure pleasure,” she exclaimed. “Pleasure, shock. Shock and then pleasure. I mean, I know it was really good material. The writing was amazing. It’s just so heartfelt. But I didn’t know that I’d get a nod like that. It was really exciting.”
After processing the big news, the first person she told was her parents. “They have always been such amazing supporters throughout the years,” Gareis explained. “They’ve been my cheerleaders my whole life with everything I’ve ever done, whether it be swimming or acting or modeling or whatever. So they were definitely the first ones. And then my husband, of course. I was so excited to tell my kids, too. I picked up my daughter for her fifth-grade camping trip. So she was very excited and throughout the weekend of camping, she’d just be like, ‘Mommy, I’m really proud of you.’”
The storyline of Eric’s brush with death led to such incredible material for much of the B&B cast, so when it came time to narrow down the scenes to assemble her Emmy reel, Gareis admitted she turned to publicist Eva Basler and supervising producer Casey Kasprzyk for advice. “Because for myself, it was an overwhelm of so many different episodes that were really honestly worthy of a nomination because of the writing,” she said. “So it was really difficult.”
Gareis kicked off her reel with the scene of Donna learning the news that Eric was dying and went from there. “The first scene was more of the processing type of thing,” she revealed. “And then the other scene was saying goodbye. Donna waited for Eric for more than a decade. So for her to wait so long and then fight for him and then get him and then lose him, it’s heart-wrenching.”
Now that she’s a nominee, Gareis’ plans for Emmy night have changed. “Before I knew when the Emmys were, I purchased a ticket to Paris on June 7, which happens to be the night of the Emmys,” she confided with a chuckle. “We have a family wedding in Paris, but I’m going to be missing that wedding. I called the mother of the groom and she was so sweet. She was like, ‘Are you kidding me? This is once in a lifetime. I have another son. Come to my other son’s wedding.’”
The actress is looking forward to celebrating daytime that evening, and especially the talented cast and crew of B&B, including herself. “I’m going to have my fingers, my toes crossed for a win,” Gareis confessed, “but even so, I’m so happy just to be nominated. This is my first nomination, so that’s huge. Huge for me.”
