Judith Chapman Opens up About Playing Greg Rikaart’s Mom on Two Soaps! (EXCLUSIVE)

Fans of THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS have enjoyed watching Judith Chapman portraying Gloria Bardwell for years, and DAYS OF OUR LIVES viewers got a taste of her talent when she had a brief stint as Diana Colville in 2019. But interestingly, both soaps had her sharing the screen with Greg Rikaart as her on-screen son! “They asked me to come back and do a few shows,” Chapman told Soaps In Depth of her appearances. “I went back and forth and everybody was fine with it.”

After asking if it was okay if she told Rikaart that she had been cast on DAYS where he was playing Leo Stark at the time, she was given the OK and happily called the actor who plays her Y&R son, Kevin! “I said, ‘Greg! It’s Mommy!’” she recalled with a laugh. “We both started screaming like a couple of teenage girls. Like, I can’t believe this is happening!”

Chapman had been on DAYS before back in 1989-90 when she played Anjelica Deveraux, but that character had been recast and killed off. “So I came back as Diana,” the actress said. “But it was so funny working with Drake Hogestyn (John). Haven’t seen him in years! I was like, ‘I don’t remember this story.’ And he would just go into this monologue explaining all the backstory for Diana and this character. And I was just thinking, ‘Drake, how do you remember all these things?!’ He was a big help filling me in on 20 years of backstory. But that’s what happens when you’re learning the part.”

Of course, viewers who watched the actors on both Y&R and DAYS noticed a drastic difference in the mother/son relationship on each soap. “As Greg described it, it’s Kevin and Gloria on steroids,” Chapman joked. “So it was really more sinister, more evil. It lacked the family affection [of Y&R’s Gloria and Kevin]. But Greg and I had a good time. And when Diana’s in jail and he jumps across the table to throttle her, I said, ‘Yeah, go for it!’ Yeah, finally, you’ve had this repressed anger for all your life. Kill her!”

Thankfully, the actors get along much better than their DAYS alter egos! “It was wonderful,” Chapman declared of working with Rikaart as different characters. “It’s wonderful to work with actors you love and who are good and just be able to stretch those muscles in a different way. It was great fun.”