Y&R’s Michelle Stafford Reacts to Her Daytime Emmy Nomination (EXCLUSIVE)

Even with 12 nominations and 2 wins under her belt, THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS star Michelle Stafford (Phyllis) is still thrilled to be nominated again this year in the Lead Actress category at the 2024 Daytime Emmy Awards! 

“It really is kind of new because last year, I think I hadn’t received a nomination in, I think it was over 10 years,” the actress confided to Soaps In Depth. “So to get one last year and this year is… yeah, it’s new. You never expect them, ever. And it sounds so trite — and I don’t even mean it tritely — but I am so honored. Not everybody gets this, and I’m well aware of that. Shoot, not everybody is working!”

To earn this 13th Daytime Emmy nod, Stafford had lots of juicy material to choose from. “I submitted the whole Phyllis spinning out and the culmination of her spinning out,” she revealed. “And then there was a very, very long, lengthy scene that she had with a judge to exonerate her. And I took something from that where she was describing killing James Hyde — not James Hyde, Jeremy Stark! James Hyde is very much alive! And did not submit himself, and I’m so mad at him.”

According to Stafford, the real trick to assembling a Daytime Emmy reel isn’t scouring the past year’s episodes for the right moments. “When I’ve done a scene, I know the ones that felt good, right?” she explained. “So I look back at those and see if there’s anything. The daunting task, quite honestly, is cutting, because I just feel like super-long tapes can be a killer.

“So it’s just cutting,” the Y&R star continued. “And you have to be really honest with yourself. Because sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh, I like that moment. I like that moment.’ But yeah, you have to be a good editor, I think, nowadays because it’s different. It used to just be you submit two shows in their entirety and now you submit a compilation.”

Adding to the thrill of being nominated this year is being up alongside her BFF, Finola Hughes (Anna, GENERAL HOSPITAL) for the second year in a row. “I know! It’s so great! I was doing something with my kids and I came back to my phone with all these texts, these lovely, lovely people I work with and I came back to hers and she said, ‘It’s a twofer!’” It’s so exciting.”