While rival US soaps such as Days of Our Lives and General Hospital currently have ongoing gay storylines, the top-rated The Young and the Restless remains quite heterosexual.Out actor Greg Rikaart, who has played Kevin Fisher on the show for the past decade, thinks it would be interesting if an established character - such as his - were to come out.
'Frankly, I think it’s far more interesting to do that with a character that the fans already know than to bring on a gay character that no one knows of,' he told michaelfairmansoaps.com this week.
'The fans view the characters like family. So if there is a family member that suddenly revealed something about themselves that no one knew about before, it mirrors what happens in real life.'
'I think the powerfulness of that message to the audience would be way more profound than just introducing a new character that just happens to be gay. The audience would go on the same journey that a family member would go on.'
Rikaart's character is currently single on the show. Having Kevin turn out to be gay or bisexual is not something that has been talked about among the writers as far as he knows.
'If it’s not a story they want to tell, then they are not going to tell it. I don’t think it’s the only avenue that Kevin could go down, but it certainly would be interesting … in my opinion.'
As for Rikaart, he was one the show for nine years before coming out publicly a year ago on Twitter. Last month, he received the Visibility Award from The Human Rights Campaign.
The actor believes making the character gay or bisexual could provide more drama for the show because you could portray 'different points of view from people in Kevin’s life.'
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