Liam Spencer was supposed to die on The Bold and the Beautiful in 2025, after succumbing to a brain tumor. But a story shift kept him on the soap, and now Scott Clifton is in the running as Outstanding Lead Performer in a Drama Series: Actor at the Daytime Emmys.
“I thought it was my swan song and really believed that Liam was going to be dying,” Clifton relays. “There’s an extra piece of irony behind the scenes in that it was supposed to be the unluckiest year of my career, and it ended up being the luckiest.”
The unexpected turn gave this year’s nomination even greater meaning. “I think this nomination means more to me than any other one,” he reflects. “That storyline was such a gift. Most actors will go their entire lives and never get material like that, and I’m so grateful for it. That storyline went on for months, and there was a lot to choose from. I’ve submitted performances that I thought were my best performance I ever gave and didn’t even get nominated. I’ve been nominated for performances where I was really, really proud of because I loved the story and I loved the dialogue that I was given.
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He continues, “But this one means the most to me, not because of what you see on camera, but because of everything that was going on in my life behind the scenes. It’s like this perfect little encapsulation of this really special, really hard but really beautiful moment in my life, and to have my friends and colleagues and peers recognize me for that, I already kind of won it.”
Clifton was out running errands when he got a call from the show’s executive producer and head writer, Bradley Bell. “I thought, ‘OK, this is either really good news or really bad news,’” Clifton says. “But he just jumped in and said, ‘Has anybody told you yet? Because I wanted to be the first to tell you.’ And I said, ‘Tell me what?’ And he said, ‘Congratulations on your nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor,’ and it was just a really cool moment. It there was anybody to hear it from, he’s the best, and he was so enthusiastic and kind, and he said wonderful things.”
The pair also talked about the renewed attention daytime dramas have been receiving. “Some of that conversation was about how there’s something in the air right now,” Clifton adds. “There’s an enlightenment period happening culturally that is recognizing soaps. You’ve got A-list movie stars talking about how much they respect soaps and how much they learned from soaps, and you’ve got Ryan Gosling wanting to meet Deidre Hall [Marlena Evans, Days of our Lives]. Soaps have this reputation where it’s kind of cheesy, but it’s really not true. The more people have learned about them recently, they’re seeing that we pull off a miracle every day, and I think people are becoming interested in tuning in just to see the magic trick. So, it was a very cool conversation, and I waited until I got home to relay the news to my partner [Elle Anderson], and my son [Ford, 10].”
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Sharing the news with his family became another memorable moment. “Elle was over the moon,” he recalls. “I know this gets used way too much, but she’s my biggest fan, and she’s not even rational about it. She’s got terrible taste in actors [laughs]. But she was squealing and so happy and excited. And then Ford came out of his room, and she kind of led the charge, and said, ‘Hey, guess what? Your dad’s nominated for an Emmy.’ And he sat and watched with me when I was doing some of my own Emmy judging, and he was curious about what my criteria was for who deserves a nomination, and he said, ‘Do you think you’re gonna get nominated?’ And I said, ‘You never know. There are so many variables.’ So, when Elle said I was nominated, he punched the air and goes, ‘Yes!’ then walked back into his room. It couldn’t have been a more perfect reaction. It made me smile.”
This marks Clifton’s 11th nomination over the course of his career, which includes runs on General Hospital as Dillon Quartermaine (2003-2007) and One Life to Live as Schuyler Joplin (2009-2010). All three of his Daytime Emmy wins have come for playing Liam. He first won in the Younger Actor category in 2011, followed by Outstanding Supporting Actor in 2013 and Outstanding Lead Actor in 2017. He also holds the distinction of being the first male actor in Daytime Emmy history to win in all three acting categories.
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“Eleven nominations seems like a lot,” he muses. “I don’t know what to do with that. That’s really cool.”
His memories of his first nomination, in 2004, however, are still vivid. “It’s very hard for me to have memories of that without both laughing and crying,” he confesses. “Being both amused and simultaneously mortified, because I had gotten nominated and my whole family threw me an Emmy party, just for getting nominated. They invited everyone that we knew. There were people that I didn’t know that showed up to this party, and they brought out a cake with my face on it. Looking back, it was so self-congratulatory and pretentious, and the thought of throwing a party because you’re nominated seems so silly. But it was a really, really big deal back then.”
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More than two decades later, Clifton has a different perspective. “Paradoxically, they mean more to me now, too,” he observes. “When I was younger, I thought it was proof that I was a good actor. There’s so much more to it, but what it means now is that I’m a part of this community of colleagues and peers, and those people are saying, ‘Hey, you did a good job,’ and that means so much more to me. It’s my people, it’s my tribe, and we’re all in the trenches together. To celebrate each other like that is just so much more profound.”
With this year’s ceremony taking place on October 30 — the day before his birthday — Clifton admits he’s approaching the evening with mixed emotions.
“It’s funny, Emmy night itself is the one thing that I dread,” he admits. “It’s not faux humility — I actually have crippling anxiety about Emmy night. Everything up until then is so wonderful and fun, but the way I think about Emmy night now is, it’s a chance to get the band back together, as it were. I see it now as an opportunity to reconnect with people I used to work with, people I hope to work with, people I still work with, people I work with but don’t get to see that often, like writers, and it’s just a community party. So what I’m looking forward to is seeing friends, old and new.”
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